Harish Sharma, a veteran cricket coach with experience coaching players such as Yuvraj Singh, Dinesh Mongia, VRV Singh, and Siddharth Kaul, has lent his support to the new guidelines laid down by the BCCI for senior men’s cricket players aimed at enforcing discipline among squad members in the wake of two successive series defeats against New Zealand and Australia.
The restrictions on wives and girlfriends accompanying the players on tours will be part of the new policy, which prohibits players from doing personal endorsements or photo shoots during ongoing series or tours. Players would also be discouraged from leaving practice early. Players will also be obliged to participate in events and promotional activities arranged by BCCI.
“I think these restrictions could have been in place a long time ago. When one is traveling, he must stick to the task of winning on the field; distractions such as partying or family and photo shoots are not good,” Harish Sharma told IANS on Friday. “Doing anything away from the cricket field that affects concentration on your game is very bad,” he added.
Sharma further opined that family makes it difficult to maintain concentration and, therefore, should only be allowed on long tours. “If it’s a very long tour one suffers from homesickness and in that case one may allow wives and families but if the tour is a month and a half or so I don’t think you need the family on tour as the concentration of the player will shift towards them rather than the game.”
In accordance with BCCI rules regarding players, the partners or young children of players (under 18 years old) will be allowed one visit during a series. Only one per series, it will be for up to two weeks for those cases where the player remains absent from India for more than 45 days.
Shastri, coach-turned-commentator, had earlier said a lot about playing domestic cricket as “the important factor that would build the confidence in the stars.” The BCCI had reflected the same words on paper by saying, “The policy is there to keep the players busy and close to the domestic cricket ecosystem, further talent nurturing, match fitness, and improved domestic structure.”
“As of now, playing domestic cricket is the most important aspect. You can notice that Karun Nair is busy in the Vijay Hazare Trophy for now and scores 752 runs thus far (seven innings and five centuries). So whenever you play domestic cricket, you gain a lot of self-confidence, you get practice playing matches.”
Ah! And then there is meaning put into the term of discipline, which affects their performance of 100 percent. I didn’t even know that Gautam Gambhir was travelling with his manager for this tour with the team. I myself wonder about Anti-Corruption, where it went when they stopped taking newbies with their managers, which travel many places. I ask if that is applied in domestic cricket, why can’t it be applied in international cricket,” he ended
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