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Indian Captains of
Cricket (1932-2006)
Barely weeks after a dream start as the skipper, the pitch has already become bumpy for Dhoni. Indeed, strange are the ways of fate as well as Indian cricket. Less than a year after the 1983 World Cup triumph, Kapil Dev had to hand over the reins to Sunil Gavaskar. In late 1984, he was shockingly dropped from the team for the Kolkata Test against England. The reason: he had played an "irresponsible" shot in the previous match at Delhi, which India lost. Our cricketing history is replete with instances where captaincy has proved to be a "crown of thorns" for top players. Veteran sports journalist KR Wadhwaney’s book chronicles the chequered careers of various Indian captains, beginning with CK Nayudu, who led the team in its first-ever Test in 1932 at Lord’s. Prophetically, the country’s first cricket skipper was appointed under bizarre circumstances. The original choice was none other than the Maharaja of Patiala, but he withdrew citing "state duties". The Maharaja of Porbandar and Prince Gyanashyamsinhji of Limbdi, too, pulled out for one reason or the other, thus handing the mantle to Nayudu — who should have got it in the first place! India had to wait for almost 20 years to taste their first Test victory. The team which beat England at Chennai in 1952 was led by Vijay Hazare, one of the finest batsmen the country has produced. Incidentally, this proved to be his sole Test win (of the 14 matches in which he was at the helm, India lost five and drew eight). Hazare’s captaincy record — and that of Sachin Tendulkar as well — amply demonstrates that great cricketers do not always make great leaders. It’s a striking coincidence that India’s two longest-serving captains — Mohammad Azharuddin and Sourav Ganguly — have also been the most successful and the most controversial. No wonder their pen portraits make interesting reading, especially the parts about the match-fixing scandal and the Sourav-Greg Chappell confrontation. Coming from a man who knows Indian cricket inside out, this is a well-researched book peppered with incisive and candid comments. It’s inordinate length, however, is a big drawback. The author should have focused on the players’ tenures as captain rather than elaborately detailing their entire careers. Quite inexplicably, only two paragraphs are devoted to Kapil’s landmark feat of winning the World Cup, which ranks among India’s greatest sporting achievements of all time. The compilation is in need of better editing and proof-reading (on page 332, Tendulkar’s year of birth is wrongly mentioned as 1978 instead of 1973). Warts and all, it’s a worthwhile ride on a roller-coaster called Indian cricket.
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Cricket
is said to be a game of glorious uncertainties. In Indian cricket, there
are uncertainties galore, though very few of them can be called
glorious. This year alone, several tumultuous events have happened that
virtually nobody could have predicted — Team India’s premature exit
from the ODI World Cup, the launch of ICL and IPL, Rahul Dravid’s
decision to quit captaincy, Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s elevation to the
hot seat, and above all, the historic victory in the Twenty20 World Cup.