INDIAN CAPTAIN & HIS (ir)RATIONAL NEED TO BOWL FIRST: 80s & 90s
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
This quote is widely misattributed to skirt-chasing, wife-cheating genius Albert Einstein. This is one of those profound statements that really gives weight to the adage "It matters not who said but what is being said.".
Ever since Kapil's Devils massively upset the mighty West Indies on the 8th anniversary of Indira Gandhi's announcement of Emergency, India has had a great run in multi-nation tournaments. India won the World Championship of Cricket, held to commemorate 150th anniversary of White Settlement in the Australian state of Victoria, in comprehensive fashion. In the 5 matches, the now Sunil's Superstars took 49 out of a possible 50 wickets conceding more than 200 just once. They chased in 4 matches and never lost more than 4 wickets to ace them.
They have also reached the semifinals of the World Cup 6 times out of 9, winning it for a 2nd time after 28 years. This made them the first "true" hosts to win the World Cup. Australia are the only team to have reached the final four more times than India in this time period. India have been excellent in the ICC Knockout/Champions Trophy as well. Los Hombres en Azul have won the tournament most times (2), joint with Australia, and no team has reached the final (4) more times than them. It is undeniable that, for all its lows, Indian cricket is the most successful sport in the last 40 years.
Having said all that, it is also irrefutable that India are terrible chasers in general and dreadful ones in big matches. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the Indian captain's predilection is to bowl after winning the toss. It's as if the umpire/match referee asks, "Would you like to bowl or would you like to field?" and the nervous skipper chooses the former because B is ahead of F in the alphabetical order. What is even more problematic is that almost all of India's full time skippers refuse to learn from their predecessors' mistakes. They are like those loser gamblers who sit in front of slot machines with their 20 oz soda cups filled with coins. "I'll be a millionaire with this next coin."
So without further ado, let's take a look at what each of our leaders did.
KAPIL DEV
Cricket in the subcontinent was fun in the 80s. Captaincy was a hot potato on either side of thār desert. Imran-Javed on the east. Kapil-Sunil on the west. Both played on the proverbial faultline of cricket. The Lahore-Karachi rivalry in Pakistan and the North Zone-West Zone rivalry in India. By the time the Reliance World Cup rolled on, it was Kapil Dev's turn on the hot seat. India began the tournament with a classic choke that would make even South Africa blush. Chasing 270, India were 187/2 in 32 overs. Billy McDermott ripped out the middle order and yet India needed 15 off 24 with 4 wickets in hand. The defending champions managed to lose by 1 run.
The home side managed to put the disappointment away and absolutely tore through the tournament winning the remaining matches in comprehensive fashion. The coup de grâce being the utter evisceration of New Zealand in RSS HQ. Later on Srikkanth mentioned in an interview that before going out to bat Gavaskar told him, "Come what may, I'll score faster than you today." He eventually got to his only ODI 100 off just 87 balls. This also ensured Australia would have to travel across the border to play the semis and India would play at home in front of the raucous Wankhede crowd.
Kapil called correctly and invited England to bat. The former rulers began slowly but once Gatting joined Gooch they upped the ante and added 117 in just 19 overs. The kept sweeping the spinners and a flustered Kapil never made any adjustments to the field. Still 255 was not beyond the powerful Indian batting lineup that batted up to number 10. India were in a spot of bother at 73/3 but Azharuddin kept the home team in the hunt with Chandrakant Pandit, Kapil Dev & Ravi Shastri making quickfire contributions. India needed 51 to win in 54 balls with 5 wickets in hand. Azhar as always looked pretty and Shastri was his usual gutsy self. In another choke that would make South Africa proud, the hosts lost 5/15 in 27 balls.
Had India managed to somehow scrape through and (fingers crossed) beat Australia for a 2nd time, it would have catapulted them into the most elite territory. They would have won 3 major titles out of 3 and who knows, this quasi-great escape would have given them the mental strength and belief to come out of any difficult situation. We could have maybe even completely avoided the mental block against our arch-rivals. Alas, it was not to be.
MOHAMMAD FIXERAZHARUDDIN
1996
India's greatest cricketer lost his job after the Wankhede fiasco. The job went to Dilip "Colonel" Vengsarkar. He was on his purplest of purple patches. He was ranked the best batsman in the world by the nascent computer based rankings. He began in great fashion scoring a 7 hour 102 against West Indies on captaincy debut and another 100 in that same series. However captaincy became a burden and he lost his job after India were annihilated by West Indies in 1989 losing 8 matches out of 9.
The job then went to Srikkanth for India's tour of Pakistan. India did a commendable job by drawing all 4 tests and competing very well in the a weather affected ODI series. However, selectors dropped him for his batting failures. There were also rumours that he was removed to scuttle player power. Azharuddin was the most apposite choice after the CEG alumnus. India were sub par for most of his tenure. Friday humiliations in Sharjah became an annual occurrence under him.
Nevertheless, he held on to the job for the Wills World Cup. India finished 3rd in the group behind Sri Lanka and Australia. The ease with which the Southern Islanders chased a (then) humongous total of 271 created massive doubts in his mind. The 3rd place meant a QF clash with the arch-rivals in the garden city of Bangalore. Pakistan were slight favourites but India were given a massive advantage when Wasim Akram dropped out injured. 9th March 1996 ended up being one of the most glorious days in Indian limited overs history. Jadeja's late assault on Waqar converted a 250 target to 288. India survived an Anwar-Sohail blitzkrieg (84/0 in 10 overs) followed by the most unforgettable send off in cricket history: Venkatesh Prasad to Sohail.
In front of a frenzied Eden Gardens crowd, Azhar called correctly and sent Sri Lanka in. The earlier match was on his mind and he didn't want to expose what was India's weaker suit. But he forgot that this was a day/night match. Srinath removed Kaluwitharana & Jayasuriya with just 1 run on the board and an already mad crowd went absolutely bonkers. Aravinda De Silva played one of the great counterattacking innings before falling to Kumble. Steady contributions from the middle order set India a target of 252.
Sidhu fell early but Tendulkar and Manjrekar batted so comfortably that it seemed like India would go across the border for the first time in almost 7 years. Tendulkar especially looked masterful and made things look utterly easy. With the team score on 98, an alert Kaluwitharana pounced on a microsecond of carelessness from Tendulkar and stumped him. He had scored 2/3rds (65) of the team score. A pitch that looked so comfortable for batting suddenly became a snake pit. Jayasuriya ripped through the Indian middle order and at 120/8 the crowd couldn't take it and started throwing stuff on to the field. Clive Lloyd gave the match to Sri Lanka.
1999
India weren't in the most confident of moods before the start of 1999 World Cup. In the opener, India set South Africa a tricky target of 254. The match was on the knife's edge when Zulu broke free and hit Allrounder Agarkar for 4 fours in an over and finished the job with ease. Disaster struck before the 2nd match against Zimbabwe. Tendulkar's beloved father passed away and he left for India. A very good Zimbabwe side set India 253 to win. India huffed & puffed but eventually put themselves in a position where they needed 7 runs to win in 11 balls with 3 wickets in hand. Guess what happened? You know how this goes. India lost 3 wickets in 5 balls to lose by 3 runs.
With teams carrying over points to new Super Six stage for defeating fellow qualifiers, India effectively had to win 7 matches in a row to win the World Cup. SRT returned and scored an emotional 100 vs Kenya. Dada-Wall eviscerated Sri Lanka with the 1st ever 300 run partnership in ODI history. In a win & you're in situation, India set England 233 to win. The Poms were 3 down for 70 odd when rain stopped play. Early next day, the Pakistani namesake of Shabana Azmi's husband, gave one of the most egregious LBWs in cricket history in favour of India and England never recovered from it. After looking dead and buried, India avoided the ignominy of exiting in the group stages.
India and their equivalent in the other group: Australia opened the newly created Super Six stage at England's most favourable batting wicket of The Oval. Both teams needed to win every S6 match to have even half-a-chance of reaching the semis. Azhar won the toss and chose *drumroll* to BOWL! Junior & Church gave them a great platform adding almost 100 runs in 20 overs. The Aussies kept the scoreboard ticking and plundered nearly 80 runs in the last 10 overs. This looks even worse when we consider the fact that Srinath's figures in this period were 4-1-17-0. He bowled a maiden over at the death!
India needed a massive start to even hope to have sniff of reaching 283. They did exactly that except it was in Bizarro fashion. McGrath ripped out the Indian top order with a spell of 4-1-8-3. Jadeja-Robin Singh did what Jadeja-Robin Singh did and India were finished for all intents and purposes. They did score a very very emotional win over Pakistan at Old Trafford thereby beating the Ol' Enemy 3 times out of 3 at the World Cup but were mathematically eliminated when the Kiwis won the last S6 match.
The previous millennium ended thusly. The current one began in spectacular fashion. Spectacularly bad I mean. India were thumped 3-0 in Australia, suffering their first whitewash in almost 26 years. The annual tri-series was even worse. Australia was one of the rarest of rare countries where India were undefeated (3-0) against Pakistan. At the end of it, India barely managed to hold on to the head to head (4-3) advantage. The team's morale was in the pits as they returned home. South Africa became the 1st team to defeat India in India for 13 years. It was also the first time ever that India were swept at home albeit in a 2-test series.
Tendulkar was emotionally wrecked and he resigned from captaincy for the second and final time. India salvaged some pride in the ODI series by winning it 3-2 under Saurav Ganguly. But this was positively Utopia compared to what was to come. A Match-Fixing Scandal erupted and an already wrecked Indian cricket community became apoplectic. Match-fixing was always in the rumours since the 80s but this single piece of evidence validated all claims of match-fixing since the early days of Sharjah cricket. Every big superstar from Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Tendulkar were accused of taking bribes. Azhar & Jadeja were banned for life. Things could not have been worse.
There was light at the end of the tunnel though. The 2nd Golden Generation of Indian cricketers born between 1978-82 were blood. The 1st Golden Generation of Indian cricketers born between 1969-74 were entering their primes. Under Ganguly, India began to finally not just compete but win away from home. Did this new generation learn from their "ancestors"? We'll see.
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