August 9, 1999

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Tendulkar finally returns as captain. But a timid team and an inefficient system means his job will be twice as tough.

By Rohit Brijnath

Figures can lie. These do not. In the '90s, the Indian cricket team has played 10 one-day tournaments abroad (where a minimum of four teams participated) and has won just two. A 20 per cent success rate.

In the '90s, India has played 14 Test series abroad and has won just one of them, that too in Sri Lanka. A 7 per cent success rate.

For a nation obsessed with cricket, it is pitiful that no Indian team has ever dominated the world. Question is, has excellence eluded us or have we never pursued it? As Raj Singh Dungarpur, president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) sighs: "It saddens me, but doesn't surprise me. We lack a high level of physical fitness, we lack consistency and we lack mental toughness."

It is to this environment that Sachin Tendulkar returns for his second stint as captain of India.

He began with controversy. Not over his selection, for as a selector says, "It was time to look to the future and he was the only choice." It was Tendulkar's disappearance for a few days that mystified. Would he accept the captaincy (he subsequently did) was the question, linked to speculation that he had laid down conditions -- that Mohammed Azharuddin should not be in his team was one rumour -- for his acceptance.

Some believed his unwillingness was intertwined with his father's death, that he was just not mentally ready. Others like Ravi Shastri saw a connection between his reluctance and "how he was treated last time as captain". Tendulkar then was not given the team he desired and inexplicably even instructed where he should bat. Says Shastri: "How can two guys on that selection committee (Sambaran Banerjee and Kishen Rungta) who have never played for India know what pressure is? How can they tell the world's best batsman where to bat?" Once, reportedly, Tendulkar left a selection meeting in a white fury after his suggestions were dismissed, but as a confidant of his says, "He was too young then to fight with them." Now, with more reasonable men like Madan Lal as selector, Tendulkar's voice should carry further. Says a selector: "He can't just say I want this, he will have to convince us, but we will support him."

So, was Tendulkar's initial silence then a ploy, a reminder that he would assume leadership only on his own terms? As Dungarpur, BCCI Secretary J.Y. Lele and chairman of selectors Ajit Wadekar searched for Tendulkar, his confidant laughed, "He's cracked the whip already, he's made them jump for 24 hours. I think he has started on the right track."

Tendulkar has his players' respect as batsman -- "In the book, not in the book, he'll make any shot," said Ajay Jadeja last year -- but as captain some are unconvinced. He will be aggressive in contrast to Azharuddin's passiveness, yet presumably his early exuberance -- chatting with bowlers after every delivery -- will be tempered. Also, gently suggested one of his strike bowlers once, "I think everything came too easy for him, so he expected the same thing of the other guys. Fact is, from his early days, when the team was announced his name would be pencilled in first, while we were just hoping to get into the XI. So he hasn't undergone some things."

Yet it is felt in Tendulkar's close circle that in 1996-97 he did not receive the total support of certain players, that when India lost the Barbados Test in the West Indies after they failed to make the 120 runs required to win he returned to his room and wept. This time he promises to be different. Says his confidant: "He has a ruthless streak people haven't seen. They might see it now."

Primarily, Tendulkar will need to focus on his batting, for invariably statistical discussions will centre on how his captaincy affects his batting. It is instructional that he told India Today once, "As captain I couldn't give too much time to my own batting, I was always thinking about my teammates."

Secondly, he must bind a fragile, unfocused unit into a combative force. As former cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar says, "Often all 11 players don't go in wanting to win, some have self doubts because we've lost so many times abroad." In Mumbai, at Dilip Vengsarkar's ELF Academy, 14-15 year-olds are lectured to by an mba on decision-making and team-building -- perhaps he should be borrowed by Tendulkar. It is a shame too that Bobby Simpson mentioned to a player during the World Cup, "It seems in this team it's not your talent but how well you are liked which counts." All these the new captain must fix.

For all his enlightenment, unless Indian officialdom decides to embrace cricket's contemporary grammar, Tendulkar will be rendered impotent. He is after all playing captain of a system that lacks direction. As Manjrekar says: "Other teams know where they want to go, we don't." A member of India's entourage adds: "What do we want to achieve? Our major objective should be Australia in the winter and we should think which players do we need, what will it take to win? Instead we are going on to play mindless one-day tournaments." If Tendulkar isn't involved in designing India's itinerary in its pursuit of excellence, it would be ludicrous.

After all, as Dungarpur bravely admits, "We are a few years behind the Australians and South Africans." Try 20 years. The West thrives on academies -- the BCCI is still planning one. As Bishan Bedi laughs, "In the whole of India the BCCI can't find a plot of land?" Forget that Australia's Commonwealth Bank Cricket Academy in Adelaide has a running coach, throwing coach, masseur, swimming coach (for conditioning and rehabilitation), psychologist, physiotherapist and a doctor; forget that if a bowler requires a review of his action, high-speed cameras will provide it; forget that if Sadagopan Ramesh wants to learn to move his feet against pace he has nowhere to go here, but Mathew Hayden and Mathew Elliot attend the academy's Spin Week to sort out their footwork. What is vital, says academy boss Rodney Marsh, is that "the national selectors, looking at the short-term and long-term goals will choose players to bring to the academy". If Australia lacks fast bowlers, then fast bowlers go to the academy. Tendulkar's India needs a wicket-keeper, Test openers, allrounders, another spinner, but as usual we've left it to prayer.

Marsh is not finished. The Australians don't just constantly redefine their fitness, they polish the minor aspects of their game. For instance, they undergo a release time test -- to measure how long it takes a player stationed 20 yards away to field a ball and send it back over the stumps. What is fascinating is Marsh's admission that "it is not the board but the individual player's coach or state coaches who send them to be tested". In contrast, says Dungarpur, "Some associations in India don't even have coaches." Captains in India, alas even Tendulkar on occasion, have been quiet about demanding the back-ups vital to modern cricket. If Tendulkar stays silent, he will possess a team of incomplete players.

There is much to be done, but Indian cricket and Tendulkar have one fine advantage. Things can't get worse.

We have been told repeatedly that he, gifted of course, is destined to be a daring and imaginative captain. A man made by the gods just for cricket. As Jadeja mentioned last year, "I don't think there's a bigger cricketing brain born in India than SachinTendulkar." Six months from now we will know whether we were lied to.

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