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| Feb 14, 2000 | ||
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| CRICKET Oh! Captain If Tendulkar stepped down it would reflect more on the inadequacy of his team than on his leadership skills By Rohit Brijnath
Rewind to a couple of hours earlier at the media centre. Bow-legged, bald, wise, Tony Greig stands, arms akimbo. "Look mate," he says, "I'd have loved to captain Thommo and Lillee. Just stand back there at slips and watch it all happen. Same thing if I had Andy Roberts and Holding. But mate, this team of yours, what can Tendulkar do with it?" The inference was clear: is it possible to judge Tendulkar's leadership on the basis of this tour, this team? Fast forward to the next day. Adelaide airport, en route to Perth. A former Indian player sits quietly, unhappy. "I can't understand it, just now a stranger walked up to me to sign an Indian shirt. I said no, this shirt is precious, only players can wear it. How do people give it away, where is the pride?" Hours later, he was astonished when he heard an Indian player wondering which match in Perth (Vs Pakistan or Australia) was the day-nighter. Herein lies a lesson on the pursuit of excellence. Australian coach John Buchanan puts up posters in the dressing room that read, "Every match is a World Cup final." Indian players don't even know their schedule! So here they are, unsure, lacking commitment, and bereft of cleverness; this is the team Tendulkar must lead. In the penultimate over of the final match, with Australia under pressure, the captain calls the fine leg up into the circle, only for Srinath to bowl down the legside and offer up a boundary. When Australia required just one run, Tendulkar commanded the field to come in, except Sunil Joshi stood right on the line of the circle at short mid-on, and were the ball hit there a single was always on. Other fielders, perhaps restricted by an upbringing stressed hospitality, escort the ball to the boundary, and this "we-were-never-taught-to-dive" refrain has become invalid. In Hobart, as Pakistani batsmen turned ones into twos comfortably, Mark Taylor was aghast, "I was thinking, no way that's a two, no way, oh it is." There is a refusal to learn, to find that marginal edge, that violates the basic tenets of competitive sport. No batsman barring Tendulkar had ever played here; yet no batsman, barring Rahul Dravid one afternoon in Perth, sought out Sunil Gavaskar, who has a century on every Australian Test ground, for technical advice, even though Peter Roebuck was screaming out, "Jeez, look at their backlifts, such high ones just won't work here." Could it be, impossibly, that they know best? Understandably Tendulkar is a defeated man. Even Steve Waugh was moved to say, "The senior players have to set the example and they haven't; the younger players have to step up and take responsibility and they haven't." But the captain himself is no angel untouched by flaws. He is firstly too quiet, too reluctant to speak his mind, unsure of what controversy he may ignite. While Steve Waugh expressed a clear opinion on the International Cricket Council (ICC) lifting the ban on Shoaib Akhtar, Tendulkar evaded it like a McGrath bouncer. When asked which of the two teams, Australia or Pakistan, might win the finals, he shot back, "That's not my problem." He is the face of Indian cricket, but alas not its voice. Silence is not supposed to be a captain's armour. He seems to view press conferences as a Gestapo interrogation, while Wasim Akram approaches them with an after-dinner speaker's charm. Akram walks in, talks about India missing Jadeja, about India's odd tactics; Tendulkar brushes off these observations when confronted with them (a sort of, who the hell is he to talk about us), not realising that the press conference is but an extension of Akram's match tactics. It is canny captaincy. Also, he seems, said one Indian observer, "too rigid, unshakeable that his option is the right one". Taylor who sees him as a "better one-day captain", was infuriated by his penchant for talking to bowlers, sometimes every ball. "The last thing a bowler needs when he's hit for a four," said Keith Stackpole, "is to be reminded of it." Taylor, who stood at slips, chewed gum and led his team to silent victory, echoes that: "You can't be saying so much, tactics can be discussed once an over not five times." (But then, maybe Taylor's bowlers didn't need to be reminded to keep an honest length!). Nevertheless, this on-field chat cost India dearly, responsible, partially at least, for the two overs we were docked in Hobart against Pakistan, in a series where every ball has meant so much. We also forget that Tendulkar resisted the captaincy. Yet, in a team where anti-Azhar currents run powerfully and in an anachronistic system that believes the best player must be captain, he was left with little choice. But it makes him seem, as Greg Chappell says, "a very reluctant captain, much like Allan Border felt when he started with an inferior team. He is not instinctively attacking, and in the long run if you're cautious you can't be a good captain." Tired with losing, Border turned into a hard man. In England he once told star bowler Craig McDermott that if he didn't shape up he'd be on the next flight home; when an English batsman asked for a glass of water, Border replied, "This ain't no $%&*^#@ tea party, mate." Tendulkar too must no longer be the nice guy. He must know that to say Dravid, Ganguly, Kumble, Srinath, Prasad and Robin Singh comprise a "young, inexperienced team" is to insult our intelligence. But Tendulkar is hobbled by a weakness of national character. If a bowler bowls contrary to his instructions, sit him down for the next game; but imagine, says a former player, the attack on Tendulkar that will follow from that player's state. Parochialism defeats the national interest. But the issue with Tendulkar is not one of good captain or a mediocre one, for that debate has no finish line. Far more pointed is the question whether his batting potential is being limited by his leadership burdens. In a team lacking ability and courage in equal measure, where even Ganguly and Dravid's batting reputations in the Test arena lay in tatters (Ganguly was resuscitated in the one-dayers, Dravid marginally), imagine what pressure nestles in Tendulkar's stomach when he walks in to bat. We have always maintained that he alone carries this team; in Australia it was never more evident. It has made him more cautious, as if imprisoned by circumstance he has had to shackle his flamboyance. We saw that in his two considered centuries versus New Zealand in India, and we saw that again in Australia. In the one-dayers too, his form was as fickle as an undecided lover. The Australians say they have not seen the best of him, but they understand why. "Captaincy," says Greg Chappell "won't make it easier for him to play to his potential consistently. He seems to take it very personally when India is beaten, he finds it difficult to shrug it off." India needs the flashing blade of his Excalibur more than it needs his leadership. Yet his stepping down would ironically not be a reflection on his captaincy but on the inferior skills of the men around him. But it is a short-term solution, and ludicrous really, that instead of manufacturing international quality players we must balance the equation by asking him to relinquish his job. Ganguly, who the Australians found abrasive and aggressive when he led in a side match here, is the only alternative. Dravid's form requires recapturing and Jadeja lacks the requisite Test credentials -- his presumed captaincy input will be offset by a resentment from players who believe their skills rank higher than his. Should Ganguly's form deteriorate when he leads it will hurt; when Tendulkar's does, it is fatal.
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"So
captain, are you guys going home straight from Perth?" I asked, aware
the finals were not a possibility. "I don't know. And I've told the
team not to even ask when we're going home and from where. I don't want
to hear it. We've still got two matches left and we've got to focus on
them." Tired, mauled, criticised, give him this much: he takes his
cricket seriously.