Kohli may be responsible for Kumble’s exit, but Tendulkar, Ganguly and Laxman are as much to blame

The root of Indian cricket’s current soap opera between Virat Kohli and Anil Kumble goes back to a time when the Indian leg-spinner wasn’t even in the picture.

In May 2016, the Board of Control for Cricket in India invited applications for the post of India’s head coach, replacing Ravi Shastri who was the team director of the side for the previous few months. One of the major conditions laid down by the BCCI was that the applicant needed to have international or first-class coaching experience.

Anil Kumble was among the 57 original applicants for the job. Now, here’s where it got more interesting: the former Indian captain was among the 21 shortlisted candidates, despite not fulfilling that major criteria of having international or first-class coaching experience. And this happened mainly on the insistence of BCCI’s powerful Cricket Advisory Committee comprising former legends Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman.

Bending the rules

Kumble’s subsequent selection as the next head coach was overshadowed by a major spat between Sourav Ganguly and Ravi Shastri, with both aiming verbal ripostes at each other. Kumble’s appointment was generally welcomed by all concerned and the issues surrounding his appointment quickly forgotten as India went on a fantastic run in the home season.

Yet, here’s an important question. The BCCI had laid down a process for selecting their next coach. The Cricket Advisory Committee threw that process out the window when they went for Kumble. What example were they setting when they did that? Were they saying that due process and rules didn’t matter? And once they knew that, weren’t they laying down a marker that when it came to Indian cricket’s big guns, the rules didn’t matter? A marker which Ramachandra Guha alluded to in his resignation letter from the BCCI’s Committee of Administrators and one that has been picked up by Kohli now?

It’s an open secret that Kohli and the rest of the Indian team got along famously with their previous team director, Shastri. It’s also an open secret that the Cricket Advisory Committee was firmly in favour of Kumble, a decision which didn’t go down too well with Kohli right from the start. Former BCCI secretary Ajay Shirke, who was part of the selection process, told The Indian Express on June 2 that “there had been some murmurs about this [Kumble-Kohli rift] even at the time of Mr Kumble’s appointment.”

Breakdown in communication

If this is true, then there seems to be a huge breakdown of communication. The CAC must have been aware of the fact that Kohli was not on the same page as them. Of course, a captain cannot decide who his coach will be, but could the CAC have not taken him into confidence? Did they talk to him about why they felt Kumble would be a good coach? Or did they just go and hoist Kumble on an unwilling Kohli, leading to this problem in the first place?

When the reports of a rift first emerged, Vinod Rai, the chairman of the Supreme Court-mandated Committee of Administrators, came out and said that the CAC would not “interfere” in the selection of the India coach. Just three days, a PTI report stated that the committee favoured Kumble to continue. With such contradictions at every juncture and flip-flops on a daily basis, can you really blame Kumble for just giving up and stepping down?

Former legend Sunil Gavaskar was at his usual withering best in his reaction to Kumble’s resignation to NDTV on Wednesday, calling the players “softies” for their alleged opposition to Kumble’s “taskmaster” methods. But there was another important point he made, one about the CAC itself: “The CAC should be doing more for Indian cricket than just selecting the coach”.

Will anyone question the CAC?

Indeed, this is a committee of some of cricket’s biggest legends. These are men of immense stature, men who have immense knowledge of the game. So far though, it seems they are involved in choosing the team’s next coach – and making a mess of it every single time.

In 2015, when the CAC first came into existence, there were similar reports and speculation about whether to continue with Shastri as India’s next coach. The committee decided to continue with Shastri that year, only to appoint Kumble in 2016. In the last few weeks, as the crisis has unfolded, Ganguly, Laxman and Tendulkar haven’t been seen doing much to sort out the issue, apart from trying to convince Kohli to stick with Kumble – a task which they failed at, as well.

So, here’s an idea. Blame Kohli, if you will. Blame Kumble if you want. But also look at the source of the issue. If the committee that selected Kumble decided he was above the rules, what does it say about how Indian cricket is run? More importantly, will anyone be asking these questions to them?