SachinTendulkar is Vice-Captain again…….

He first led India on 28th August 1996 in Sri Lanka. He was vice-captain since 1994. 12 years later, he is back as vice-captain of the side. This is a move which has led to plenty of speculation. Tendulkar’s reintroduction into the core team management is being viewed as a comment on Rahul Dravid’s performance as captain. The thinking is, that should Rahul Dravid not do too well against West Indies and Sri Lanka before the World Cup, then at some point, Sachin Tendulkar will be asked to take over the job.

This is quite typical of the press. In my view, Tendulkar’s appointment as Vice Captain is merely a continuation of the “look forward to the past” policy of the current selection committee, headed by Dilip Vengsarkar. If you consider all the selections of this committee – the recall of VVS Laxman for the final ODI in South Africa, the recall of Sourav Ganguly, the selection of Wasim Jaffer to the ODI side in South Africa, the recall of Anil Kumble, the preference to Zaheer Khan (in my opinion a failed selection in SA) and now finally, the appointment of Tendulkar as Dravid’s deputy; all these decision indicate a change in direction, from the forward looking, youth policy of the More committee. The judgement of the committee seems to be (based on second season blues faced by a number of the young turks who fashioned India’s most successful ODI season ever), that the new crop of players are just not good enough to replace the tried and tested senior pros. The thinking in a nutshell seems to be, that even if Sourav Ganguly has not been at his best for a long time now, and even though he has problems with the short ball, which in turn affect the rest of his batting technique, and even if VVS Laxman has well known fitness issues thanks to his injured knee, these two are still better than the Suresh Raina’s and Venugopal Rao’s.

There is merit to this line of thinking – Raina was probably found out to an extent against quicker, shorter bowling. His footwork especially to a goodish length outside offstump has been found wanting. If Raina has indeed been found out this early in his career, it makes sense for him to be left out. Similar arguments can be made about other players – either due to a decline in their own form, or due to the fact that they may have been found out.

The selection of Tendulkar as vice-captain suggests that there is nobody in the side among those who began playing in this decade, who is considered good enough to be captain in the near future. Rahul Dravid’s captaincy is not under any threat from Tendulkar’s appointment. Tendulkar becoming captain again may not be such a bad idea though. He was only 27 when he quit the captaincy. At this late stage in his career, when he clearly looks like he wants another challenge, captaincy might just be the thing for him.

For now though, Rahul Dravid is firmly in the saddle. India go into the world cup with the two most prolific Test batsmen of all time (no two batsmen have scored more runs playing in the same Test team) at the helm. Giving Tendulkar that extra responsibility is probably the best thing that could happen to him. Motivation has been in his problem in the last 2-3 years in my view, along with injury. For very long, Tendulkar was the Indian batting line up, once that ceased to be the case, his batting lost its edge, much like Gavaskar’s did in the mid-eighties.

But he is no threat to Dravid, and i don’t think the decision is intended that way.

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