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Kapil eats humble pie on Azhar affair

The Sachin-Azhar stand-off looks like ending in a whimper, as supercoach Kapil Dev, I reliably understand, has bought peace with the bigwigs of the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

The development follows Kapil Dev’s hearing about the distinct possibility of his not being invited to the selection committee meeting (at the Brabourne Stadium during the Board President’s XI tour-opening match vs South Africa) -- on the eve of the First Test vs Hansie Cronje’s South Africa, starting at the Wankhede Stadium on Thursday, February 24.

Kapil Dev, I gather, has informed selection committee chairman Chandu Borde (and others who matter in the Cricket Board) that he has no problems with Mohammed Azharuddin and Nayan Mongia playing for India, even going so far as to hint that at least, the C & U triseries outcome could have been different if these two had been joined by Ajay Jadeja, too, Down Under! This after the team management’s having hurled the veiled threat, in Australia, that Azhar, if sent for the C & U, could go the Mongia way.

Kapil Dev’s now changed stance naturally left Sachin Tendukar in a fix. Forget all this talk about Sachin’s voluntarily stepping down, his pitch-inspection visit to the Wankhede Stadium earlier this week underscored the fact that Tendulkar was still very much conscious of his having already been appointed India’s captain for the 1999-2000 season. Also, the selectors could not possibly change the captain each time we lost, could they?

Kapil Dev’s calling off the team management’s face-off with Chandu Borde & Co (and with the Cricket Board) naturally meant that Sachin, by his extreme tour postures, had painted himself into a corner. With both Azhar and Mongia likely to play the First Test in Mumbai, Sachin happily, if discreetly, staged a climbdown.

A first-column bottom-corner news item on the sports page of The Hindu dated Sunday 13 February (credited to ‘Our Special Correspondent’) clearly deserved more notice than it attracted. The cricket board’s president, A C Muthiah, is Chennai-based. And The Hindu’s mainline edition is from Chennai. Sachin therefore chose the right vehicle and venue to put out his side of the story -- trumping Kapil’s ace.

Asked specifically by The Hindu, here, about whether he would oppose Mohammed Azharuddin’s selection for the series against South Africa, Sachin timed his reply tellingly, as he observed: "I have played for India for more than 10 years and with many players. I have always been transparent and clean. I have no hang-ups with any player. For me the country comes first -- not individuals and individual deeds. I want India to do well in international cricket. That’s my only aim."

The above Sachin clarification, featured in Chennai’s number-one English daily, obviously obviated the urgency for carrying out the earlier suggestion (made in The Hindu of Thursday February 3) that, to prevent Sachin’s doing something impulsive (like withdrawing as India’s captain), "the Board President, Mr A.C. Muthiah, must intervene, talk to Tendulkar, before the selectors meet in Mumbai".

Significantly, it was The Hindu (with its sports editor S Krishnan closely monitoring his special correspondents) that had, as early as on February 3, broken the story that "Kapil Dev is not likely to be invited to attend the selection committee meeting in Mumbai". It is now clear that the Haryana Hurricane moved fast in the matter -- after getting to read in The Hindu that "a majority of the Board members are annoyed with the way Kapil Dev has conducted himself as coach" that "he has only been a source for embarrassment to the selectors, especially the chairman, Mr Chandu Borde, who has taken flak from all and sundry".

The same February 3 Hindu despatch, most revealingly, added that "the selectors had picked Mohammed Azharuddn for the triseries on December 30, but they had to drop the former captain because the team’s management told them that Azharuddin’s selection will not be happy news for the team" in Australia, "but, at the same time, they lobbied for Ajay Jadeja’s inclusion. The team management," concluded that February 3 report from Melbourne, "named Jadeja as the first player, but came back with a firm ‘No’ to Azharuddin. The matter was closed then and there on January 1."

But not before Board President A C Muthiah, getting his ‘shoulder to the wheel', called for the relevant ‘Kunwar Ajay’ medical report and put his authoritative foot down in the matter of Jadeja’s not going to Australia either -- if Azhar was not acceptable to the so-called team management.

That was that. And Sachin (in the 13 February edition of The Hindu) hopefully put the lid on the matter by noting: "We are going to play two Tests first -- and not one-day internationals against South Africa. After the Tests, five one-day internationals and the triseries in Sharjah. So there is plenty of cricket ahead."

The captain thus, evidently, remains captain, the coach wants to stay as coach even if he has to climb down in order to retain his post, so what has changed in Indian cricket since the tour of Australia conclusively proved that we were trying to pass ourselves off as ‘current coin’ and were fairly and squarely devalued.