Has the curse of captaincy claimed Dhoni too?

Everybody wants to wear the crown of thorns. At first, it feels nice, you feel powerful and in control.  Then as time passes, the skin breaks, the thorns bite into the flesh and the pain becomes unbearable. At that moment, you’d like nothing more than to take off the crown and throw it to the ground. Mahendra Singh Dhoni was often feted as a man who was unburdened by the past but now the past is striking back with a vengeance — it’s a past littered with instances of Indian captains being brought down by controversy or professional jealousy. Controversies surrounding captaincy in Indian cricket are not a recent phenomenon by any means. When the Indian team toured England in 1936 — Maharajkumar of Vizianagram, aka Vizzy, was named captain of a team that included several top-class players such as Vijay Merchant, Mushtaq Ali and CK Nayudu. Of course, the appointment had a lot to do with the Rs 50,000 that Vizzy had donated to the Indian Board to facilitate the tour. But even that tour was not without controversy as Lala Amarnath, one of India’s finest all-rounders, was sent home before the first Test on disciplinary grounds. Vizzy’s underhand divide-and-rule strategy didn’t go down well with the ‘seniors’ in the team either. [caption id=“attachment_221724” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Dhoni was often feted as a man who was unburdened by the past but now the past is striking back with a vengeance — it’s a past littered with instances of Indian captains being brought down by controversy or professional jealousy. Daniel Munoz/Reuters”] [/caption] It is said he offered Mushtaq Ali a gold watch to run out Merchant, while later Baqa Jilani reportedly won his only Test cap at The Oval because he insulted Nayudu at the breakfast table. And that was only the beginning. One well-known cricketer of the 50s, who didn’t want to be named for obvious reasons, once said that the dressing room was a ‘snakepit’ with some players openly conspiring to drop catches off one particular bowler so that he would be dropped. Then there was the case of BCCI appointing four captains for five Test matches against West Indies to keep the egos of several senior players in check. Polly Umrigar was captain for the first Test, he was replaced by Ghulam Ahmed for the second and third Tests, Vinoo Mankad took over for the fourth and by the time the fifth Test came along Hemu Adhikari was in charge. MAK Pataudi was made captain in his debut series. From the moment Pataudi took charge, Indian cricket became unpredictable, exciting, eventful, maddeningly inconsistent but never boring. There were big losses too but he always went for a win. He was larger than life. He was also a Nawab. Then in 1971, the Bombay group led by Vijay Merchant as chief selector showed Pataudi, India’s captain for 10 years, the door. Ajit Wadekar took over for a brief, bright tenure that saw India win in West Indies and England but he didn’t last very long. Wadekar and Bishen Singh Bedi once famously fought at the Indian High Commissioner’s party in London in 1974 while on tour. On that same tour, Bedi refused to bowl flat despite being asked to by Wadekar. The left-arm spinner ended up with figures of 6 for 226 and ego battle was out in the open. In 1974, Srinivas Venkatraghavan had the singular ignominy of being the 12th man, after leading the Indian side in just the previous match. And thereafter there was complete chaos. There were times when things got so bad between Bedi and Sunil Gavaskar that they did not even speak to each other for long periods. The Gavaskar-Kapil Dev divide that followed is now legendary for all the wrong reasons. When Mohd Azharuddin took over, it all seemed to be going fine on the surface. But then the allegations of match-fixing surfaced and we almost lost our faith in the game. Sourav Ganguly took over like a breath of fresh air – he was a bit like Pataudi. He wanted to change cricket and he wanted to be known as the man who changed it. And he pretty much succeeded for most part. By the time, coach John Wright left though the writing was on the wall – the team was starting to break apart. The power groups were in motion. Then came the controversy with coach Greg Chappell and a game of pool that had all the ingredients of a pot-boiler. Dravid’s tenure was filled with reports of in-fighting and Kumble was just a caretaker skipper – keeping the seat warm for Dhoni, who was already captaining the side in the shorter formats. So when Dhoni took over – no one knew what to expect. He wasn’t from the North bloc nor was he from Mumbai or South India. He stood alone and for that there was no precedent; there was no template. And for a while, he couldn’t put a foot wrong even if he tried. The fact that he seemed to be non-aligned seemed to galvanise the team to give their best. Pataudi, widely regarded as one of India’s finest captains, was once asked what special qualities a good captain should possess. His reply was precise to a point. “He has to be totally above board, so that no member of the team has the feeling you are putting yourself ahead of others. Complete integrity is essential, nobody should feel that you are either supporting or helping someone at the expense of others, or that you are not thinking of the team. Especially in the Indian context, where you have a tremendous mix of backgrounds and cultures, languages and regional set-ups and so on, the captain must be a total team man.” But it goes without saying that every captain has his favourites, players he trusts, players who are consistent and players he hates. Dhoni has them too but for a long time he managed to back the right players and they, in turn, provided the results. Now, however, Dhoni’s integrity has been hit by the very choices that have carried him so far. Piyush Chawla in the World Cup, RP Singh for the England tour, Harbhajan Singh despite his non-performance, Suresh Raina despite his repeated failures – all indications of a captain who is ‘either supporting or helping someone’ at the expense of the team. And this is the curse of captaincy. You are never one of the boys. You always stand alone. No matter what you do or say, it can always come back to haunt you. A captain always backs players he likes but then he should also know when he needs to step away, look at the bigger picture and let the favouritism fade away. Virtually no tenure of captaincy in India has ended without its dose of controversy. There have always been groups in the Indian dressing room – even when they are winning. But it doesn’t make sense to move when the team is doing well. The captain is in a strong position – he can dictate terms. But the moment the sheen wears off, as it is now, the pack moves in for the kill. As a rule, Indian skippers don’t survive slumps of team form. In the past, Dhoni has shown the ability to buck the trend. He also knows how to take play into the last over but will his opponents wait that long?