High farce as Sandeep Patil quits the race and Haynes enters the fray

The selection of who India's new coach will be is fast assuming farcical proportions as one of the four candidates, Sandeep Patil, announced his decision to pull out of the competition. Apparently he still has a commitment to coach the Oman cricket team.

So that leads me to wonder about whether he applied to the BCCI or whether the BCCI just randomly pulled his name out of a hat labelled "Indian coaches". If he applied, why did he do it? Perhaps just to test the waters & the job market, as we normally do while exploring alternative employment opportunities? If the BCCI picked his name, why did they do it? Merely to provide lip service to the anti-foreign coach brigade?

Now for the next shocker: Desmond Haynes has expressed interest! Where on earth did he pop in from? Apparently John Emburey and John Inverarity were also approached. As far as I remember, Inverarity replaced Wright as Kent's coach. He currently coaches Warwickshire.

Kiran More, in the news last year for allegedly taking money from Abhijit Kale to ensure his selection, feels that India will need a bowling coach and likes the idea of Srinath being given the job.

Harsha Bhogle wonders about how Ganguly is taking his exclusion from the squads announced for the Super Series. I was actually aghast at the headlines in a lot of TV channels, websites and newspapers screaming out "Ganguly left out of World squad" and "Ganguly out of World XI probables". This is the same chap, whose place in the Indian side has been questioned repeatedly over the last month or so. So if he is allegedly not good enough to have a permanent spot in the Indian team, how on earth do you question his exclusion from a World side?

Bhogle, being Bhogle, cannot end an article without a potshot. So he takes one at more India-Pakistan cricket series lined up for us (and other viewers) to have a great experience watching the rivalry again, again, again and again!

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