First of all, a heart felt thanks to one of the better cricketers one has seen for a long time. For declining the Test captaincy,
that he owned twice and fumbled as many times with. With the rumor mills assuming the act of sureties these days, one was certain that it would be Tendulkar who would assume the mantle.
And that was the disappointing aspect. I remember having this conversation with a friend, and a Tendulkar fan - one of those who believed that Tendulkar should be the next captain - about this very issue, and it had been difficult for me to digest that after two failures at the top, and at an age where the impending retirement has reared it''s ugly head time and again, Tendulkar still had the ''hunger'' to accept the
captaincy. Power hungry would have been a more suitable word. Thankfully, Tendulkar has vindicated my belief that he is beyond this. More sensible than most perceive him to be. Mumbai lobby or otherwise.
So who''s next in line? As one sees it, the race has boiled down to being a two legged one now. Anil Kumble or Mahendr Singh Dhoni. And although one cannot discount the selectors springing a surprise by getting in a VVS Laxman, the chances of that happening seem pretty low at the moment.
Especially, given the feeling that Laxman emanates in each inning is that he is playing for his place in the side.
Anil Kumble? The thing going for him is the fact that he looks supremely fit, no question marks about his form, and most importantly, has the respect of all the guys in the team. If there was one father figure in the team (an aggressive one at that!), it would have been Kumble, and with his becoming the captain, there wouldn''t be many people who would complain. Kumble himself had put his hat in the fray in a recent interview by saying that ''he would be honoured to lead the country if asked to''. What may just go against him is the burden of captaincy on his bowling. Without any disrespect to the man, statistics have proven that, more often than not, bowlers do not make for as effective captains, as batsmen do. And the reason is pretty logical. More often than not, the decision making capabilities of a captain come to the fore when the team is in the field. Which is where, a bowling captain may find it a little more difficult than a batting captain. Especially when the bowler is expected to be the front line bowler of one''s line up.
Dhoni makes for an interesting choice. A small town guy, not expected to make it to the team with Dinesh Karthick having virtually cemented his place in the team as an excellent choice behind the stumps, and with an expectation to be able to hold his bat. Suddenly, India goes to Nairobi for an ''A'' tour, and discovers a powerful Dhoni, with strength to destruct. Gets picked in the side, and the rest, as they say, is history. Today, he leads the One Day and the T20 team both, having led the team to a World Cup win. Must make him an automatic choice, isn''t it? Not quite, and again, not without reason. For starters, he is a wicket keeper, and as with bowling captains, it is a difficult job juggling both, captaincy and wicket keeping, and to be doing it in Test matches, may just not be as simple as one thinks. Second, Dhoni is India''s frontline batsman as well, and expecting him to bat well, keep for best of the five days, and skipper efficiently would probably be expecting too much. Thirdly, historically, Australia is not a place to experiment with one''s captains, especially with greenhorns. That Dhoni is a different kettle of fish when it comes to being thick skinned, is a different story altogether.
So what does one do? My personal solution to this would be to entrust the wicket keeping gloves to Dinesh Karthick, make him open the innings, and let Dhoni captain the side. Solves most of the problems, except, that of Karthick. Whether he would be able to manage the two roles, that of opening the ither question that behests the selectors.
But then, who said that selectors ever had an easy job?