MATCH REPORTS
DIARY
OTHER SPORTS
SLIDE SHOW
PEOPLE
ARCHIVES

Bowling them over...

Before a concert, Indian vocalists like to clear their throat, ridding their voice of the mud and the muck before letting the sweetness flow through.

It was in this vein that I devoted my first column to the men who have no place for cricket, because cricket has no place for them. The dirt is out of the way; henceforth, this is to be a conversation strictly between converts.

Cut quickly, then, to a question that shall absorb all of us before too long. Do bowlers make successful leaders? Should a bowler be appointed captain of the Indian cricket team? Or, to be more specific still, must Anil Kumble be the successor to Mohammed Azharuddin?

There has long been an unspoken consensus among selectors, managers, critics and commentators that bowlers make dreadful captains. For the true test of a cricketing captain comes in the field. Determining the batting order and knowing when to declare are kid's stuff -- these decisions are made at leisure, and in the comfort of the pavilion.

Quite different in scope and character are decisions on field placing, and on who is to bowl the next over. Those are made in the cut and thrust of match play, out in the middle, in front of eighty thousand baying fans, and with scarcely a minute's time for contemplation. On the precise placement of a close-in fielder, or the replacement of a bowler with another, may hang the fate of a match.

In this pressure-cooker situation, goes the conventional wisdom, the bowler-captain is at a disadvantage. He is too absorbed in his own craft to make the most rational or best choice iin a situation. Further, some bowler-captains think that the answer to every difficulty is to grab the ball themselves, while others are too scared to rise to the responsibility, and under-bowl themselves.

In either case, the twin burdens of bowling and leadership appear too heavy to bear.

Cricket history is replete with instances of captains who bowled too much. One thinks of George Giffen, the turn-of-the century cricketer who was Australia's first world-class all-rounder. The story is told of how, in one key Sheffield Shield match, Giffen bowled uninterruptedly from one end through two full sessions, from start of play until tea. When he again took the ball first thing after the interval his vice-captain politely enquired whether he did not think it was time for a change. 'Quite right', answered Giffen, 'I think I will go on at the other end'.

Consistent with this tale is a story of the English cricketer J W H T Douglas. Douglas was a handy medium-pace bowler, but distinctly less talented than some others in his team. When he led England on its Australian tour of 1911-'12, he even preferred himself to S F Barnes, the harvester of 189 wickets in 27 Tests, and according to some judges the greatest bowler ever to grace the game. When Douglas took the new ball in Melbourne, one of his team-mates told him, 'You can bowl the batsmen in now, Johnny, and Barnes can come on after lunch and bowl them out'.

Another version of that story has Barnes himself telling his skipper that he should change ends, 'for you can see the bowling analyses on the scoreboard better from that side'.

In Indian cricket history, there have been only two bowler-captains whose reign lasted more than a single Test series. These were Bishen Singh Bedi and Kapil Dev. And Both tended to over-bowl themselves but then, unlike Johnny Douglas, they were each without doubt the finest bowler in the side at the time. In this circumstance, there is always the tendency to think that you have the best chance to take a wicket.

It is noteworthy though that Kapil Dev's great success as captain came when he had adequate help. In the 1983 World Cup, the Indian complement of seam-bowling all-rounders was well suited to English conditions. Thus, when the captain had completed his quota of overs, Madan Lal, Mohinder Amarnath and Roger Binny could keep up the pressure.

Later that winter, however, these modest medium pacers were cruelly exposed while playing at home against the West Indies. On the slower Indian wickets, and in the absence of quality spinners, Kapil Dev was the only bowler who ever looked likely to get Clive Lloyd or Vivian Richards or Gordon Greenidge out. Inevitably, then, he bowled too much, his captaincy suffered, and his team was thrashed by three Tests to nil.

After the 1983-'94 series against the West Indies, Kapil was replaced as captain by Sunil Gavaskar. Three years later the job came back to him, and he led India to a creditable two-zero win in England. In the Test matches, it was the skipper himself who generally accounted for the dangerous Graham Gooch. However, he was given sturdy support by Chetan Sharma and Biny, and by the left-arm spinner Maninder Singh. So long as Kapil was not expected to take all ten wickets, his captaincy record glowed.

Despite Kapil's successes in 1983 and 1986, we have been brought to believe that batsmen make the best captains. Look at the roll-call of the most successful skippers in Test cricket -- Don Bradman, Len Hutton, Frank Worrell, Clive Lloyd, Ian Chappell, Alan Border. All conform to the stereotype. All were capable of hitting hundreds against the best attacks. Most of them never turned their arm over, although one or two (Worrell, Border) were part-time bowlers. When in the field, they skillfully directed operations from first slip or mid off, the two positions that one naturally associates with the captain.

To the above-mentioned names, one must add that of Imran Khan, for his own outstanding victories as captain of Pakistan (in the 1992 World Cup, and against India in 1986-'87) came when he played as a batsman who would bowl just the odd spell.

There is then a luminous collection of batsmen-skippers, but an altogether more skimpy list of consistently successful bowler-captains. By my reckoning, there have been only two such, or perhaps only one-and-a-half. The half is constituted by Raymond Illingworth, who was a pretty ordinary bowler, but a marvelous tactician. In 1969 and 1970-'71, Illingworth led England to convincing wins over sides that were, at least on paper, considerably more gifted than his -- the West Indies in the first instance, Australia in the second.

The outstanding bowler-captain was, of course, Richie Benaud. A googly bowler good enough to take 248 Test wickets, Benaud led one of the finest sides in modern cricket history. Under him, Australia defeated England (twice), the West Indies, India, and Pakistan. Not once did he lose a rubber. His record as captain stands as follows: played 28 Tests, won 12, lost 4, drew 11, tied 1.

Through all this, he was also one of Australia's two main strike bowlers (the other being Alan Davidson, left-arm fast-medium from over the wicket, a big hitter with the bat too, in fact the Wasim Akram of his day).

Benaud was a supremely skilled tactician, one of the most informed students of the game there was. Or is, for that matter, for his distilled wisdom still reaches out to us through his televison commentaries. The odd thing is that Benaud always maintained that the best skipper he played under was the fast-bowling all-rounder Keith Miller, for New South Wales. Miller, who was never allowed to lead Australia in a Test match, taught Benaud a great deal, as indeed, did his new-ball partner Ray Lindwall. It was Lindwall who told the Australian captain to bowl round-the-wicket, into the rough, at a crucial stage of the Old Trafford Test of 1961. Benaud went on the claim 6 for 70, taking his side to a famous win.

The prejudice against bowler-captains is part of a general tendency to treat bowlers as the underclass of cricket. Batsmen are the glamour boys of the game, the pin-up models eagerly pursued by fans and sponsors alike. Is it not surprising that Javagal Srinath appears in far fewer commercials than some Indian batsmen of inferior skill?

I do not take Srinath's name in vain, for it is central to the resolution of the question with which we began. History tells us that, all other things being equal, intelligent bowlers can make good and successful captains if they are not expected to carry the attack. So long as Srinath is around and bowling well, so long as one does not look at Anil Kumble to get the other side out on his own, the claims of the Karnataka wrist-spinner must be given just consideration when the time comes. Let not these claims be summarily set aside by the dogma that bowlers do not or cannot make effective captains.

Ramachandra Guha