Jamshedpur, June 20: The decision of the state cricket body to field three coaches to conduct the Ranji coachingcumconditioning camp has only led to fears of confusion among the players and the coaches.

The Jharkhand State Cricket Association (JSCA) has assigned the job to V. Venkat Ram, Randhir Singh and Subtoto Das ? all experienced coaches.

Some of the players felt that they will find themselves ?sandwiched? between the different work schedule of the three coaches and that would affect their performance.

Venkat, a qualified National Cricket Academy (NCA) LevelIII coach who helped the Jharkhand Ranji squad qualify for the semifinals of the Plate Group last season, agreed with the players. ?I don?t think the boys will be able to work under such circumstances. As a Ranji coach last season, I have tried hard to put the boys under a specific work schedule which would get affected with two more coaches around,? said Venkat, a former Bihar captain.

Ranji captain Sumit Panda added that one coach would be enough for the camp. ?We have trained under a coach last year. His training schedule worked wonders for us. I don?t think there is any need to add two more coaches,? he said. ?I personally don?t agree with the decision.? Some of Panda?s teammates had the same thing to say.

JSCA vicepresident U.K. Srivastava said there should not be any problem with the inclusion of three coaches for the conditioning camp. ?We have prepared a cricket coaching calendar. Things have been chalked out in accordance to the inputs on the calendar,? he added.

Sources said this was not the first time three coaches have been taken for a camp. ?It started in 2003 when Ramesh Saxena, Subroto Das and Randhir Singh monitored the training schedule. But the controversy this time is based on the inflated fee structure for a Ranji coach in the coming season.

Some of the former cricketers, whose names are doing the rounds for the job of Ranji coach, have already started using their ?connections? in the JSCA to get the slot. The JSCA management panel recently approved the decision to raise the fee structure of a Ranji coach to Rs one lakh for a season. Earlier, a coach used to earn less than Rs 50,000.

Subroto, a NCA LevelII coach and also a former Ranji skipper, said inclusion of three coaches for the conditioning camp would help in proper monitor of training schedule. ?The assignment of each of the coaches would be separate. I don?t think there should be any controversy or confusion. After all, we are not adopting this practice for the first time,? he added. Moreover, a decision about the Ranji coach is yet to be taken. So why such hue and cry, he asked. Randhir, a former India seamer who was the coach of the Ranji team about three years ago, could not be contacted for comments.