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Sachin should succeed

Tomorrow, India's national cricket selectors will meet to negotiate their path from a position that can be best described as 'square one'.

In 1989-90, Krishnamachari Srikkanth leads an Indian team into an arduous tour of Pakistan, returns with honours even - an extremely creditable performance if not an extraordinary one, and then takes up cudgels with the BCCI on his players' behalf. Surprisingly, he gets dropped to make way for the most unlikely man for captaincy - Mohammad Azharuddin, the last man given to challenging higher authority.

In 1998, February, Sachin Tendulkar, dissatisfied and hounded by his whimsical selectors, finishes leading his side through an exhausting season, losing fractionally more than what he wins saddled with a team, devoid of a steady nucleus, a star bowler, and inadequate personnel - a healthy performance by a young, learning skipper. Shockingly, he's removed, and India's selectors choose the easiest option - pushing Azharuddin into the captain's role again in a stop-gap attempt.

Maybe, it's just a bad case of déjà vu.

First up, Mohammad Azharuddin was one of the most wonderful things to have graced Indian cricket since the mid-eighties. Supple wrists, beautiful timing, deft strokes, the softest hands at slip and the most heartening alacrity at point. Let him be left that way - a lovely memory, not a suspicious, threatened sulky man, constantly looking over his shoulder. It's time for the Hyderabadi to be put out to pasture, let him not be dragged through such dishonour.

Sachin Tendulkar, throughout his career, has shown a remarkable quality that helps demarcate the champions from the lesser mortals - his ability to learn from his lessons - quickly. He has demonstrated this time and time again, on different tours.

The Pakistanis thought they had him sorted out in the inaugural Sahara Cup, bowling just a little short and wide outside off stump to him - with a brace of short points waiting for the slash square. Tendulkar bit the bait in every game, but was reeled in only once - the first occasion. In every game after that, the cover points found the same square cut being played a fraction late, so that the ball whizzed by them, instead of to them.

Then, there's the story of Fanie DeVilliers - the Protean bowler who had Tendulkar in a quandary over his slower ball in the Titan Cup in 1996. But when the crunch final game came around - Tendulkar was ready, and when the slower ball was bowled, he tucked it away for a single and whilst running past an outsmarted DeVilliers standing mid pitch on his follow through, cheekily reparteed to his foe - "Not today, Fanie."

In his last tenure, the selectors constantly gave him the wrong players - shipping off Noel David to the West Indies even when Tendulkar had asked for Kanwaljit Singh to replace the broken Srinath. Consequently, David - a flattish, quick offie, more suited to the shorter version, didn't earn the skipper's confidence well enough to get even a single Test. And, all the while, Kanwaljit Singh, rumoured at that time to be one of the best exponents of the off-spinner's loop in the country, cooled his heels whilst two left handers (Brian Lara and Shiv Chanderpaul) plundered the Indians for runs in the Test matches.

There was even that occasion where Tendulkar apparently stormed out of a selectorial meeting, fuming at the selectors' lack of respect for what he thought were the interests of the team he skippered.

Sachin Tendulkar has probably spent the last year-and-a half learning and re-learning his lessons from his first tenure as skipper to near perfection. This time around, one doubts if he is going to be 'anyone's patsy'.

Tendulkar knows what his name can command. Advertisers refer to him as India's biggest brand - a national icon that can sell the mud scraped off someone's boots as long as he endorses it. If reappointed as captain, Tendulkar will probably be waiting for a selector to try and protect his regional interests and championing the cause of a player that doesn't fit into the team's plans - and then, if he walks out of a selectorial meeting again, there'll be a lot more dust kicked up than last time - a cult following of 978 million people will have to be contended with.

The BCCI is an organisation that is extremely adept at sniffing out any threats to its power, and then muzzling it quickly (cases in point - the knee jerk reactions to Robin Singh's post World Cup comments and Ganguly's article in a Bengali daily) .Which is, maybe, one reason why the BCCI will think hard before handing back the skipper's mantle to the batting genius, because the Tendulkar legend has grown manifold since 1997 December - and even a small public whisper of discontent from him will be more audible than anything Jaywant Lele can thunder in defence of his board.

The Indian team is an embarrassment of riches, and it puzzles the neutral observer no end to see these riches being squandered through mismanagement, lack of communication and a strange, underlying disunity. As Kapil Dev retorted - "This team needs a Hitler to lead it." One wonders how Nazi discipline would go down with the team, but what it undoubtedly needs is a man who can command respect from all his quarters, lay into his charges for not fulfilling their responsibilities, and above all - play and lead with his heart on his sleeve.

Tendulkar, is probably the only man who fulfills all three requirements - he's the side's most outstanding performer and will thus lead by example. He will become, with Mohammad Azharuddin's departure - the team's senior most player, and he has never done anything onfield that has compromised on the respect his mates have for him.

Genius has it inevitable trappings. A man of Tendulkar's lofty abilities will always find it hard to relate to the failings of less gifted individuals in the side. Inevitably, personnel morale will fall, and the blind inspiration that Tendulkar can provide might not prove to be an adequate elixir at all times. This is where Ajay Jadeja comes into the picture. Blessed with superb communication skills, and from what he has demonstrated - the ability to empathize with his mates in order to bring out the best in them, Jadeja will be the perfect right hand man for Tendulkar.

In the best interests of Indian cricket, these two should ensure that they forge an effective partnership between themselves as quickly as possible - one based on communication and implicit trust and understanding.

The Indian selectors have interfered once with the natural path of Indian cricket in February '98. It's time for them to return the crown to the rightful owner… and then let history do its thing.