Craze, Hype & cricket |
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Thursday April 17, 12:19 AM
Bangalore, April 16: The clock is ticking for the much-hyped start of the inaugural Indian Premier League here on Friday, and the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium bears the Vijay Mallya stamp all over it. The off-field hype is nearing hysteria levels, a stage has sprouted where the statuesque cheerleaders of National Basketball Association team the Washington Wizards will strut their stuff and ticket sales have been brisk. Cricket, quite clearly, for the moment, has taken the back seat.
That, however, stands to change come Friday evening when the Bangalore Royal Challengers run into the Kolkata Knight Riders. And as a fascinating sub-plot, it will pit India’s last two ODI captains — before Mahendra Singh Dhoni took centrestage — against each other. Twenty20 cricket may not be the ideal platform to display leadership skills, but this one is special in that Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly the Boys in Blue led in such astonishingly different fashion.
In fact, up and down the list of eight teams this will be a recurrent theme — Virender Sehwag versus Venkatasai Laxman, Yuvraj Singh versus Sachin Tendulkar, etc, etc. In terms of personality type, only one clash will bring together two very similar characters — Shane Warne of the Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings’ Dhoni, ebullient personalities both, and great man-motivators.
That, however, is for later. The focus for now is on the studied Dravid and the emotional Ganguly. Neither has played T20 cricket yet, so in a sense, they start all square. As India skippers in one-day internationals too, little separates their records. Dravid led India in 79 games, winning 42 of those. Ganguly did so 147 times and of which he won 76. And the task this time round is very different. Instead of leading a homogenous (if an India side can be called so) outfit, they will be tasked with heading a vastly disparate bunch — international stars, domestic big names, juniors and relative unknowns.
It is a very different sort of a challenge. One where cricket acumen will be called into question as much as man-managerial skills. Adding fizz to the mix is the fact that there are just 40 overs — 20 each with ball and bat — to get it all going in the correct direction 14 times in all, seven at home and seven away. Quick learning will be the name of the game and at least for now, how the two will adapt is up in the air.
So, what can one expect when the Royal Challengers and the Knight Riders walk out on Friday evening? The seat-of-the-pants approach of a Ganguly or the more thoughtful style favoured by his successor? India’s only T20 captain in Dhoni has said often enough that he goes by his instincts. For him it has quite clearly worked, for there are at times suggestions of the inspired in some of the choices he has made as a leader. Is that then, the template for T20 captaincy? Or is it the more reasoned, calculated approach that Dravid will most likely adopt the better way? An interesting dilemma, this.
Ganguly’s great skill lay in getting his team to first believe in him and his style, and then translating that into action on the field. To this day, there are a few who made the grade under his wings who swear by him for he is the sort of leader who inspires loyalty, and thereby performance. Towards the end of his captaincy, when the runs had dried up and the pressure of the job was exerting its unique pressure, it was this trait that kept the side going.
Dravid, on the other hand, was more in the Tendulkar mould as a captain — convinced in his mind that his troops had taken the hard steps to make it to India colours and therefore knew what was expected of them in the field.
That feeling of aloofness never really went away even though towards the end there were signs that Dravid was making an attempt to change. And unlike Tendulkar, who remained completely focused on his own game, Dravid did try and bridge the gap, and in his case, the jury remains out as he cut short his stay in the hot seat quite abruptly.
In 24 hours, however, the clock will be turned back. And whether it is the gut-feel style of "Dada" or the cool-cool way of "The Wall" that will work the better will unfold over the 22 yards that really matter.
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