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Trimming Tendulkar to size...

Today... Saturday, June 28... the national cricket selectors are meeting in Calcutta, under the aegis of outgoing BCCI secretary Jagmohan Dalmiya, to pick the captain and 25 probables for the upcoming Asia Cup and the subsequent two-Test, three ODI series to follow against Sri Lanka.

Besides the five-member selection committee and, of course, Dalmiya himself, the meeting will be attended by coach Madan Lal. One seat, however, will be vacant - and that is the one normally occupied by the captain of the Indian team.

"Since Sachin Tendulkar's captaincy record is on review, it was decided to spare him embarassment," says a BCCI official. "That is why he has not been called for this meeting."

Dalmiya confirms this. "Tendulkar had been appointed captain till the end of the Caribbean tour, and his tenure was extended just for the Independence Cup, as that was the last tournament of the season and there was no point in reviewing the question of captaincy at that stage. Now the question of who should lead the side is wide open again," the president-elect of the International Cricket Council says.

"Basically, the selectors will be analysing his performance as captain, especially in South Africa and the Caribbean, and considering whether or no to grant him an extension," a BCCI official says, in explanation of why Tendulkar is in Bombay while the national squad is being picked in Calcutta.

Very, very interesting. Simply because the selectors have, for some strange reason, suddenly departed from the norm.

First up, no one is denying that it would be embarassing - and improper - for Tendulkar to sit in at a meeting where his own performance is being reviewed. So no quarrels there.

What intrigues me, though, is that Tendulkar - or, assuming he is removed from the captaincy which, frankly, is totally unlikely - will not be part of the meeting that selects the 25 probables for the 10 day coaching camp in Bangalore beginning July 1.

Normally, when selectors have to first decide on the captain and then pick the side, this is how they go about it. On the first day, they meet in the morning to review the record of the existing captain, and take a decision on whether or no to continue with him, or to look for a replacement. Having decided who is to captain the side, they immediately call up the designate and ask him to fly down, so he can be present at the meeting to pick the team - which is held the next day, in order to enable the captain to be part of the exercise.

This, incidentally, was the case a year ago, when Mohammad Azharuddin was axed. The national selectors met in Calcutta, took the decision to sack Azhar, decided on Tendulkar as his successor, called him in Bombay that same evening and had him fly over to Calcutta early next morning, to join the selectors in picking the Indian squad to Sri Lanka.

So why has this practise been abandoned in this instance?

Official responses are not forthcoming. The only response we did get was "procedural problems". Just that, no elaboration.

But the suspicion lingers: is this part of an attempt, by the national selectors, to clip Sachin Tendulkar's wings? Are the selectors, in effect, telling Sachin that if he doesn't keep a low profile, he could be sacked?

Increasingly, that is how it all looks.

First point to keep in mind is that the selectors - in this case, chairman of the selection committee Ramakant Desai - went out of his way to inform the media that Tendulkar's captaincy was under review, and that he would not be part of the selection meeting.

The second point to keep in mind is that if Tendulkar's tenure as captain was really in doubt, Jagmohan Dalmiya was hardly likely to nominate him for the upcoming meeting of Test captains, scheduled for July 11 at Lord's under the aegis of the ICC - in fact, a meeting that Dalmiya himself will be chairing.

So what prompts this move on the part of the selectors? I suspect that this is their way of hitting back at Tendulkar for some recent remarks by the Indian captain.

The first incident occured during the meeting of the selectors to pick the team for the South Africa tour. Tendulkar, who was part of that meeting, made certain suggestions, some recommendations, asked for a couple of players who he thought would be useful on that tour (interestingly, one of the names Tendulkar suggested was that of none other than Abey Kuruvilla).

The selectors ignored his recommendations completely, and went ahead with their own choices. At which, in the middle of the meeting, Tendulkar burst out: "If you don't want to listen to me, then why call me for the meeting? This is a farce!"

Much to the embarassment of the selection committee, the incident was leaked to the media - not by either Tendulkar or Madan Lal, but by a BCCI official with a grudge against one of the selectors.

Till this point in time, Tendulkar had been pretty much the blue-eyed boy of the selectors and BCCI officials. Polite, respectful, calling everyone and his uncle 'Sir' and most importantly, never uttering in public any word critical of the teams selected by the committee for various tournaments. And then this.

A short while thereafter, Tendulkar went on to blot his copybook even further, when the team to tour the Caribbean was announced. At the post-selection press meet, the Indian skipper went out of his way to inform the media that he had asked for at least 17 players, preferably 18, in order to give himself more options through a long and potentially arduous tour and, further, that he had specifically requested the selection committee to provide him with an off-spinner, given that the West Indies lineup was composed predominantly of left-handers.

In both instances, the upshot was that the national selectors were seriously embarassed.

And so, first chance they got, they appear to be paying Tendulkar back in the same coin. By stating publicly that his captaincy is under review, the selectors are aiming to bring pressure on the Indian skipper, to tell him that talking out of turn does not pay, that crossing the selection committee pays even less...

And to put the lid on it, BCCI officials speaking under conditions of anonymity have told a Bombay-based tabloid this morning that there is a probability of Mohammad Azharuddin being asked to take back the reins of captaincy.

Frankly, I haven't heard anything as stupid even from this bunch of... no, not "jokers", that is Mohinder Amarnath's epithet... erudite gentlemen, let's say. I mean, less than a month ago Azhar is dropped from the team for lack of form and commitment - and today, he is back in contention not just for a berth in the side but as captain? Come on, tell me the other one.

Very obviously, the move by the selection committee is intended to achieve certain pre-planned results. One, it serves warning on Tendulkar by unsubtly hinting that he can be sacked. The question all along had been, if not Tendulkar, who? Now the selectors are saying, why not Azhar again?

What is even more interesting, though, is that Tendulkar has lost no time to strike right back. Today, even as the national selection committee assembled in Calcutta, the Times of India's sports page is dominated by a very lengthy article spread over four columns, analysing the performance of the Indian team during the period of Tendulkar's captaincy.

The author? Sachin Tendulkar himself!

Writing under the aegis of the Professional Management Group (surely it is mere coincidence that Sunil Gavaskar is the moving spirit behind that outfit), Tendulkar reviews the one off Test against Australia, the home and away series against South Africa and the tour of the Caribbean in meticulous detail.

The whole column was put together in a little over 24 hours. As late as Thursday, Tendulkar had not even considered turning columnist, as per sources in the PMG office. By Saturday, he has signed on with PMG, and produced this long, involved piece.

The main points? One, that senior players of the order of Srikkanth, Ravi Shastri, Manoj Prabhakar, Kapil Dev, Kiran More et al, who were around when Tendulkar started his international career in 1989, have now departed from the scene and that too other experienced players, Navjot Sidhu and Sanjay Manjrekar, have been in and out of the national side for one reason or other. Further, that in the past one year alone, the likes of Rahul Dravid, Saurav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, Abey Kuruvilla, Dodda Ganesh, David Johnson, Vikram Rathore, and many others all made their debuts

The point Tendulkar is obviously driving at is that he is at the head of a young, mostly inexperienced, side.

Another interesting portion of the piece relates to the first Test, at Ahmedabad, against the visiting South Africans. Tendulkar talks of how, when victory seemed to be within the grasp of the visitors, he brought back Javagal Srinath into the attack and that move did the trick, the visitors collapsing from 65 for four to 105 all out. "In his interview after the match, skipper Hansie Cronje was generous enough to compliment me on my captaincy, and confessed that his team was not mentally prepared for the move," Tendulkar says in his signed article.

The Indian captain has gone on to make points that need not be reiterated at length here: the fact that his side did not get any practise at all in South Africa before being caught out on the "fastest wicket I have ever played on". That when Srinath dropped out at the start of the Caribbean tour, he was left with just two experienced bowlers in Kumble and Prasad and that given this, the Indian team did not do badly at all on that tour.

It all winds down to one central point. Underlining the fact that Sri Lanka's top six are all hugely experienced players, that the Lankan selectors persisted with players like Jayasuriya even when their form was none too good and that this was the reason why Lanka turned it around and became the powerhouse it now is, Tendulkar says at the very end of his article: "We too are at the beginning of our efforts to build a young team of talented players. Let us continue."

It is, as I pointed out earlier, a long analysis. It is also a masterly performance, as it undercuts almost every single question that can be raised against him. And the timing - bang in the morning of the day the selectors are meeting to "review his captaincy" - is as sweet as that of one of his trademark straight drives.

Of course, it is the merest coincidence that it is all happening under the aegis of Gavaskar's PMG.

Politics, it would seem, has suddenly taken centre stage. And when that happens, it is inevitable that cricket takes the back seat, right?