Mentoring is the need of the hour
Writing in the Hindu , Peter Roebuck says India's youngsters need a mentor to keep them on track, someone to play the role Alex Ferguson performed in grooming Manchester United's young talents.
George Binoy
25-Feb-2013
Writing in the Hindu, Peter Roebuck says India's youngsters need a mentor to keep them on track, someone to play the role Alex Ferguson performed in grooming Manchester United's young talents.
It's a heady world and without wise mentoring and a strong club culture it's likely to lead to headstrong ways. India needs a Ferguson. Might not Anil Kumble fit the bill? India's rising players might also reflect on the words of a 15-year-old boy attending a soccer academy in Ivory Coast.Talking to the BBC, Charles Silue spoke about his love of the game and his hopes of playing at the highest level.
And then he added something telling. “Many young African players think about money,” he observed, “But here we're taught to think differently, to be respectful and concentrate on our objective. Football is my passion. The money will follow.”
In the Indian Express, Shekhar Gupta says the root cause of the current issues in Indian cricket is the BCCI, which is hurting the next generation of players for the sake of its selfish gain.
It is Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Laxman and Kumble who kept Indian cricket together, and nurtured the new talent around them, with firmness, and generosity. They could not have gone on for ever, definitely not in the shorter forms of the game. The expectation that the next crop of seniors, Dhoni, Sehwag, Harbhajan, Zaheer and Yuvraj will fill that gap has been belied; and the cricket administration has not only failed to bridge the gap, it has only further indulged the weaknesses of many for short-term, selfish gain.
George Binoy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo