The right side of it

I certainly don’t belong to the club of these two gentlemen supporting their team-mate in bad times. But I do identify with their feelings towards the plight of their man. Another person whom I rate very highly expounds this aspect in a very different way, and actually endorses the act of Vijay Mallya. But this time I don’t agree with him fully. And I have my reasons ….

Cricket, and for that matter, any form of sports is not something where one should put one’s life, or even an alternative to it. A sport runs on emotions, but ironically, prior to or after it, it is the emotions which one should fall into. For a victor, there is always a vanquished. For elation in one camp, there is always despair in the other. And that is the beauty of it, which every sports-fan must learn to appreciate. This has been my synopsis of watching sports over a period of time, and it has come handy in not only riding over tough times of watching my team lose, but also analyzing the reasons and finding the ways to improve.

Mr Mallya will do well to heed to at least a part of this, even if I am a trifling in front of him. It serves no purpose in publicly criticizing the captain, Rahul Dravid, for his seemingly poor team-selection. I don’t see much wrong in his firing of the CEO, Charu Sharma; for every failing employee must go. I again won’t raise an eyebrow if he fires even Rahul Dravid in the next edition, or may be even the current one. But by publicly stating that his advice and words were not adhered to, he is acting like a deserter of the party, when he is actually at the helm. No doubt, Bangalore Royal Challengers team looks like a Test Team pretending to be a Twenty20 one. But if team composition would have the only parameter of success, Rajasthan Royals would not have been in the lead and Deccan Chargers would not have foundered like a pack of cards. By saying, “It was I who brought Misbah in the team”, he is uttering in the public tone. What Misbah has done in the tournament (he too has actually failed) is not relevant. But above all, just consider how debilitating it would have been for the captain, Rahul Dravid.

I am not a fanatic supporter of Rahul. But I do appreciate what he has done for the country. When he became captain of the Indian team, I thought him to be at-par, if not better captain than Saurabh. He achieved the unique success of triumphs in West Indies and England in the same year in 2006, just as that achieved in 1971, still considered one of the finest moments of Indian cricket. My exalted view of his captaincy skills was nevertheless brought down by his inexplicable decision of not enforcing the follow-on in the Headingley Test. I consider this as his most ignominious captaincy moment, even worse than the World Cup debacle.

The above is not to put up a litany of Rahul’s captaincy records but to highlight it as a mere series of results seeing both success and failure. So, the current result in the IPL is not a contrived one on his part. There are several other reasons, the prime being the inability of the local Indian players to rise to the ranks, the lack of good openers and the lethargy on the field. Better work on these; and those who don’t adhere, liquidate them. But not by this subterfuge of blaming the others.

Mr Bhogle probably missed this point when he became overexcited with the accountability aspect of it. The idea is laudable, but the means is not. Mr Mallya, there is indeed a corporate side to it, but it has a cricket side too which still, in reality, is the most important side.