Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Need of hour :-)

There is always a distinct charm in an inning when a captain leads from front, takes all load on his shoulders and wins the game for his mates.

Stephen Flemming has done this many times, in fact he scored all his 8 hundreds while chasing.
Ponting/Waugh, Smith, Jayasuriya/Jayawardhane, Lara, Inzy have done this at some amazing consistency.

But in comparison, India never had one such leader, to some extent Kapil was only one in Indian History. (At least at some stage of his career, he led either by bowl or bat)

-- Under Kapil, either Vengsarkar/Azhar were mainstay of batting line-up,
-- Under Azhar, mostly Manjrekar was the main guy, later on Sachin took over forever.
-- Under Ganguly,Sehwag florished and Dravid established himself as THE WALL.
-- And now under Dravid, Yuvraj shows some glimpses of his potential.

Captains performance/form plays a huge role on the morale of a team, only a successful captain(with bat or ball) can infuse positive energy in his team, think of positive impact Ponting have on his team, likes of Clark/Symonds/Hodge/Hogg/Watson have now clearly become a better player rather than bright prospect.

On the other hand, imagine the plight of a dressing room where captain himself is struggling with his form/technique, in that frame of mind he cannot trust himself or fully trust some other guy to deliver, all that shows up in tactics in field, his bowling changes or field placements. A reluctance in approach of affairs becomes quite evident and has adverse affect on fortunes of the team.

Being captain of Indian side is not easiest of jobs, agreed, there is a hell lot of factors involved, maintaining good relations with BCCI bosses and with media are the foremost.
After all it’s the media hype which leads to public frenzy.

I feel it’s high time, BCCI decides for separate teams for ODIs and Test matches and of course with separate captains.