Statements by cricketer Virat Kohli and Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Sourav Ganguly have been at odds, casting a shadow of ‘It’s not cricket’ (as in ‘not fair’) on this week’s switch in the leadership of our one-day team. Ganguly had claimed that Kohli, who recently quit as captain for the T20 format, was asked not to step down by the Board and also implied he was acquainted with his likely loss of command in one-day games as well if he did not stay on, as white-ball captaincy was not to be split. Kohli, however, has denied any such retention effort by the BCCI and added the decision of his replacement was conveyed to him at the tail-end of a phone call, implying that his ouster as the leader of our one-day team was a surprise to him. In his version of events, he was kept in the dark about captaincy for white-ball matches (one-day and T20) being clubbed together. As our red-ball Test captain, he may well have assumed he would still lead India in the shorter but not shortest form of the game. It is, of course, the Board’s call. Even so, its division of the captain’s role by the colour of the ball looks like a policy that’s too arbitrary and far from pragmatic.
After India’s early knock-out at the T20 World Cup held in the UAE, speculation had swirled on social media platforms that Kohli would be relieved of his short-format charge for our team’s failure to win a world championship title under him. Such talk was easily dismissed, as capability is usually not measured by a few marquee events in the spotlight, but across time and space. But another controversy over Kohli supposedly having sought time out from the team’s upcoming South Africa tour and the fact that he had to articulate a denial of it have added to our sense of something amiss in how cricket is managed in India. If a handover of leadership to Rohit Sharma, his successor, had been judged in our best interest, then it could have been done through a consultative process of deliberation. Kohli’s successes out-notch his failures. Under his charge, our team won more than two one-day matches for each loss, a track record that makes him one of the world’s most successful captains ever in the 50-over format. Notably, his captaincy turned an old Indian weakness in chasing an opponent’s score into an actual strength, a shift marked by a visible rise in our team’s confidence while batting second.
Since individual performances matter so much in cricket, the difference that captaincy makes has always been under debate. At the long-duration end, we have five-day Tests that involve plenty of plotting and planning, with various weather, pitch and field conditions in the matrix of evaluation for play decisions on batting, bowling and fielding. At the short end, we have T20 face-offs that clip cricket into a commercial spectacle of 4 hours with its outcomes dominated by chance. The midway format of one-day contests combines skill with luck, but the ratio of these two determinants tilts it closer to Tests than T20s. Strategy and tactics have turned many one-day matches around for the country, as fans of this sport can testify. Whatever the colour of the ball in use, if the relevance of a one-day gameplan is closer to that of a Test in our quest for victory, then it’s the two longer formats that ought to be clubbed under a common chief. Let’s be clear: The red ball versus white ball division is one of market popularity, not cricket rationality.
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