Cricket legend Ian Chappell staunchly believes a Test team shouldn’t need a head coach.
And if the modern game insists on them, Chappell says the captain should still hold the most power over on-field decisions and the team.
His comments come in the wake of a disastrous week for Australian cricket, in which Justin Langer quit his post as national men’s coach, prompting bitter former teammates to come out all guns blazing in the media.
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It reached a farcical crescendo on Sunday when retired firebrand bowler Mitchell Johnson labelled current Test captain Pat Cummins “gutless” and accused him – and his teammates – of white-anting Langer.
Chappell is not in the same camp as the former players, instead siding squarely with Cummins and his peers.
“I don’t believe in coaches. I come from an era where we didn’t have a coach, and I’m very thankful for that,” Chappell told Wide World of Sports.
“I learnt my cricket from blokes who understood the game. I learnt from watching, listening, and occasionally being told where I was going wrong.
“I think that’s the best system. Is it possible to have that system currently? Probably not.
“Not just the current players, but the players for quite some time now have built up that system (with a head coach), so they’ve got the system they want. It’s not the system I think works.
“I can disagree with it, but it doesn’t matter what I want because I’m not in that position (still playing).”
Chappell was asked who should replace Langer as head coach of Australia’s men’s teams.
“I don’t think it matters,” he said.
“My opinion is if you get a really good coach it might make about five per cent of difference, and if you get an average coach – which I think Langer was – it probably makes about one per cent of difference.”
Instead, Chappell says it’s most important a Test cricket team chooses the right captain.
And in Cummins, he believes Cricket Australia have found a beauty.
That’s despite the inane criticism of the skipper by a faction of former players.
“What I think is the ideal situation is the captain runs the cricket on the field, and the manager organises everything that is off the field,” Chappell said.
“If you stick to those parameters you will do all right, particularly with a bloke like Pat Cummins who understands the game, he’s got the players behind him.
“That’s not to say as a captain you do everything yourself. You don’t. You get the input from senior players around you and you can learn from all sorts of places.
“But the cricketers know a hell of a lot more about cricket than the administrators. So let them administrate, and let the cricketers run the cricket, and that won’t be a bad system.
“If you’ve got a system where the coach is in charge, and he is above the captain, then you’ve got a system that won’t work.
“I think Pat has tried as hard as he can to be in charge, and have a pretty fair say over the cricket side of the game.”
Assistant coach Andrew McDonald is taking over Langer’s role for the tour to Pakistan in March and April, but a full-time replacement is yet to be appointed.
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