Sachin Tendulkar, a man who led his team to many wins with his bat, left many critics in awe and his gave his fans countless moments of joy. In 1996, when a successor for India's then most successful captain Mohammad Azharuddin was to be finalized, selectors had an easy decision to make however, everything seemed come crashing down when India's blue eyed boy fell short of ideas during his reign as captain between 1996-97 to 1999-2000.
There was never a question about his batting ability. He was still winning matches for India as a batsman but he was not able to lead the side as a skipper. Azharuddin famously told to have said in 1997 "Nahin jeetega! Chote ki naseeb main jeet nahin hai!", which translates into: "He won't win! It's not in the small one's destiny!" Tendulkar did not have eye to catch a player for the team. He pleaded the selectors to give Nilesh Kulkarni a place in the team when he was skipper just by looking at the lanky spinner's record without checking ground reality of the spinner being past by his best by date and expectedly so it backfired horribly. Tendulkar the batsman however, even in the twilight of his career was able to pick the best bats in perfect order when his Mumbai Indians team mates Kieron Pollard and Dwayne Bravo decided to test his knowledge. Perhaps he was not born to a be leader.
 |
| Virat needs to learn the tricks of the leadership while Dhoni is still there © Getty Images |
The current captain of India, Virat Kohli is at a similar position to Sachin Tendulkar back in the day; being called as one of the best by the critics leaving them in awe of his batting. When he led the side in ODI series against England at home earlier this month, he had an unbeaten record to go side by his name but it has not been an easy road so far for him. Virat could be seen clueless at times and overreactive with his field placements more often than not and Indian fans were quick to point out as this was something they are not used to seeing it with Mahendra Singh Dhoni as captain for the best part of a decade. Some even said that his fielded is not at the level once it used to be ever since he has been named as skipper in all three formats. Chances are that he might be overthinking about the proceedings on the field. After all, he has not think about not himself but entire team at all times.
It is not that Virat does not know how to lead a side. He led the Indian team to win the U-19 World Cup in Malaysia back in 2008. He just needs to learn few things about captaincy. Luckily for Virat he still has the luxury to take guidance from Dhoni about the captainship and take a leaf out of it. It will not be an easy task though since their style of captaincy are vastly different but with experience he will gain control over it. Virat for once certainly seems to have an eye of a leader with him giving a nod to players like Kedar Jadhav, Karun Nair and Jayant Yadav who have performed great so far.
At the moment, he is doing the right thing by going to Dhoni in case he has any doubts and he is paying dividends of it as evident from the death overs of second T20I against England when Dhoni took charge while Virat did the right thing by standing back at long on. If Virat manages to get the calmness and the knowledge of Dhoni, he can take the team forward ahead even during difficult tours with great aplomb given he likes to set an example by himself for the team.
No comments:
Post a Comment