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After sunset, the rise
Some retired cricket captains never really fade into a shadow. They think it’s their birth right to voice their opinion on selection matters and the retirement of senior cricketers. Their out-of-turn utterances often make the job of the senior selection committee members redundant. Often, their comments have brought many a premature end to a cricketer’s career. In recent years, two top players retired when former captains commented against their staying on.
When Anil Kumble was handed over the captaincy mantle of the Test team in 2007, he was into his 37th year, and well past his prime. Mahendra Singh Dhoni had already been given the reigns of the T20 and ODI teams. And Dhoni staked his claim for the Test captaincy, too, when he led the team to title-win in the inaugural T20 World Cup in South Africa. Dhoni was deemed to be a dynamic captain, under whom the teams could flourish in all the three formats of the game. Thus, pressure was piled on Kumble to step out, though what eventually triggered his exit was a comment made by a former captain, who, as chairman of the senior selection committee, was responsible for the elevation of Kumble to the top job. Though the captain’s cap came to him a few years too late, a grateful Kumble was thankful to the selectors that the job was given to him at all!
A few weeks ago, VVS Laxman also stepped down from international cricket when a former captain questioned his utility to the team. Laxman got the message, though the selectors had picked him for the two-Test series against New Zealand, and would have perhaps retained him for the upcoming series against England and Australia as well. But Laxman decided to take the call early, before he was booted out. Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid also quit when they could have continued for some more time, when former players started picking holes in their performances. Ganguly was unfairly treated by the cricket selection chairman of his time, and the BCCI secretary. The Prince of Bengal decided to call it a day rather than getting berated by former players and captains through their columns and media reactions, though when he exited, he blamed none.
Rahul Dravid surprised the selectors and the BCCI when he announced his retirement after a disastrous away series against England and Australia early this year, as he was getting regularly bowled out — the same situation Sachin Tendulkar finds himself now. These players quit when they had still some more cricket left in them, but there have been instances when players retired at their peak, and carried on beyond their usefulness. Sunil Gavaskar’s exit was the most memorable, as he announced his retirement after a brilliant knock on a death-mine of a track in Bangalore against Pakistan. He retired with a halo still around him, though another former captain, Kapil Dev, was given much leeway by Mohammad Azharuddin to enable him to break Richard Hadlee’s world record in wicket-taking. Kapil’s form had flagged long before that, as his pace had lost its sting, and he was going wicket-less series after series. But Azhar allowed Kapil to reach the milestone as the former captain’s contribution to Indian cricket was enormous — if not for anything else, but for that signature triumph of India’s maiden ODI World Cup title win in 1983. — MSU
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