Miscellaneous

The Sisyphus factor

Saddled with poor resources and unreal expectations, the Indian captain bears an unbearable burden. He needs sympathy, not censure. By Suresh Menon

Suresh Menon
Suresh Menon
11-Nov-2005
The Indian cricket captain has the second most difficult job in the country (if it is accepted that the Prime Minister has the most difficult one). The working hours are usually filled with intrigue, there is no promise of tenure, there are no guarantees. One bad series, or in some cases one poor Test, might be the last one. Every match is a trial, every colleague a potential threat, and calamity is usually just round the corner if personal form is poor. Running through all this - like a live wire awaiting a victim - are the unreal public expectations that most captains find impossible to live up to.
There is no question of grooming someone for captaincy. In recent years, two men have been groomed: Ravi Shastri and Sachin Tendulkar. The former led in just one Test (which India won), and the latter gave up, disgusted with some or all of the above.
Those who forget their history are condemned to repeat it. And nobody forgets their history faster than Indian spectators. Till Tiger Pataudi took over the reins ("and we played like an Indian team for the first time," according to a later captain, Bishan Bedi), players were still dealing with a generation which grew up in British India, and were yet to get over the colonial hangover. To them, Lord's was the Mecca of cricket, and the Englishman could do no wrong. That is why, when Sunil Gavaskar (who was born after Independence) declared he was unimpressed by Lord's, he had half the country coming down on him. It was considered sacrilege.
If there was a Self-Respect Movement in Indian cricket, it began under Tiger Pataudi, the Nawab, and was carried forward by Ajit Wadekar, the middle-class Bombay banker who led India to series victories in the West Indies and England in a single year, 1971. Gavaskar, who played a key role in that Movement, came from the middle class too. If Gavaskar's mantra as captain was not victory so much as avoidance of defeat (he drew 30 of his 47 Tests), Bedi was the first modern Indian captain who was an allrounder - a leader on and off the field, approachable, communicative, and a `guru' to the youngsters in the side. It helped that he was one of the greatest left-arm spinners of all time.
And yet, through all this runs a discrepancy. Gavaskar played 125 Tests, but led in only 47, Kapil Dev played 131, led in 34 and played in 43 after his last Test as captain; Bedi played 67, led in 22. Why didn't they lead more? Their place in the side was never in doubt; they were consistent, world-class performers; they were inspirational, and had the intelligence and the instinct to be leaders. It is not enough to say that the Indian captaincy is a crown of thorns and lto eave it at that. Bedi understood part of the problem when he said, "It is difficult to keep a losing side together." And a captain's success depends on the selection committee too. "Selectors must be men of stature with whom you can talk cricket intelligently. But they tend to be politicians, and if you are not part of their game, you suffer," he says.
Both Kapil and Bedi were victims of the Pakistan syndrome. Bedi led India in Pakistan in 1978-79, when cricket relations between the two countries were resumed after 18 years. India lost the series, and Bedi his job. Eight years later, India under Kapil drew four Tests with Pakistan before the visitors clinched the series with a win at Bangalore. That was enough; Kapil Dev never led India again. With the selectors regularly pointing to the chopping block, captains were made to feel so insecure that team-building was seldom part of their plans.
Even a player of Sachin Tendulkar's calibre could not get the team he wanted; lesser mortals simply have to compromise. Tiger Pataudi usually got the 12 he wanted, and was willing to accommodate "this one's nephew and that one's brother-in-law" in the 15 in order to have his team. Bedi realised that the captain had a strong say in the selection process only after he became a selector. "In case of a stalemate, the captain's wishes must be accommodated - this was kept a secret when I was leading," he says.
The Indian captain has to be all things to all people. Within a team which easily divides itself along regional lines, conscious efforts have to be made to ensure that the Punjabi and the Mumbai man become friends. And when the captain is seen to be taking sides, as he often is, he tends to lose the respect of his men. Then there is the question of handling youngsters. Sourav Ganguly had to wait five years to make his debut because of Mohammed Azharuddin's aversion to the `Prince of Calcutta'. Likewise, Vinod Kambli was unfortunate not to have a captain who understood him and accepted him as being different.
A cricket team, as Mike Brearley has pointed out, functions by dint of difference. The problem with a `middle-class' team was that it was wary of anyone who came from outside this group. Ganguly and Kambli have represented the two ends of the scale in recent years, and contrary to expectations, it was Ganguly who overcame opposition and made a career for himself.
Language has been a problem, although these days most players do speak English or a delightful version of pidgin Hindi. Yet recent discoveries, like Harbhajan Singh, have emerged from an India that is not middle-class or convent-educated; one that has its own ways of handling fame and pressure. A captain who tries to force homogeneity on the team is bound to fail; he has to accept those who are different. This has been one of Ganguly's strengths. Whatever his public image, he has emerged as a players' captain, willing to stand up for the youngsters in the team.
Sometimes there is the problem of waiting for too long before making someone captain. Dilip Vengsarkar, for example, should never have led India when he did. He was so badly handled by the selectors that he had become inwardly focussed. A world-class batsman, he was constantly told he could not take his place in the side for granted - something he knew from experience when he was dropped after making a 90 in a Test in Antigua. For too long he had been forced to think about himself. Now, suddenly, he had to think for 10 others in the team, and he found he could not make the adjustment.
But things have improved considerably since the days when there was much profit to be had in visiting toilets and in being tardy. There are still officials in Chennai who will tell you the story of how the Indian captaincy was conferred on Vinoo Mankad when he was in the toilet. That was in 1958-59 against the West Indies when India had four captains in five Tests. When Mankad withdrew from the following Test, it was decided to appoint G S Ramchand. But Ramchand left the hotel early, the official sent to give him the message missed him and Hemu Adhikari, who was still around, was made captain.
Certainly there was drama in how Vijay Merchant's casting vote eliminated Tiger Pataudi and made Wadekar captain; and in the fact of each of half a dozen senior players preparing themselves to lead on the morning of a Test against the West Indies in Delhi. But there is something to be said for the more sober methods adopted these days.
Of all the things the Indian captain has to deal with, national expectation is perhaps the most vicious. This malady did not exist till the 70s when India first won Tests in the West Indies, England and Australia. The tag of world champions bestowed on the team by a grateful media which had had so little to enthuse over, was probably India's undoing. They won three Tests in New Zealand under Tiger Pataudi in 1967-68, but the fans were intelligent enough to realise that this was against mediocre opposition. This sense of proportion has, however, steadily begun oozing out of the public consciousness as increasing numbers of reporters have begun to accompany Indian teams abroad, setting expectations at an impossibly high level in the process.
Winning the World Cup in 1983 added to the malaise. Not only were India now capable of winning, they ought to be winning, felt an adoring public. In the 80s, live television brought international cricket into drawing rooms, creating more armchair critics than the population of Australia and the UK combined. By the end of the decade, even matches from the West Indies were being shown, and cricket changed from being a game played across 22 yards to one played across 22 inches of the television screen.
With the proliferation of one-day matches, it became impossible to tell where India were playing from one day to the next. Television eliminated geography, and with it, history too. If you won last month, went the argument, why are you struggling now? This failed to consider that last month you might have been playing the UAE in Sharjah while now it might be Australia in Australia. Middle-classness had converted itself into true classlessness for the television audience.
With the opening up of the economy in the early 90s, cricket became the most convenient vehicle for consumerism. Its unique nature - a team game where individual performances counted whether you won or lost - made it perfect for marketing. If you had to sell a product it helped if you tied it in with a cricketer. Tendulkar signed a contract that ran into millions of dollars, making him the richest player in the world. The post-Independence generation had passed, and the one that had taken its place wanted to do what its predecessors baulked at. It wanted to live well, dress well, eat well and buy well. Consumerism was riding on the back of individual aspirations.
The Indian official who read the signs first was Jagmohan Dalmiya. There was money in the game and Asia was to be its economic centre. The 1996 World Cup would best be described as the Consumer World Cup, with Olympics-style contracts and multinational corporations galore. Doordarshan, which had in the 80s refused to pay for coverage, was pushed aside by private channels willing to pay for the privilege.
Clever marketing raised national expectations further. Somehow the two best teams, Sri Lanka and Australia, came through to the final, but by then the telling picture of Indian cricket was one of a weeping Kambli coming off the field at Calcutta. A nation, lured into believing it had the best team in the world, watched in stunned silence as Sri Lanka took the game away from them.
Four years later it was worse, if anything. This time the World Cup was in England, but the action was in India, as Indian companies poured huge money into campaigns once again. Commerce and nationalism had never combined like this before.
Tell the Indian spectator today that his team is just not good enough, and he will laugh at you. Hasn't he seen Tendulkar hit the scoreboard with his sponsored bat? Hasn't he seen Ganguly ride off in his two-wheeler or Dravid chew the right biscuit? With so much happening on television, the line between reality and fantasy does not exist.
The Indian captain, tossed between selectors, officials, politicians, marketing whizkids and finally the public, deserves more sympathy than censure. He is part of a tamasha, and has learned to accept the good and the bad philosophically. The temporary nature of his job never leaves his consciousness.
Indian captains know they will be insulted when the team fails and praised beyond measure when it wins. The best ones have had betel juice spat at them in Calcutta, chappals thrown at them in Mumbai, and stones thrown at their loved ones at home.
The second most difficult job in the country will remain that way till public perception changes. It is a commentary on our times that success is measured only in terms of victory and defeat; there is no thought to long-term team-building. No captain is allowed the luxury to think he can move out of the here-and-now and plan for the future. Our system encourages self-interest. The ones who break away are seen as getting "too big for their boots" and cut down to size. And that's why our best players didn't lead India as often as they might have.

Suresh Menon is contributing editor, the Hindu