Abuse' from Azhar led to Sidhu walking away from England tour

[Spiderguy252]

Who cares about these 1990s era Lalloos who could just hold a bat? Sidhu has now graduated to politics and murdering people. Muppet.

[vamos_rafa]

Kapil forced Sachin to change follow-on decision: Lele MUMBAI: At the height of the match-fixing saga a decade ago, the then India coach Kapil Dev had overruled captain Sachin Tendulkar's decision to enforce the follow on against New Zealand in the Ahmedabad Test, former BCCI secretary Jaywant Lele has recalled in a new book. "The subject of match-fixing was riding very high at that time (1999-2000). It was a Test match in Ahmedabad against New Zealand. India had put on a mammoth total of 583 runs in the first innings, against which, the visitors could post only 308. Everyone expected India to impose a follow-on," Lele has written in his autobiography "I was There - Memoirs of a Cricket Administrator". " Sachin Tendulkar, the captain of the Indian team, went to the opposition captain (Stephen) Fleming, and told him that they had to bat again. He told the umpires that India was imposing a follow-on and told them to show a few balls to our opening bowlers for selection. "From there, he walked to the dressing room and instructed (Javagal) Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad to select the new ball. They nodded, and as they spoke, Kapil Dev, the Indian coach, who was some distance away, shouted to Sachin, "Captain no follow-on! Our bowlers are tired. We will bat." Lele recalled how the then chairman of selection committee Chandu Borde was taken by surprise by the decision of not imposing the follow on. "Chandu Borde, the then chairman of the selection committee and I, exclaimed, "What?" Why, why not impose a follow-on. Sachin, as he is a gentleman par excellence (in fact, sometimes more than required), tamely obeyed. After all, the coach of the stature of Kapil was ordering him! "(Sachin): 'Haan, theek hai, paaji. Lekin maine to unko bol diya hai ki hum follow-on de rehe hai' (Okay, but I have already told them that we are enforcing a follow-on)." "(Kapil): 'To phir se jaake bol do, woh maan jaayenge' (So what? Tell them we are changing the decision. They will agree)". "It was ridiculous! No opening bowler had ever said they were tired. Where was the question of objection by the opponents? In fact, they would be happy that they were being saved from the disgrace of a follow-on! So, New Zealand captain Fleming gladly agreed and the match proceeded. It ended in a draw," Lele, the then BCCI secretary, has written. "If the decision of not imposing a follow-on at that stage was a great shock for persons like Chandu Borde, why talk about me? What about the reaction of crores of Indian cricket fans?" "It created a huge wave of shock in the country. Naturally the rumours of match-fixing and betting reached a peak! It took some time for us to recover from that shock," Lele wrote in the book. Lele felt that the move not to impose the follow on was a bad and extra-cautious decision. "It was a sheer bad and extra-cautious decision on the part of the Indian captain/coach to ensure that their side does not lose the match under any circumstances." "A local cricket lover hosted a party for the Indian team at his farm-house that night. Many BCCI officials, former players, cricket pundits and some top personalities from Ahmedabad were present. I understand that while investigating the matter for match-fixing/betting, CBI questioned Kapil on this point. Sachin was also called as a witness, and I am told that he deposed that it was a team decision." "All said and done, I believe it was strange and unusual, but a bad decision in retrospect, and it had nothing to do with match-fixing or betting. However, the decision remained one of the most controversial, as not very surprisingly, it generated rumours about the credibility of some individuals," Lele has written. Dev, India's 1983 World Cup-winning captain, was later replaced by former New Zealand opener John Wright, which paved the way for foreigners donning the coach's mantle that has continued till now barring brief periods of transition, notably, when Australia's Greg Chappell stepped down after the 2007 World Cup disaster, later to be replaced by South Africa's Gary Kirsten.

[achilles]

Lele saheb will lose all the respect people have for him if we continues to wash dirty linen in public.

[Tiger80]

Is Azhar The Culprit? WHO is to be blamed for the dramatic retirement of Sidhu? Kapil Dev says it's captain Mohammed Azharuddin: "Azhar should take full responsibility." Former cricket board chief Madhavrao Scindia also wants Azhar to put his house in order: "Let him instil discipline in the team but let him begin by applying those norms to himself." Clearly, somebody will have to carry the can for the big faux pas, but who? Sidhu himself says he decided to call it quits on "grounds divorced from cricket". So, is the legendary offspinner E.A.S. Prasanna right in saying that Sandeep Patil is too young for the job, and an older manager would have handled the situation better? There are no easy answers here. But with people like Kapil and Scindia hinting at the way the sanctity of the dressing room and team coach has come down dramatically, it's certain some uncomfortable questions will have to be answered by Patil, especially since Sidhu hails from Punjab, board chief Bindra's home-state. Before leaving for Singapore for the Singer Cup, when asked if he would allow wives to join players, Patil had told Outlook: "I believe the more relaxed the atmosphere, the better the performance that can be got out of the boys. I'll have a code of conduct like Wadekar did, but not one that treats them like kids." Even if Patil has to pay the price for it, Azhar too will face the heat. With Kapil first, then Prabhakar, and now Sidhu leaving after acrimonious exchanges with the captain, Azhar will have to answer Mohinder Amarnath's query: "Why does it happen only to cricketers from the North? Why was Sidhu singled out when others were performing poorly, too?" One reason is Sidhu himself. Although the seniormost in the side, he has long suffered under the weight of his success, says cricket writer Hemant Kenkre. With an above-40 average in both Tests and one-dayers, his fear of failure has had him playing well or not at all. And so, he has regularly reported unfit. This has often given a long lever to those who wanted to keep him out. Signs that all was not well between Sidhu and Azhar, and possibly then manager Ajit Wadekar, surfaced when Sidhu was left out of the World Cup side against Australia in Bombay although he had been middling the ball and fielding competently in the nets. Confirmation came a couple of matches later when he was left out of the Delhi match against Sri Lanka. Says Manoj Prabhakar, whose career ended with that tie: "They asked him to sit out, put on the sweater, and tell whoever asked that he was unwell and unfit to play." Sidhu was ready to call it quits that day but was dissuaded by Kapil Dev. Returning for the crunch quarter-final in Bangalore against Pakistan, Sidhu scored a solid 97, and Azhar, many thought, would have realised Sidhu's utility to the team. It was not to be. Towards the end of that innings as the cramps got painful, Sidhu had to be given a runner, and the team management (comprising captain, vice-captain and manager) sent in Javagal Srinath whose ability to get run out equals, if not betters, Sanjay Manjrekar's. The knock fetched Sidhu the Man of the Match award but Azhar said his choice would have been Ajay Jadeja who demolished Waqar Younis. Worse, Azhar said he wasn't sure if Sidhu would be in the squad for the semis: "I don't know what is wrong with him. If it's not his leg, it's his hand." Little wonder then that Sidhu admits that his decision is based on "grounds divorced from cricket" and a number of former cricketers including Kapil and Prasanna share former pace bowler Karsan Ghavri's sentiment that "something mysterious is going on and it has surfaced with Sidhu's exit." The dynamics of the Indian dressing room has changed in the past two years. There is no common yardstick, and the bias is showing. Says Prabhakar: "The atmosphere is stifling, shameful. Everybody is jealous of everybody else's performance especially if he doesn't belong to the captain's charmed circle." That Sidhu wasn't. Although man-management was not one of his skills, Azhar, the first long-duration captain from the south, had found himself distinctly uncomfortable with players from the north and west after the disastrous South African tour. He would glare at Salil Ankola when the Bombay medium-pacer let a ball slip through his fingers while Srinath, equally butter-fingered but a far better bowler, would be spared. At post-match conferences, Azhar would wail about having four-five players who he couldn't hide on the field: Sidhu was always one of them. At 32, as Navjot Singh Sidhu thinks of a new career, he must have ruled out journalism already. Two years ago when Javed Miandad was shown the door like him, a columnist wrote: "It's terrible the way (he) left the team. Maybe, the board wanted to try youngsters in his place. But the least they could have done was to tell him in advance so that he could have made his plans to retire public." The columnist? Well, one Mohammed Azharuddin. http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?201523

[BeautifulGame]

Is Azhar The Culprit? WHO is to be blamed for the dramatic retirement of Sidhu? Kapil Dev says it's captain Mohammed Azharuddin: "Azhar should take full responsibility." Former cricket board chief Madhavrao Scindia also wants Azhar to put his house in order: "Let him instil discipline in the team but let him begin by applying those norms to himself." Clearly, somebody will have to carry the can for the big faux pas, but who? Sidhu himself says he decided to call it quits on "grounds divorced from cricket". So, is the legendary offspinner E.A.S. Prasanna right in saying that Sandeep Patil is too young for the job, and an older manager would have handled the situation better? There are no easy answers here. But with people like Kapil and Scindia hinting at the way the sanctity of the dressing room and team coach has come down dramatically, it's certain some uncomfortable questions will have to be answered by Patil, especially since Sidhu hails from Punjab, board chief Bindra's home-state. Before leaving for Singapore for the Singer Cup, when asked if he would allow wives to join players, Patil had told Outlook: "I believe the more relaxed the atmosphere, the better the performance that can be got out of the boys. I'll have a code of conduct like Wadekar did, but not one that treats them like kids." Even if Patil has to pay the price for it, Azhar too will face the heat. With Kapil first, then Prabhakar, and now Sidhu leaving after acrimonious exchanges with the captain, Azhar will have to answer Mohinder Amarnath's query: "Why does it happen only to cricketers from the North? Why was Sidhu singled out when others were performing poorly, too?" One reason is Sidhu himself. Although the seniormost in the side, he has long suffered under the weight of his success, says cricket writer Hemant Kenkre. With an above-40 average in both Tests and one-dayers, his fear of failure has had him playing well or not at all. And so, he has regularly reported unfit. This has often given a long lever to those who wanted to keep him out. Signs that all was not well between Sidhu and Azhar, and possibly then manager Ajit Wadekar, surfaced when Sidhu was left out of the World Cup side against Australia in Bombay although he had been middling the ball and fielding competently in the nets. Confirmation came a couple of matches later when he was left out of the Delhi match against Sri Lanka. Says Manoj Prabhakar, whose career ended with that tie: "They asked him to sit out, put on the sweater, and tell whoever asked that he was unwell and unfit to play." Sidhu was ready to call it quits that day but was dissuaded by Kapil Dev. Returning for the crunch quarter-final in Bangalore against Pakistan, Sidhu scored a solid 97, and Azhar, many thought, would have realised Sidhu's utility to the team. It was not to be. Towards the end of that innings as the cramps got painful, Sidhu had to be given a runner, and the team management (comprising captain, vice-captain and manager) sent in Javagal Srinath whose ability to get run out equals, if not betters, Sanjay Manjrekar's. The knock fetched Sidhu the Man of the Match award but Azhar said his choice would have been Ajay Jadeja who demolished Waqar Younis. Worse, Azhar said he wasn't sure if Sidhu would be in the squad for the semis: "I don't know what is wrong with him. If it's not his leg, it's his hand." Little wonder then that Sidhu admits that his decision is based on "grounds divorced from cricket" and a number of former cricketers including Kapil and Prasanna share former pace bowler Karsan Ghavri's sentiment that "something mysterious is going on and it has surfaced with Sidhu's exit." The dynamics of the Indian dressing room has changed in the past two years. There is no common yardstick, and the bias is showing. Says Prabhakar: "The atmosphere is stifling, shameful. Everybody is jealous of everybody else's performance especially if he doesn't belong to the captain's charmed circle." That Sidhu wasn't. Although man-management was not one of his skills, Azhar, the first long-duration captain from the south, had found himself distinctly uncomfortable with players from the north and west after the disastrous South African tour. He would glare at Salil Ankola when the Bombay medium-pacer let a ball slip through his fingers while Srinath, equally butter-fingered but a far better bowler, would be spared. At post-match conferences, Azhar would wail about having four-five players who he couldn't hide on the field: Sidhu was always one of them. At 32, as Navjot Singh Sidhu thinks of a new career, he must have ruled out journalism already. Two years ago when Javed Miandad was shown the door like him, a columnist wrote: "It's terrible the way (he) left the team. Maybe, the board wanted to try youngsters in his place. But the least they could have done was to tell him in advance so that he could have made his plans to retire public." The columnist? Well, one Mohammed Azharuddin. http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?201523

We were just lucky that we had Ganguly coming in as captain in 2000 and rooted out all regional bias and backed talent.Otherwise we would have been nothing better than how Pakistan is now.

[Shehezaada]

while your on the subject of past encounters (which I really enjoy!) see if you can dig up the tehelka tapes where Prabhakar did a sting operation on the whole BCCI. That stuff was crazy

[achilles]

while your on the subject of past encounters (which I really enjoy!) see if you can dig up the tehelka tapes where Prabhakar did a sting operation on the whole BCCI. That stuff was crazy

It is legendary stuff. He had planted cameras and recorded his "interrogation".