Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Captain's Quote of the day

From the looks of it Anil Kumble is not going to be called 'the greatest' or 'the best' during his playing days. If he was not called so today he will surely never be. The news channels used a lot of familiar terms like 'warrior' and 'champion' for Boxing Day's Kumble but neither of those two adjectives emerged. Not even on a day when he showed the calibre of bringing together skill, patience, courage, fight and inspiration at perhaps the biggest moment for his team in the second half of this decade.

So be it. Ah - the quote. Anil was returning a satisfied captain and elated bowler from the MCG greens when the Star Cricket commentary team caught hold of him. From his amazing exploits on a first day pitch against a side that had scored heavily against Murali very recently, the topic of discussion veered to the tactics for the morrow.

Harsha: Is Rahul Dravid going to open?
Anil (smiling): Yes he will.
Harsha: Is he happy about the job?
Anil (still smiling): Ya..Yes he is..(breaks into a hearty laugh)..he does not have a choice!

4 comments:

anantha said...

I am still not sold on the captaincy part. I'd have loved to see him bowl earlier. For the first half of the day, the captaincy was atrociously predictable. Time and again, Indian captains have been trusting Ganguly way more than he deserves. And though he inevitably starts with a maiden or two, I am wondering if its more because batsmen are overly cautious and then by his third or fourth over, the batsmen realize that there is nothing to worry. More importantly, they realize that the mainstream bowlers are done and that from then on its going to be easy. Confidence grows. And a run fest ensues.
Thankfully yesterday Kumble the bowler performed better than Kumble the captain. Better late than never, I guess.

angshu said...

Ha ha - cool Anantha, I just said 'satisfied' captain, not 'brilliant.

Kumble has already got some minus marks for reacting to dissatisfaction of his players. he is bringing on Bhajji ahead of himself in every match, just because Bhajji sulked at being underbowled in a Test against Pak. I would have bought that if I could believe that Kumble rates Harbhajan higher than himself.

Baut I have no problems with anyone being the captain as long as his own performance is above the team average and is largely unaffected by the respo. Half the job (the 'inspiration under pressure' part) is done there.

It is another matter that even after that 'inspiration' in the bowling innings Kumble now has to seriously think of promoting himself to one of the top three slots...

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