In hockey, we are re-learning the game from those whom we had once taught to play. Indian cricket has so much money today that it hires not just one but a whole pack of foreign personnel to take care of every aspect of the game. Not for nothing is the coach of the Indian cricket team is amongst the highest paid jobs in the sporting world.

So far, we have had just one suitable man for the job in Gary Kirsten, who was successful because he had no hang-ups and thought and acted the Indian way. His unobtrusive nature went down famously with our players, both established stars and emerging talent.

Otherwise, our experiment with foreign cricket coaches has hovered between the make-do to the horrific. The problem with our cricket administration earlier was that it did not first turn inwards to look for just the right man for the job. Whenever we appointed our own, it was as a half-measure. It has always been on piecemeal basis, tour by tour and they were treated merely as team managers than professional coaches.

It was the late Raj Singh Dungarpur who imported the idea of foreign coaches, starting with Bob Simpson followed by John Wright. A line of least resistance, which they toed, kept them in office. Then came Greg Chappell, an experiment that fell flat on its face. Greg Chappell, a fabulous cricketer in his time, and a strict disciplinarian, just could not marry his tenacious "Come-on the Aussie" spirit with the prevailing culture of our pampered cricketers.

The Indian team was lucky to get Gary Kirsten but one is not sure it will again be so with the present appointment of Duncan Fletcher His only achievement, according to those who opted for him, was that he lifted the England team from the shoe-straps to an Ashes victory over Australia. But what did he do thereafter?

Fletcher was South Africa's batting coach in the recent World Cup. The formidable Proteas batting line-up let them down and they made an inglorious quarterfinal exit, going down to New Zealand.

The former Zimbabwe captain had coached England for eight years, the longest tenure for any mentor. The same English players are now ridiculing him. One of them said, "They (Indians) are made of different stuff and he will be a big flop." That remark may be a part of the mind-games that have already begun, as India's tour of England will be Fletcher's first assignment in his new job.

Indian cricket has everything going for it at the moment, the World Cup in its grasp, the No. 1 in Test ranking and an abundance of such exceptional all-round talent. They come from a vast hinterland these days. It was time as good as any to have tried one of our own as the team coach.

All things considered, someone like Mohinder Amarnath would have been worth a try. If Sunil Gavaskar recommends him, it is because he has played a lot of cricket with the man who was one of his most reliable teammates. The soft-spoken and well-mannered Jimmy Amarnath would have been the best person to have, bereft of any likely clash of egos with such a popular bunch of prolific achievers.

Even now, it is not too late to create an important slot for him in the hierarchy of the support staff to enable him to eventually take over as coach, if the man called Duncan Fletcher does not deliver.