Indian Captaincy A Poisoned Chalice

[Rahul Khan]

The truth and trauma of Indian cricket is known only to a select few who have had the honour of leading the national team and who, in the process, have suffered the torment of running a divided house. Leading India in its national sport is akin to riding a chariot with horses pulling in different directions. Not even Rahul Dravid, the thinking cricketer, could cope with the anguish of leading men who stand united only in the rare event of intense public reaction as it happened in the wake of the World Cup debacle. Stronger men have been done in by the intrigues, successful ones have been derailed by palace coups and weak men have been buttressed by the forces that be. If there is a glimmer of wisdom in Dravid's decision to relinquish charge, it is to do with stepping down when successful (with India winning a Test series in England after 21 years). An intelligent man like him could not possibly chuck it in a churlish gesture, especially since Chappell decided to pack his bags and head down under rather than stay with this madness of driving a disparate group. Having been subjected for years to the unreal musical chairs rotation with Kapil Dev, Gavaskar recognized the signs of decreasing returns and increasing thanklessness in leading a team that is subject to so many different pulls and pressures. No skipper could have passed the strictest performance parameter than Kapil whose Devils won the World Cup, the ultimate prize in the game. Srikkanth led the team to a sort of triumph in an all-drawn Test series on Pakistan soil and yet lost his spot not so much for bad form as for being seen as the ringleader of a player thrust for a bigger pay packet. Md. Azharuddin, the cricketer who may actually have least deserved to lead the nation, was sought out by the board only because he would be amenable to the administrators' views on control of the game. To the very end Azhar played the perfect captain for the BCCI. Sachin emerged as an alternative candidate more because of the non-performance of the team in which he was quickly becoming the preeminent performer. Not until Sourav Ganguly brought in a paradigm shift did an Indian captain have an independent run in which he did not need to be propped up by the board although Mr Dalmiya played a key role in granting Ganguly wide powers to tend to team matters. Neither Azhar's long reign nor Sachin's short ones meant much for Indian cricket. Sachin was the first of the country's captains in the most modern era to renounce the job. His failure lay as much in an inability to handle man management as in his deficiencies in handling the non-performance of his team. Ganguly prospered because he gave up regional considerations in selection, even if like most Indian skippers he did pick a few of his buddies from East Zone. To lead Team India is an ambition every cricketer who plays a few years of international cricket nurses. In today's world, captaincy may also mean bigger bucks from the advertising world that is always looking for cricketing icons to build brand equity of a bewildering array of products, from hair cream and motor cars to insurance and shoe polish. While it is quite understandable that the captaincy is a cricketer's dream job, it brings with it a crown of thorns that sits uneasily on the head that wears it. It is a passport to riches and bouquets but it can also be the harbinger of mental trauma and brickbats. http://indiainteracts.com/columnist/2007/10/11/INDIAN-CAPTAINCY-A-POISONED-CHALICE/

[jaideep]

uneasy lies the head that wears the crown and so it is the case with the indian cricket team's captaincy...the damocles sword is always hanging on top of the head of the captain and his neck is always first on the line and on the choping block what with a demanding public always baying for his blood

[Rahul Khan]

uneasy lies the head that wears the crown and so it is the case with the indian cricket team's captaincy...the damocles sword is always hanging on top of the head of the captain and his neck is always first on the line and on the choping block what with a demanding public always baying for his blood

...also, BCCI and the public, are the two plates of the mill in which a captain is pressurized...!