Captain's Curse

Like Blackbeard's ghost it hangs across the wild blue yonder that is captaincy. Waiting for in every pavilion. Haunting you at every step. Forcing you look within. Look around. Look everywhere. Escape from reality. Shoot your mouth off. Bask in the reflected glory of outstanding individual performances. And other such delusional nightmares. Fortunately the man that you are, you'll be the first to know that. It's not for nothing we were so for you to be captain of India.

For some, your candid admission that your mind was elsewhere came across as a refreshingly positive and inward looking approach to failure. I was a, reluctant, one of them. But we fear for you dear captain. The first signs of the 'Captain's Curse' are making their presence felt. But our faith in you remains undiminished. We know you have it in you to be the captain this team needs. We know, hope, the reports we hear from reliable sources are only aberrations brought by…let's put it your way, your mind being elsewhere. Goes without saying almost very adverse, no, every adverse, report we hear about you pain us. Reports about your personal life. Reports about inward strife. Reports about 'perceived' brusqueness and arrogance towards teammates. Perhaps none of that is true. And yet, few individuals have mastered the vagaries of the captain's curse. Men of greatness. Men with incredible strength of character. Men with an innate and burning passion for the game. For success. For India. And men who have, despite their remarkably endowed selves, have fallen prey in one painful way or the other to captain's curse.

They say Indian cricket is starved of heroes. I say, we say, Indian cricket is starved of a truly outstanding captain.

Indian cricket has superstars aplenty. Men whose deeds I daren't go into. Indian cricket has talent. Indian cricket has passion. Indian cricket has a future. Indian cricket has always, more or less, had all that. But Indian cricket has never had a captain of truly world stature. Besides, of course, the 'C' word: consistency. Which, in my/our view, has almost everything to do with the fact that Indian cricket has, like has been said ad nauseum here, not had a great captain.

People may say Tiger Pataudi was world class.

Sure?

Well, maybe.

Next? A few might, albeit hesitantly, put forward the great Sunny Gavaskar.

Small man. Big heart. Great batsman. Seriously flawed captain. Too defensive to be anywhere close to great.

Next?

Ajit Wadekar.

Flash in the pan.

Azza.

What can I say... but of course, lucky.

Kapil.

Next? (Sorry, but then most people in these parts know am not a great fan of Kapil's.)

Time out here to also plead guilty for not having watched nor read much about the older generation. The names mentioned are the names I have a fairer degree of familiarity with. But, this I will say, my gut feel says we're still searching for that great captain.

Next?

Sourav Ganguly.

Now that's a name that could stop a thought.

But before all that. Beware of onset of misfortunes like the 'suddenly lost' art of batsmanship. The utterly humbling inability to play the likes of Warne and bowlers whom you would have murdered were you even close to the powerhouse spin smasher you were in the not so recent past. But now, umm... thanks to the curse, your mind is a heady cocktail of personal foibles, professional burdens and knee jerk responses. A condition you will have to dig deep to rescue and rediscover the man Indian cricket so desperately needs. The captain who will set the standard for cricket thought. Illustrate, in real life and India colours, the joys of cheering a squad led by the best leader in world cricket. Something tells us you have it in you to be that person. But...

Ok, let this not turn into a sermon. Cut to conclusion: Sourav, greatness beckons. You have just led your side and a gazillion people through some of the most joyful moments they will ever experience in their lives. And you, of all people, don't need to be told, which is precisely why we're not, that what has just been achieved is not great. It is potent. A most potent form of the curse. The spell of incredible, unbelievable, unreal, unimagined success.

Souravda, now is the time to show us how wrong we are in criticizing you. How foolish we are to think you would let us down so easily and so soon. How unreasonable it is of us to forget that you are only human. How unforgivable of us to expect you to fill every minute of your time burdened with our greed for success. So show them. Show us. And show up all this, and other more disturbing kinds, of petty talk about McGrath taking the Mickey out of you with the 'friend' bit. Play us some of sweet music. Enough talk Sourav. It's show time. (And high time too.)

We know you want no further inanities like this. We also know when to stop. Umm, just one more thing…beware the Captain's Curse. Let's play.

Avinash Subramaniam

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