Sachin set to be test captian

Sachin Tendulkar is set to be named captain of the Indian Test team soon. He is likely to get the formal nod for the Test series against Pakistan when the selectors meet again during the second ODI at Mohali on November 8.

Rahul Dravid, who held the Test and ODI job for over two years and till the tour of England last summer but who voluntarily stepped down soon after, now finds himself dropped from the ODI team for poor form. Mahendra Singh Dhoni continues to be the skipper of the ODI team and will also lead in the Twenty20 version. The split captaincy was always on the cards after Drvaid abdicated. The selectors had chosen Dhoni for the T-20 job even before the Indian team left for England. With his young team succeeding to the extent of winning the World Cup in South Africa, the committee has to continue to nominate him for the instant varieties.

The agenda of the chief selector Dilip Vengsarkar will be served best when Sachin is named to lead India again in Test cricket. It was his wok in the background as well as Sharad Pawar-led BCCI’s loud thinking that Sachin should take over the reins before the tour of Australia that forced Dravid to give up the reins even after leading India to a historic Test series win in England that had come after 21 years.

A West Zone orientation in cricketing matters became apparent with the nomination of several former players as cricket managers or coach of national teams. Dravid who was well ensconced in the hot seat, may have allowed his sensitivity to get the better of him when he gave up the coveted job.

Vengsarkar had initially brought Sachin in as vice-captain for the World Cup in the Caribbean because he felt the senior cricketer had grown distant from the younger elements of the squad on the tour of South Africa on which Virender Sehwag was the deputy to Dravid.

A disastrous World Cup meant that the pressures were on Dravid who felt quite isolated from the rest of his team that crashed out even before reaching the Super Eight stage. He may have tinkered with the idea of stepping down straightaway but Dravid ploughed on only to prove that he was no quitter and that success would come on the field if the national team stayed united.

Sachin who was a self confessed failure at leadership had stepped down to make way for Sourav Ganguly in 2001. The aura around the captaincy and the commercial stakes behind it subsequently became so humongous that there is no one who does not nurse an ambition to be India’s captain.