Typically, a coach should be able to solve a player’s problems; or, ideally, help a player solve them himself. He should be able to help a player realise his potential and, in doing so, fulfill a key requirement of a leader—to take his team to places they have never been to before. That is critical because performers frequently don’t know how good they can be. A good director helps an actor discover himself, portray nuances that he didn’t think he was capable of. Performers are obsessed beings and therefore, their view of the world can be quixotic. They need a comforting hand on their shoulders one day, a subtle kick up the backside on another. It is not an easy to role. It cannot be and that is why such few people are good at it.

Now Woolmer adds “speaking on television” to that list. Again, it is something that should be low on a coach’s requirements but the increasingly intrusive role that television plays requires him to carry that off as well. Hence too the need for “diplomacy”, to choose words very carefully. I fear that we will henceforth judge a person, whether the head of selectors or secretary of the board, by the words they use in front of a camera rather than the other skills they possess. This is what 24 hour news channels have done and you just get the feeling that rather than being the watchdogs, which they could be and sometimes are, they frequently become the beast, wild and untamed. We are now being bombarded with “breaking news”, originally a device to attract attention to something critical, now civilised society’s greatest concession to the utterly banal.

... contd.