Yehi hai Wright choice, maybe!

Faisal Shariff

The lobby of the Connemara Hotel in Chennai is, for the duration of the ongoing coaching camp, a kind of home away from home for us media types.

You get there first thing in the morning, and you head for the house phones, and call one player after another. One is sleeping, another is in his bath, a third will "see you in half an hour"...

Meanwhile, you sit in one of the plush lounging chairs, and you keep your eyes peeled for whatever you can see. And something I saw, day after day, brought a wry smile to my lips. The team bus pulls up at the entrance and what do you know, the entire team, no exceptions, is down in the lobby waiting to board.

Why does that bring a smile? Simply because I have been at similar camps earlier, and noticed how the players would straggle down to the lobby in twos and threes, while the stars would not even make an appearance. The bus would leave, and then there would be this mad scramble to find cars for the various superstars.

Not this time. Wright rules, okay! And he has ruled that all players should be in the lobby on time, and take the bus together. Miss the bus, and you don't get to take part in that day's practise.

Actually, coaches ranging from Madan Lal and Anshuman Gaekwad to Kapil Dev have, in the past, tried to lay down such laws -- only, the Indian stars have never taken them, and their edicts, seriously. For why?

Because none of the coaches have in the past shown the will to enforce their rules -- preferring, instead, to suck up to the stars and let them get away with murder.

John Geoffrey Wright seems to be a different kettle of fish, though. He means business, he doesn't give a hoot for reputations, and he has got his point across so firmly that now, the players, without exception, do not question his orders -- he says jump, they jump.

One incident was enough to indicate to the players just how hard a taskmaster he can be. On the day he landed in Chennai, Wright got in touch with Murali, the first-class umpire and TNCA official who has been appointed the liaison man for the team, and asked him to send faxes to all the probables, asking them to report to the hotel by the evening of the 6th.

After a while, Murali came back to Wright, to tell him that Sachin Tendulkar had some personal work to attend to, but he would report to the hotel by the morning of the 7th. "Tell him," said Wright, tersely, "that if he is not here on the 6th evening, he needn't bother to come for the camp."

Sachin arrived promptly on the 6th.

And the rest of the team got the message.

Get an interview out of him, my editor says. It would be easier to get him the moon, and all the stars -- John Wright ain't talking. "I'm not too comfortable with the media," he says.

You just look at him -- and then he comes up with his real reason. "Let me finish with the Aussies first," he says, a slight grin breaking the seriousness of his wrinkled face. "I'd rather talk after I have done something, than before."

And then he gets back to what he has been doing all through the Challenger Series -- meticulously taking notes, sometimes with paper and pencil, more often in his laptop. It is a non-stop, seemingly endless, process. And it makes you wonder -- just what are all those notes he is taking?

Check with the players, and they tell you that he seems to be noting it all. What strokes you played, what you didn't, where you missed out, where you maximised, how you got out...

And then he discusses it all with the player concerned. And before he does it, he first does his homework on the player concerned. Like this player who said he was surprised when "he (Wright) began rattling off my records against each country at top speed, I didn't even remember some of that stuff and had to check it out later, but he had it all down pat, what I scored, how I was dismissed and by whom, the works."

Another thing that rattles you about him is his ability to cut to the bone.Like the time I handed him printouts of the earlier diary I had done, titled 'Camp John'. He read it through, till he came to the part where I had talked of the player who thought Wright talked too much.

"So who is this guy, mate?", Wright asked me. And then, even before I could tell him I wouldn't tell him, he started building up the player's profile.

And at the end, named him. All in under a minute.

"Ain't I correct, mate?", he asks.

He was.

Maybe that is why he makes a good coach -- he knows his players, inside and out.

He also seems to believe in doing things his way, often under-cutting the selectors and BCCI honchos in the process. You remember, don't you, the fuss there was when Kapil Dev once, on his own, asked Ajit Agarkar to join the nets even though he wasn't a probable for that camp? And how Jaywant Lele threw a tantrum, insisted that Kapil had no business inviting players off his own bat, and even said it was okay with him, Lele, if Kapil resigned on the issue?

Neither Lele, nor anyone else, has let out a peep over the fact that Wright has been calling, for the camp, whoever he feels could be useful. Thus, the coach figured that Kumble, even with his arm in a sling, was the right person to work with the spinners -- so Kumble was called up. The coach decided that Sridharan Sriram would come in handy at some point -- so Sriram became a fixture at the camp. The coach decided that he wanted a good look at Sairaj Bahutule and Narendra Hirwani -- so the two of them find themselves in Chennai now, attending the camp.

Interestingly, on the day Bahutule and Hirwani got to Chennai, Wright rounded them up, summoned Sachin Tendulkar, and took them all to the MRF Camp, making the two bowl to Sachin. Was he trying to find out how good the bowlers were? Or give Sachin some more practise ahead of his upcoming tussles with Warne? Wright didn't elaborate -- but the point remains, he does what he thinks is right, and the Board, increasingly, goes along. Just as the player do.

You would expect the selectors to be a touch miffed. To feel that Wright is undercutting their authority to decide who should be listed among the probables, and who should not. But no -- the selectors, instead, seem to be quite liking the new regime. "He is good for the team," says one of them,referring to the coach. "It is about time the team had a coach who can get them together as a team, and kick their butts when they need it."

The players, for their part, initially figured Wright for a mild, soft-spoken sort. And then they heard him cut loose for the first time, using language that would make your average dock-worker proud -- and that illusion was shattered.

"There is never any doubt in your mind about what he feels," says one player, talking of the coach the team has begun referring to as the gypsy with the guitar. "If he is upset with you, you know all about it."

"John's strength lies in his unquestioned involvement with the team," says VVS Laxman. "He has been highly effective with us, we have video sessions,very fruitful discussions. If we can put into practise half of what he tells us, we could build ourselves into a highly successful unit."

Wright himself is non-committal about both his goals -- the short-term one being to push the team into performing well against the Aussies, the long-term one being to build up a consistent, hard-fighting unit.

"The focus is on one thing and that is to play and work together as a team," Wright says, "Whatever the background,whatever the differences -- such things should not matter. All that should matter is that we are a team, that we must work together, and work hard.

Most importantly, we must learn to do the basics really well. The focus should be on the fundamentals -- catching well, allocating specialised fielding positions to players, running well between wickets, picking up the ball early and releasing it quickly, putting pressure. In the bowling department, we need to focus on the right line and length, find the good line and stick to it. If we do these basics well, we will do well as a team. And beyond that, mate, I don't want to say anything -- let me finish with the Aussies first."