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India's non-playing captain

V Ramnarayan

February 22, 2002

Sourav Ganguly is a puzzled man. He does not know why India loses the crucial matches. By his own generous admission, he would have won more such matches for India if he knew the problem. Our satellite channels faithfully telecast the Indian captain's wonderfully humble attempt at self-analysis, as if to acquit him of all charges of repeated failures as captain and player.

The selectors must be pretty sanguine that the forthcoming Zimbabwe series will not tax the Indian players' technique or temperament unduly. One neat series win later, all will be forgotten and forgiven in the euphoria of victory, they seem to be reassuring themselves, to offer the least offensive explanation of their penchant for the status quo.

To be fair to him, though, the Prince of Calcutta was a little more forthcoming than that. He wondered aloud if inexperience was the root cause of India's continued inability to win matches, even against Nasser Hussain's scratch combination - though they were made to look like world beaters in India - under home conditions, with the help of incompetent umpires whose mistakes came in handy when the hosts were down. He was a trifle disappointed - and he said this with the appropriate expression of condescending indulgence towards the newcomers in the Indian eleven - that, after he had brought the side to the threshold of victory in the final one-dayer, the rest of the batting simply folded.

There was, thus, no hint of regret that he had thrown his wicket away playing a loose, even arrogant lap-shot instead of staying at the wicket until victory was achieved. How smug and selfsatisfied he looked, absolving himself of all guilt while putting his younger teammates on the mat! The selectors too seem equally smug.

Ganguly had not done badly, actually, according to chairman of selectors Chandu Borde. After all, he had won the Test series and drawn the one-day rubber against England. The captain's almost total capitulation as a batsman, especially in Test match cricket, does not seem to have worried him unduly.

Not too long ago, there was some much-publicised rhetoric by the BCCI president declaring that those in charge of Indian cricket would be held accountable for the results they produced. In hindsight, it seems to have been no more than an attempt to get rid of John Wright and Andrew Leipus, the unwanted 'foreigners.' The captain, in contrast, seems to be immune from any such requirement. After all, was it not suggested by many, just prior to his sensational return to Test cricket in 1996, that Ganguly was Jagmohan Dalmiya's boy?

But Indian cricket has a way of making fools of everyone. For all we know, an Andy-Flower-inspired Zimbabwe could still spring a surprise or two, and by the end of the series, the selectors could face pretty much the same situation as they face today. And once again, they will decide to let sleeping dogs lie and play it safe with the selection of the captain and the team for the West Indies tour.