The Offside
The captain and the team management should have the final word on team
selection.
Look at it this way, if Sourav Ganguly leads India to a defeat in a
Test match, who takes the maximum blame for it? Naturally, it is the
captain. The media are quick to jump on any tactical errors made by
the captain, who is always under the microscope. If a series is lost,
then the first thing that comes to mind is the question, 'should the
captain be sacked?' When the onus is so severely on the captain to
produce results, surely, he must be given the team he wants, in order
to produce the results.
There is an old adage that goes, 'A captain is only as good as his
team.' Results from various different countries, and indeed different
tours, suggest that this is true. A captain can be magnificent when he
has confidence in his players and the team pulls together as one. In
the recently concluded second Test at Kandy, Harvinder Singh bowled
just 23.3 overs of a total of 145 over bowled. Clearly, that implies
that Ganguly was not entirely comfortable with the way the Railways
mediumpacer performed, and hence underbowled him. This meant that the
captain had to bowl himself, perhaps a touch more than he would have
liked.
Another vital component in this matter is the input of the coach.
After the players, John Wright is the man closest to the action.
Having taken up the challenging job as coach of the Indian team,
Wright deserves to be given the resources he considers best to deliver
the goods. On wickets in Sri Lanka that offered some assistance to the
mediumpacers, the Indian team management asked that Ajit Agarkar be
sent as a replacement for the injured Javagal Srinath. Having
understood the conditions in Sri Lanka and the need for a bowler with
genuine pace, the team management turned to the board only to be
rejected.
This means that they now go into the final Test with the knowledge
that they are playing a mediumpacer who they would have rather left
out. That is no way to begin a deciding Test match. It’s a situation
that could have easily been avoided, if the team management had the
final word when it came to team selection.
The Onside
The board and the selectors should have the final word on team
selection.
It is not the job of the captain or the coach to select teams. What
they must do, is go out and play. When it comes to picking the team
there are five men, eminently qualified for the job, appointed by the
board specifically for this purpose, making up a committee. With one
representative from each zone, there is a fair chance that the
selection committee will come up with reasonable unbiased choices at
the end of the day.
If the captain was given a free hand in selection, he would certainly
pick players who he was most comfortable with. In that lies the
serious danger that he could pick them for all the wrong reasons. The
captain might choose a player who came from the same state as himself,
or a player who endorsed a certain product… More than anything else,
this leaves room for a lot of unhealthy speculation in the media. When
this begins, the captain is under further pressure and performance
suffers as a result.
Out on tour, there should be nothing that distracts a captain and his
coach from their task - bringing the team together and forging a
winning unit. Their primary job is the energy draining and time
consuming one of winning matches. Anything that draws attention away
from this must be viewed as a distraction, and team selection is one
such thing.
In the current set up, the captain and the coach are free to give
their suggestions to the board and the selectors. The selectors and
board officials then consider the various factors involved before they
take a decision. That is certainly the best way to operate.
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