Five reasons why Duncan Fletcher is not sacked
Duncan Fletcher
Among all those gloomy faces in the Indian dressing room, none will draw your sympathy more than that of a fat slightly chubby young sexagenarian. He is lying in one corner of the dressing room, his iPad in hand, looking absolutely distraught, almost on the verge of crying.
“His team lost again. He will be sacked now. It’s hard on him, you must understand. He’s been dedicated to his team – to the game – ever since he downloaded it. It’s sad,” said a cricketer who wished to remain anonymous but urged this reporter to chip in a hint or two in this column about his virtual knighthood.
This reporter was dragged out of the dressing room by furious security personnel as he wondered aloud why a national cricket coach must be playing video games when his mortal team is getting thrashed on foreign soil and he lies on the danger of losing his job.
Welcome to Team India dressing room – wait, you need to sneak out an entry pass from someone called Gurunath Meiyappan for this – and meet Duncan Fletcher, popularly believed as the Team India coach.
Don’t be fooled by the presence of nothing in his trophy cabinet (he says, he won a Champions’ Trophy but that’s gone for polishing), he has tremendous records to his name. Records that you can’t look up in cricket books, records that speak of his latent capabilities. None, in the history of the game, has remained in power at the back of 0-8 defeats and counting.
Credit goes to BCCI as well for showing confidence in Fletcher at a time when the whole country had called for his head. Never mind the hundreds of burnt effigies, Fletcher certainly has reasons that make him stand out in a pool of Mickey Arthurs and Greg Chappells.
5. I am speechless
From 2011 World Cup highs to 0-8 lows, the slope for India has been so steep that no wonder, it has left statisticians bemused and players speechless. But hey, not more than Fletcher, of course! Even MS Dhoni had admitted that he had been wordless regarding the decline, but Fletcher? As a purist (and a suspected robot), he preferred to exercise speechlessness in stead of saying so.
A couple of months back, Sachin Tendulkar had broken yet another record when he had Mr. Manmohan Singh thanking the former and speaking of his retirement. Fletcher, however, remained firm on his resolution to speak publicly only after India has qualified for the FIFA World Cup.
Such has been the existential resemblance between Raina’s nephew and Fletcher’s tongue, that pictures of him talking to Dhoni on a practice session had gone viral on printed media. Later, Dhoni clarified that Fletcher had only been yawning – noiselessly, of course.
4. I’m against DRS
What better way to get into Srinivasan’s good books than opposing the DRS? Well, Duncan Fletcher seems to have done exactly that. Accuracy, obviously, will be too hard on Ravindra Jadeja who’ll have no other option but to walk once he edges it and that is reason enough for BCCI to malign the Decision Review System. Of course, none can compromise with the preservation of Sir’s wicket.
It’s not distinctly known whether Fletcher has an opinion about DRS since no reporter has ever been able to buy a couple of words out of him, but considering his silence, it may well be presumed that his views are in perfect harmony with those of the Board. Now tell me, which sane Board President will axe such an agreeable coach?