Good article by Manju on India's attitude towards fitness

[Ultimate_Game]

People here talking about coach being a fit guy himself don't have a clue what they are talking about....I am not trying to support Fletcher here but look at Joe Paterno the Penn State Coach....One of the best College Football coaches of all time and he was 80 +till he got fired due to a Scandal that was no fault of his own. Coach has to be someone who formulates the Strategy to be implemented where as the captain is someone who has to succesfully implement that... Back to the point The whole system is ****up....how does half-fit players pass the fitness test is beyond me.... Fitness and athletic ability are two different things....This is where we have to look at other team sports....You cannot expect Jadeja to replace Sehwag just because he is more athletic....Depending on your specialist fielding positions,your role in the team-batsman/bowler etc you should have different fitness regimen.Obviously there should be some set standard for basic fitness regimen but looks like we often confuse the 2

Nobody is saying Fletcher's a bad coach just coz of his fitness. As I pointed out in one of my earlier posts it's the fitness trainers, physio and medical staff's job to do so backed up by the board. However coach can help inculcate the merits of fitness just like Andy Flower did by refusing to select Samit Patel until he showed some improvement. However the fault still lies with the board and the physios/medical staff that are on the board's payroll. How a clearly unfit Sehwag was sent to England still boggles my mind. They guy wasn't fit enough to play a local league match and he was sent to play Eng in Tests without ANY practice of any kind :omg: By the way bout Paterno, it was the guy's fault and he deserved to be kicked out. In fact he deserved to be indicted for what he did, or rather lack of. His defensive co-ordinator was caught in a shower with a young kid and he was informed about it and he simply chose to ignore it when he was in such an influential position at Penn State. He simply paid lip service to the whole issue and simply filed a very sanitized version of what actually transpired and let everything slide. In fact he didn't even fire his defensive co-ordinator which was the least he should have done !!! I ask you this - if someone comes in and complains to you that one of your subordinates was seen physically abusing a 10 year old kid in a shower and provides credible evidence, what would you do? Would you simply pass on the buck further up by filing a report "Person X should not be overseeing children" and then go on with your life without even firing the guy's @$$ off? This is exactly what Paterno did and which signifies lack of leadership, lack of accountability and lack of personal responsibility.

[maniac]

Nobody is saying Fletcher's a bad coach just coz of his fitness. As I pointed out in one of my earlier posts it's the fitness trainers, physio and medical staff's job to do so backed up by the board. However coach can help inculcate the merits of fitness just like Andy Flower did by refusing to select Samit Patel until he showed some improvement. However the fault still lies with the board and the physios/medical staff that are on the board's payroll. How a clearly unfit Sehwag was sent to England still boggles my mind. They guy wasn't fit enough to play a local league match and he was sent to play Eng in Tests without ANY practice of any kind :omg: By the way bout Paterno, it was the guy's fault and he deserved to be kicked out. In fact he deserved to be indicted for what he did, or rather lack of. His defensive co-ordinator was caught in a shower with a young kid and he was informed about it and he simply chose to ignore it when he was in such an influential position at Penn State. He simply paid lip service to the whole issue and simply filed a very sanitized version of what actually transpired and let everything slide. In fact he didn't even fire his defensive co-ordinator which was the least he should have done !!! I ask you this - if someone comes in and complains to you that one of your subordinates was seen physically abusing a 10 year old kid in a shower and provides credible evidence, what would you do? Would you simply pass on the buck further up by filing a report "Person X should not be overseeing children" and then go on with your life without even firing the guy's @$$ off? This is exactly what Paterno did and which signifies lack of leadership, lack of accountability and lack of personal responsibility.

Absolutely Agree but still it was he who bore the main brunt of the punishment where as the management who swept the issue under the carpet for however sanitized his version of the report was got away scott-free atleast from what we hear from the media Though at a different level,isn't it the medical team that represent BCCI that give a fitness certificate to a certain player....I don't think the coach and the physio have anything to do with it,they just have to do the best with what we have. Also I am not defending Fletcher here as no matter how pathetic some of the selections were the on-field strategies reflect that he brings nothing to the plate and here is where i have been critical of Kirsten as his stint did not do anything for the future of Indian Cricket....This is where the Wright-Ganguly Combo is rated very highly or even Chappell who I think was a much better Coach than Fletcher Kirsten had some great ideas but his methods did not augur well. Going back to the actual point,The reason I brought up Joe Paterno in the first place is that the Coach doesn't have to lead the way in terms of being a physical specimen as it was being mentioned earlier to do well...All he needs is a plan and a method to succesfully implement it.

[maniac]

One thing the coaching staff can do is put up the players' numbers public (periodically). E.g. 100 mt. sprint' date=' 1 mile run, weight, etc. That might shame them into doing something.[/quote'] Well it would only work well with our guys if they also put up a menu of goodies and treats that they will get at the end of the workout

[akshayxyz]

Guus Hiddink is a top coach, esp internationally so it does not matter if he cannot run 20 miles a day. Plus he is 65. The coach does not need to be fit though, he just needs to know his stuff. And be able to drill fitness into his players- that Hiddink could definitely do

Exactly. And he has produced almost-miraculous rise of not-so-good teams - in football!! For a coach, being physically fit is good-to-have thing, not must-have. In case of Fletcher, there seem to be host of other problems than just his girth.

[Lurker]

Guus Hiddink is a top coach' date= esp internationally so it does not matter if he cannot run 20 miles a day. Plus he is 65. The coach does not need to be fit though, he just needs to know his stuff. And be able to drill fitness into his players- that Hiddink could definitely do

I am not sure why we invoke foreign coaches in sports that are very different to cricket?? Sooda the key difference between Hiddink's team and Team India is NOT that the age or fitness, it is the fact that generally speaking football teams are very fit and very professional. They look at the coach as their Guru and someone who calls the shots and is ultimately responsible for the results. Team India is different. It is a team filled with prima donnas who glow in love, adulation, money from fans. They do NOT accept the coach as someone who holds their destiny in hand (hint - Greg Chappell), and by themselves would never do anything to keep fit or to work their butt off. Guys like John Wright and Kirsten succeeded not only because of their strategies but also because they had the ability to manage guys, work with them as being in the background, could do catching practice etc. Can you imagine a coach like Guus H. standing on the sidelines, barking orders at Sachin and Sehwag and the two lapping everything up??? xxx

[Sooda]

^ True. India does not have the professionalism. I think Joe Dawes would be good from that point of view, does not seem to be the kind of guy who will tolerate much laziness. Even if he has no international credentials. As you say youd think younger guys like Ashwin would be more willing to take on orders from a coach...that Prima donna attitude could not effect them surely, having done frack all in cricket relatively speaking...

[Ultimate_Game]

Absolutely Agree but still it was he who bore the main brunt of the punishment where as the management who swept the issue under the carpet for however sanitized his version of the report was got away scott-free atleast from what we hear from the media Though at a different level,isn't it the medical team that represent BCCI that give a fitness certificate to a certain player....I don't think the coach and the physio have anything to do with it,they just have to do the best with what we have. Also I am not defending Fletcher here as no matter how pathetic some of the selections were the on-field strategies reflect that he brings nothing to the plate and here is where i have been critical of Kirsten as his stint did not do anything for the future of Indian Cricket....This is where the Wright-Ganguly Combo is rated very highly or even Chappell who I think was a much better Coach than Fletcher Kirsten had some great ideas but his methods did not augur well. Going back to the actual point,The reason I brought up Joe Paterno in the first place is that the Coach doesn't have to lead the way in terms of being a physical specimen as it was being mentioned earlier to do well...All he needs is a plan and a method to succesfully implement it.

Nope, Paterno was the most culpable of the lapse as the report was a very sanitized version of what actually happened and in any case Paterno was overseeing the football program with guily party (Sandusky) his direct subordinate. Paterno was actually much more powerful than the management in this case and I doubt anyone could have kicked him out even if he turned 100 barring the scandal. He deserves every criticism that comes his way. He took the easier way out and chose to be an ostrich even though things were happening under his nose. Back to cricket, agreed coach should not be in the greatest shape and should not even be responsible for the players' fitness but he sure can help inculcate the culture of importance of fitness by selecting players who are actually fit just like what Flower did to Samit Patel asking Patel to show some improvement. Wright-Ganguly were the best tandem we ever had and mostly coz of Ganguly as Ganguly wasn't shy about stepping on people's toes.