Honey, I Shrunk The Men-In-Blue

Gordon had a session with the Indians before they played their first match because he was "passing through SA". It will also be his only meeting with the team before the Cup ends. The Scotsman, who two years ago worked with the Australian team, talked to players about, "focus, dedication and goals". Says a team official: "What he tells the players is very obvious. Nothing new. No magic mantras. But when the players hear so many things that make sense, they’re bound to remember a few."

His primary evaluation of Indian cricket is very simple. Everything that’s said about this team is "bullshit". In his understanding, the boys are not soft men who crumble under pressure, their inconsistency is a mere statistical factor and not an indicator of any flaw in character, and "they are the most-fit and the best-prepared team ever to go into a World Cup from India".

Gordon says he doesn’t look for problems to solve. "People think that a psychologist comes in because something is wrong. That’s a very poor view of the profession. I am not here because the boys are having a problem." If he were to be believed, "this team has no problems. All accusations about this team not being mentally strong is "crap bullshit rubbish".

Initially, Indian players were a bit lost about Gordon’s job. "But once they understood how I operate, they were fine." They understood that his job was to make "cricket fun". He doesn’t have answers to why India cannot win matches in a row, because he hasn’t spent enough time with the team. What he does know is that "most teams have purple patches. Part of my job is to turn around a team that is doing badly". He appears a bit naive when he gives another evaluation: "Indians don’t have a lapse of form at home but when they are on tour it’s different." To find out why this happens, he’s been trying to "find answers" to what our players do when they are touring abroad. "Do they socialise, what activities do they indulge in". A team official says that he cannot reveal how much Gordon is being paid, "but I can tell you that he is not very expensive". Perhaps the team got what it paid for.