Carry on, captain!
R Mohan
The retention of Sachin Tendulkar makes sense. The decision to
extend his tenure as captain may have been arrived at only after
typical Indian intrigue, and after several storms blew over in
a tea cup. Still, it is the right decision.
Two selectors may have been against nominating him again, but
they were outmanoeuvred by the board to which the status quo ante
is vital at a time when it has just come though a traumatic power
struggle in its annual general meeting.
Tendulkar's decision to put Sri Lanka in was blasted by the critics. But
it was the efficiency of the Lankan openers which brought the
side through a difficult first session, and their team went on
to have a great opening day.
That Sachin could think aggressively enough to put the opposition
in is a good sign. The record books show that the only significant
win India has ever scored on putting the other team in was in
the Lord's Test of 1986. So when he asked Lanka to bat, he was
certainly flying in the face of received wisdom.
For a captain with such scarce Test bowling resources to insert
the rival takes guts, and Sachin has them. He may have done so
in Durban last year more in a defensive vein. Out in Mohali, his
decision was aggressive -- and it may well earn him dividend in the
form of confidence against a side that had the better of the drawn
series in Sri Lanka earlier this year.
A good second day in the Test may have helped him come through
well enough from his bold gambit, which had actually backfired.
The captaincy issue should, however, have very little to do with
assessments based on what the captain does in any one situation.
It must have far more to do with what a caption achieves over
a settled period of time.
More than anything else, the retention of Tendulkar makes cricketing
sense. To learn from experience is common enough, and it is important
that a captain is allowed the time to learn the ropes and then
try to master a difficult art that combines the skills of man
management and the backing of sporting hunches.
The history of Indian cricket is replete with instances of captains
being removed before they really had the time to grow in their
job. The personality clashes set off in the team by the awkward
presence of any number of former captains further fouled the
atmosphere.
The mid'80s were a remarkable time for the kind of musical chairs
that Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev were forced to play. And one
would be removed and the other reinstated for emotional, rather
than cricketing reasons -- and all such switching did was to spoil
the relations between the two champion performers.
The lessons of history suggest that Tendulkar should be given
a lot more time to adjust to the increasing demands of a high
profile job. There have better tacticians than him, and there have
been better man mangers than him. But when it comes to cricketing
merit, few save the like of Pataudi, Gavaskar and Kapil have
been better qualified to hold the job.
In his first year in the captaincy, Tendulkar was seen to be too
demanding a taskmaster so far as the bowlers were concerned.
But then, an Indian captain has very few quality bowlers, and anyone
looking for wins cannot help taxing them. He is probably better
off for the experience, since he saw his key men break down or
suffer from the law of diminishing returns.
To bring back Mohammed Azharuddin as captain may have been disastrous because
that would not the right way to treat the incumbent, who has not
really failed in his job. The selectors tried to make the point
that Tendulkar's batting form has slumped because of the captaincy.
The reasoning is true only to the extent of Tendulkar's one-day
batting, in which his average has dipped somewhat. This is, however,
very common in openers who have to take huge chances because of
the changing nature of the one-day game.
When leading the team, Tendulkar has done almost as well
as a Test batsman as he did when he had not been burdened with
the additional responsibility. His Test record as captain has
been as good as any other Indian skipper's -- good at home, and leaving
something to be desired abroad.
The selectors allowed Azharduddin a long rope and he improved
as captain over the years, although removing him would have seemed
logical enough. Azhar had the knack of picking up tips from those
with great experience in the job and putting them to good use.
In individuality, Tendulkar may be somewhat more stubborn. But
there is no real reason why he does not deserve the same chance
as Azhar, statistically the most successful Indian captain, to
gain cricket wisdom while in the job. Better days are certainly
ahead of his team now that it will play a lot of cricket at home
this season.
He might just do well, though, to heed the selectors' advice to
drop himself down the order in one-day internationals. The risk-to-reward
proportion has not, in his case, been paying enough for him to stick
to the same game plan as before, which entailed that he opened the innings.
R Mohan
|
