South African Graham Ford will be India’s new Coach according to the BCCI. The former South African National Coach was preferred over former England off spinner John Emburey by the seven-man committee at Chennai. Ford was offered only a one-year contract though. The decision of this committee will be ratified by the BCCI working committee which meets on the 12th at Delhi. The Board’s treasurer N Srinivasan had stated that there was no reason why this decision couldn’t be ratified. This means that Graham Ford’s first assignment will be the Ireland Series. Ironically India play three ODIs against Ford’s country South Africa to begin with!
Graham Ford was always the players’ choice and was thus the clear favourite for the job. He hardly had any competition from John Emburey as the latter didn’t have an impressive coaching record. To be nominated itself was a big question as John Emburey was twice sacked as a coach in English County. Emburey’s name was recommended by Sunil Gavaskar. Whereas the 46-year-old Graham Ford has a solid track record to back him having been the Coach of the South Africa between 1999 and 2001. He was sacked from the post only because of the match fixing trauma that South African cricket were going through during that period. He had moved to Kent after that and has a contract that expires only in 2008. Kent have been very happy with Ford’s services but they are likely to sacrifice him for Indian Cricket. As a player, Graham Ford had played only 7 first class games for Natal B and as a batsman he could crack up a dismal average of 13.50. But as a Coach, he is believed to be a hard worker, one who works behind the scenes on the players and one who maintains a low profile as compared to his predecessor Greg Chappell. Under his tenure, South Africa had won 9 out of the 11 series played. There were also plenty of good testimonials given by some of the big South African players including Shaun Pollock.
It took over two hours for the seven-man committee to make up their mind on Graham Ford. Both Ford and Emburey had given their presentations using their laptops. Emburey was the first one to give his. It is learnt that Graham Ford’s name was suggested by former India Coach and New Zealander John Wright to Rahul Dravid. Both Wright and Dravid were associated with Kent in the past. Ravi Shastri, one of the members of the seven-man committee had asked Graham Ford to send his CV and letter of interest to the BCCI. Ford’s name had surprisingly sprung out of nowhere and he won a race which had no competition once the name of Dav Whatmore was erased by the BCCI on the 4th of this month in a meeting held in Bangalore.