Friday, September 14, 2007
Let's hope it's for real
Don't know if Rahul Dravid's resignation is for real - remember he also offered to quit after the World Cup flop? Anyway, I appreciate his tacit admission of his failings as a captain. The trouble is that the replacement may be worse, because the board has shown poor judgement so far in selection of coaches and captains. MS Dhoni I can't really comment about, because I have yet to see his captaincy, but my gut feeling is that he won't make a good captain. I would be only too happy to be proved wrong, because I really like him as a player. Yuvraj does not seem to have the board's backing, although in attitude and street-smartness I feel he's the best of the young brigade. Tendulkar will be a disaster. Ganguly has shown tremendous application and determination to make a comeback, and he did have success as a captain until his own game fell apart, but to go back to him would perhaps be too controversial and therefore divisive. Zaheer, don't know, but his tantrums are a little childish. My own preference would be for young blood, and that means Yuvraj if Dhoni seems unable to cope during the T20. It seems beyond doubt that India will advance to the next round, so that should give us enough opportunity to see Dhoni's captaincy. I kind of like the idea of an Indian cricket team led by either Dhoni or Yuvraj. They have an in-your-face attitude which I liked about Ganguly, and which is totally lacking in Dravid.
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7 comments:
I have a feeling it will be Dhoni. Just hope he isn't a choker and ends up an unproductive player.
Yuvraj is stuck. The two bright stars of youthful India...no three...Kaif, Sodhi first (since under-15 Lombard's World Cup), and later Yuvraj (since under-19 WC) were touched by ill-luck, poor judgement and mishandling.
Either India should have persisted with them (remember Kaif being dropped after the SA tour of India?), or they should have delayed their entry, or should have put them through their paces after discovering their flaws rather than make them warm benches as 12th man or 13th man in the senior dressing room. They didn't help themselves at times. Ended up becoming Hassan Raza's (the Pak skipper in U-15 and U-19 events) of India. Unless Yuvraj can command a place in the test team on performance, don't know if he'll have the authority to command himslef.
i hear it's going to be tendulkar, and that completes the maharashtra clique. bad times for indian cricket.
I agree, Soulberry, Kaif is as much a victim of bad man-management as his inability to grab his opportunities. At one point, I used to firmly believe that Mohd. Kaif would have made a great India captain. He is currently captaining India A.
I think we're in for a spell of split captaincy, and I think it'll be Dhoni (ODIs and T20) and Sachin. But I think the general trend is towards Dhoni becoming captain of the Test side too, by the end of 2008.
Sachin becoming captain is not a bad thing in itself. I don't know enough about this supposed "Maharashtra clique" to comment on it. He will most certainly have the support of everyone in the team. And given that he hasn't captained the side since 1999, no commentator is in a position to say predict anything based on his previous stint. However, to burden the ageing batsman with captaincy will definitely hasten his retirement.
i think BCCI should think out of box and appoint Sehwag as captain for TESTs and ODIs...
before everybody jumps on me saying that he is not even certainty in both form of game...hold on
the talent he posses was never i doubt it was his approach which was faulted and that's why he is not in team...
giving him the job would make him more responsible and committed...
whenever he has donned the cap he always seemed very relaxed...focused and thats what we want now...
now have your say
Also, I don't think that an "in-your-face attitude" by itself is very valuable. It needs to be combined with cricketing nous, and an ability to command a certain place in the team: and Dhoni and Yuvi are just getting there. And now that Jaffer and Karthik have done pretty well, Sehwag will need to muscle his way into the Test middle order if he needs a place, and I doubt he has sone enough to replace the guy who everyone seems to think can be replaced at a whim: VVS Laxman.
To be captain of a Test Side, you need to have a permenant place in the team. If that is an acceptable and realistic prerequisite for everyone on this forum then the choices aren't too many. Certainly one can think "out side the box" and appoint someone who does not meet this prerequisites but such bold decisions are usually made when decision making involves at most a very few close knit group who think alike and ideally by individuals. To expext a "committe" to make such bold decisions is futile; unless Sharad Pawar instructs the "committe" to appoint a specific captain.
I don't think any decision will be good or bad; it will simply reveal the mindset of the selectors. Sachin's appointment will indicate that the selectors need time to identify the next captain and I alomost think the Vice Captain will then be a more important choice
i think dhoni will flop as captain, and i have argued why in a later post. i think sachin has been poor in his stints as captain because of an inherent inability to allow the others to relax and play their game and such traits are not easily changed. sehwag has to first figure out his own game and he's not going to be able to do that at the top of the order. i think it's too early to write off yuvraj and he can't be worse than the other options. purely on merit one should go back to ganguly now that his batting is back on track, but we know that won't happen with all the water that has gone under the bridge. lest i be accused of a bong bias, let me clarify that the sacking of ganguly was one of the few moves by chappell that i liked, and it helped him to resurrect his game. (perhaps everyone should be given a break to freshen up their game.) i also never considered ganguly a good tactician - he also failed to enforce a followon at sydney, and he also routinely did the wrong thing after winning a toss. but he's better than sachin and dravid, and probably dhoni and yuvraj too. maybe we should just make dhoni the captain in both forms of the game, and get him a good coach, because he has shown that he is a faithful follower - he has already repeated all of dravid's recent mistakes...
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