A Tale of Captaincy—Prospective and Retrospective

“Paradoxically, to be fun, cricket must be serious.”—Christopher Martin-Jenkins

“Captaincy is 10 per cent skill and 90 per cent luck, but don’t try it without the 10 per cent.”—Richie Benaud 

The Boxing Day Test at the MCG to some extent validated my previous piece which had this ending: “Rahane is a wonderful captain and he now has the opportunity to show what he did in securing a win against Australia in Dhramshala. If he can retain the Border-Gavaskar trophy, then apart from removing Shastri the selectors will also have a pleasant headache in terms of choices for the Indian captain.”

This was a prospective statement as it was made around 3 pm the day before the Boxing Day Test—even after the debacle of 36 not out, there was no problem saying this about Rahane’s captaincy as the one evidence in Dhramshala to win a hard-fought series against Australia was enough. The idea has been with me since then and there just wasn’t a window to address it in writing. The 36 at Adelaide and Kohli’s return to India on paternity leave gave me the opportunity.    

I ended the piece saying that this is a great opportunity for Rahane to retain the Border-Gavaskar trophy and of course that is not news as who am I? The news was that “spin legend Shane Warne believes Australia will ‘blow away’ India in the Boxing Day Test as the visitors are still a ‘bit shocked’ by the Adelaide humiliation.”  The expert problem. We are shown by a class of expert-busting researchers such as Paul Meehl and Robyn Dawes that the “expert” is the closest thing to a fraud, performing no better than a computer using a single metric, their intuition getting in the way and blinding them. [As an example of a computer using a single metric, the ratio of liquid assets to debt fares better than the majority of credit analysts.] On the other hand, there is abundant literature showing that many people can beat computers thanks to their intuition. Which one is correct?

One can always go wrong in sporting predictions, the only area where I think forecasting is not a problem as there is no skin in the game—it leads to no damaging problems unlike the ones in many social areas where the problem of forecasting is endemic.

We cannot truly plan, because we do not understand the future—but this is not necessarily a bad news. We could plan while bearing in mind such limitations. It just takes guts. That is the 10% that Rahane has and the luck follows as we saw with the catches going to the fielders, none of them being dropped in contrast to the first game, the bowling changes working, and all the replacements contributing. 

Ian Chappell didn’t waste a day to say that India is lucky to have Rahane when India won the match and the Test series 2-1 in Dhramshala. The momentum after the brilliant fightback in Ranchi, for which a lot of Kohli’s decisions on the last day were critisised, was with the Australians and the series was 1-1 and Rahane had his first match as a captain with Kohli injured. He picked five bowlers and the unconventional selection turned the match in India’s favour.     

A first innings fight ensured that both sides were in the game and then India made quick work of Australia and had to chase just 106 for a series win. Murali Vijay and Pujara fell for 8 and 0 with India at 46 for 2 when Rahane walked in at the end of the 14^th over and that was the moment to show intent and he walked the talk. The remaining 60 runs came in 59 balls with Rahane blasting 38 of 27 balls with four fours and two sixes.   Ranchi led to criticism of Kohli and Dhramshala led to heaps of praise for Rahane but the mass media misses nuance and more so these days when whatever trends on Twitter is news. How netizens respond is going to be a major big beat in journalism if it isn’t already.

His decision to pick the XI for MCG was also criticised as former players argued that after 36 all out the thinking should have been to bolster the batting rather than having one more bowler. Selection decisions are extremely complicated even in normal circumstances and imagine how difficult they would be when the best batsman in the world in Virat Kohli [Kane Williamson at par] is unavailable and your nose has been rubbed to the ground. The elements that inform the choice in selection are not obvious, you need a subliminal intelligence that is working in the background. And the rules governing the choice are extremely delicate and they have to be felt rather than formulated. All the replacements worked and India were on the attack from the moment they went in to field after losing the toss.

I have been discussing [although I haven’t written] with my friends for a few years now that Rahane is a much better captain than Kohli but the decision to make him the Test captain is extremely complicated because of the personality of Virat Kohli. It wasn’t that much of an issue with Tendulkar. Tendulkar was the captain of the Indian Test team for just 25 matches in two distinct stints out of the 200 Tests he played. The batting average is almost the same—just a little bit more when he has not been the captain. The devil lies in the details as a large majority of the spectacular performances, the big hundreds, the dominating hundreds, the crucial bowling spells have come when he was not the captain. The fielding was always as safe as you can get—and he was versatile and could field in the slips, at long-off or long-on, and I haven’t seen a better pair of hands at third-man. The comforting factor for him was that whether he was the captain or not the captain he was always special and was viewed as one and he was always in on the decision-making with the team looking up to him for the better part of his career.                   

Kohli is by far the best batsman in the team—and by far I mean really by far—and he’s got the skills for all formats and he loves the challenge as a batsman. The problem is that Kohli feeds on himself and from his aggression and if a change in captaincy leads to a dip in his performance as a batsman or in his confidence as a cricketer then it defeats the purpose and the decision should not even be contemplated. There is no doubt that Rahane has a more astute cricketing brain in getting performances out of his teammates. A calm captain leads to the players giving their best and it shows a lot in fielding as your nerves are calm. Under too much aggression the nerves get frayed and players are worried about dropping a catch rather than being eager and confident of contributing more than they are capable of. Kohli is also brilliant as a fielder and I have no idea about the inner dynamics of how the players feel or respond under him. On selection I can say that he and Shastri have got it wrong a lot of times. In January 2018 in South Africa, we had to chase 208 to win in Cape Town. We conceded a lead of 77 runs when we were bowled out for 209 in the first innings [SA: 286]. We bowled them out for 130 with Bumrah removing Faf du Plessis and de Kock in successive overs and claiming de Villiers as the last wicket in his debut match. India’s best overseas batsman Rahane was warming the bench. We collapsed for 130. We lost at Centurion as well and brought Rahane for the final Test. On a minefield of a wicket, Rahane made an attacking 48 in the second innings and took India past 200 with the bowlers as companions and we set them 241 to win and got them for 177. The selection issues in the England tour can be addressed some other time.   

I stayed away from commenting on Kohli’s decision to come back from Australia although in my view he should have stayed. My reasons though are completely different from the one given by former cricketer Dilip Doshi, who said that he should have stayed as it is national duty and nothing comes before national duty. That for me is bollocks. The reason is what former South African cricketer Mark Boucher once said about himself: “I play for my mates in the dressing room.” Your teammates travel, practice, lose, win, and go through the ups and downs of the game with you and if you have any obligation then it is to them.             

Sydney is going to be a very engaging contest as the Australians have their brilliant attack intact. Starc, Cummins, and Hazelwood are exceptional and very different from each other and Lyon is a good spinner. David Warner is back and would open with the highly anticipated debutant Will Pucovski. Matthew Wade would return to his preferred position in the middle order. If that is the line-up, the batting unit looks a bit less fragile.

India would be concerned about their bowling attack. Their first choice attack had one man in Ishant Sharma down before the series, they lost the second man in the first choice attack in Shami after the first Test and they have now lost an experienced first replacement in Umesh Yadav after the second. So Bumrah would be accompanied by two bowlers who have the experience of 1 Test between them—Saini is most likely going to play his debut Test. Marshaling one debutant in the pace attack is tough but marshaling two is going to be a massive challenge for Rahane. Fingers crossed on how this goes. There is good news on the batting front as Rohit Sharma comes in for Agarwal. The problem is that Sharma doesn’t have a good overseas record and whatever he has is not as an opener. He has never opened away from home. Would Rahane take the gamble to open with Pujara? Or will it be as he said that they have a Plan A, a Plan B, and a Plan C? Can he spring a surprise to begin with a Plan D? He’s not lost a Test as a captain as yet and it would take some doing to keep it that way.