BOMBAY, 18 April 2003 — Jumping boundaries appears to be the most suitable panacea for coaching problems of several of the national cricket teams.

With the exception of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, who might now be on the verge of changing their minds, all the other countries have foreign coaches or are seeking one to fulfill their ambitions of raising the level of their international performances.

While India’s experiment with New Zealander John Wright, what with a stellar performance in the last World Cup, might have strengthened the desire of some of the countries to opt for someone other than their own home-bred coach. Whether it is a necessity or just a fashion, one does not know, but the vogue of having a foreign coaches is catching up.

Pakistan, with their experiment with South African Pybus twice having ended in a disaster, have for the third time fallen back on one of their most popular cricketers, Javed Miandad, to serve as a coach. But everyone connected with cricket, the players as well as the administrators, know that it is only a temporary arrangement .

Pybus was blamed when Pakistan lost the 1999 World Cup final to Australia in England. The coach of South African origin, in turn, blamed the team management, senior players and even officials at home, for the team’s anti-climactic display in the final. Pybus went to the extent of using obscene language against all of them.

This insulting aspect of the coach’s behavior was forgotten and two years later, he was once again appointed as main coach of the team. The ax again fell on him, as it did on several star players who had failed to deliver the goods. The new-look team, under Miandad’s tutelage has at least started off well, lending credence to the view that there is no paucity of cricketing talent in Pakistan.

The West Indies have sacked Roger Harper and are now after an Australian coach. This is the first time that the beleaguered team is seeking a foreign coach. Carl Hooper’s running egoistic battle with Brian Lara has further weakened the team, which, surprisingly failed to go beyond the league phase of the last World Cup.

Sri Lanka, having touched a new low, despite their qualification for the semifinal of the World Cup, has made them finally get rid of their Australian coach Dave Whatmore. They are hinting for another foreign player to replace the man who helped them to win the 1996 World Cup, beating his native Australia in the final. Looking at India’s success, they have their eyes set on a New Zealander to help them out.

Despite their sensational run of displays in the World Cup, the Kenyan team do not want to continue with their Indian coach Sandeep Patil. It is not that the Kenyans are ungrateful to the former dashing Indian Test players, who has had a long association with their cricket, but somehow things haven’t quite worked out between the two. Kenya did salute Patil, however, for helping them to reach the semifinal of the World Cup, where Patil’s own Indian team beat them.

Bangladesh, who have had a dismal record so far, since their acquisition of Test status, have tried far too many coaches in the last three years. West Indian Gordon Greenidge, India’s Mohinder Amarnath and two from Pakistan did their very best to raise the overall standard of the team but to no avail. They have now, in a surprise move, asked the International Cricket Council to provide them with a good foreign coach.

Probably the strangest case is that of England, who had, two years ago, decided to go for an “outsider.” Their current coach may have played County cricket in England, but Duncan Fletcher belongs to Zimbabwe.

England have indeed gone a step further. They have opened their National Cricket Academy in Australia, Melbourne to be specific. For a country that has more and better-appointed cricket grounds that any other cricket-playing nation, is forced to have its academy outside the country and that too far off Australia. The reason for is that the academy can go on with its activity all the year round.

The winter months in England are just impossible for cricket. One must, however, say that the Oval in London has one of the finest indoor cricket schools in the world. The Surrey Indoor has seven hard-surface pitches, with varying bounce and a hall that is almost as big as a cricket ground.

Is it pure professionalism that is the reasoning behind these teams’ preference for a foreign coach to one of their own from amongst the former players.

Outstanding players do not necessarily make successful coaches. Pakistan’s legendary all-rounder Imran Khan, who was offered the job on numerous occasions, has admitted that coaching is not his cup of tea. Several other outstanding players like Sir Garfield Sobers, who coached Kenya, Sri Lanka and then Bangladesh, proved a poor coach for his own West Indies team. Worse fate attended the celebrated Sir Vivian Richards, whose stint as the West Indies coach lasted only a few months. He appears to be more comfortable serving as a selector.

Kapil Dev too had a short stint as the Indian team’s coach. He went on record saying that he would never again accept that assignment again.