Different strokes of captaincy
When the fear of failure is greater than the joy of winning, the mind gets enveloped in a varnish of doubt. It takes an exceptional effort to erase those self-inflicted wounds that can create hurdles on the road to success.
When Shubman Gill was appointed the Indian captain of a team seeking success and stardom in equal measure, India was apprehensive. For a society which dreads living in a vacuum and is desperately seeking a cult figure to give some meaning and substance to their restless existence, the loss of “celestial lights” had created a void in their lives. They couldn’t imagine what their world will look like without Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.
Kohli, the love of their lives, had walked away from a world he had straddled like a lord and master of all that he surveyed. The most influential cricketing figure of our times, worshipped by fans and adored by television, preferred watching Wimbledon than battling it out with his teammates in England. The fear of slipping Test averages and the burden of expectations may have outweighed the pleasure he got from scoring runs and hitting centuries.
Rohit Sharma, shorn of star tantrums, with the image of a boy next door making it big, took a bit of time to realise his time was up but finally called it a day before the Indian team for England had to be picked. In the absence of a guiding light, India could find itself rudderless on a tough and demanding tour. In the backdrop of a string of Indian defeats at home and away, these fears were not unfounded.
India stepped into the first Test in Leeds with a defensive mindset which reflected in their team selection. The man now calling the shots and the controlling authority in the team was the controversial coach, Gautam Gambhir. His unquestionable power has been linked more to his being a ruling party former MP from Delhi than to his respectable credentials as a cricketer, understanding of strategy or man-management skills, his IPL successes as the KKR coach notwithstanding.
In cricket, unlike football, the face of the team is its captain and not the coach-manager. In a sport which pans out for five days and where on-field decisions are hard to be conveyed from a distance, the captain can’t be subservient to the orders of the coach. The burden to handle these responsibilities and manage 10 other players of different abilities and temperament fell on a young man from a small village in Punjab.
A Sikh from rural Punjab with agriculture the professional pursuit of his father, Gill is not your stereotypical aggressive, impulsive character who acts before he thinks. Indian cricket is replete with stories of a North versus the rest divide where one side lacks “intelligence” and the other is full of “wisdom”. In this war of perception, it matters little that one of the most graceful, almost lyrical in the execution of his craft, was a Sikh from Amritsar — Bishen Singh Bedi. Chandigarh lad Yuvraj Singh’s power was tempered with a left-hander’s grace and elan. Gill is the third in this lineage of elegance personified players, a touch artiste who is incapable of playing an “ugly stroke” even in the era of T-20 cricket.
The free-flowing arc of his driving, the short-arm pulls and the understanding of how to use the crease in shortening or lengthening the distance of the pitch to unsettle the bowler, is a lesson in how to master the complicated skills of batsmanship. Many of us thought he had a flaw — playing across the line too early — that would prove fatal in seaming, moving English conditions. He obviously was aware of this limitation and has worked on it, so much so that he has not made that mistake even once. In the wealth of record-breaking runs he has scored, Gill has shown himself to be that supreme artiste whose effortless execution hides the hard work that has gone into producing that perfect piece.
The weight of responsibility seems to sit lightly on his shoulders. The first Test at Leeds was his for the taking. India dominated but ended up as losers. This could have devastated even the strongest and made the captain even more insecure in the strategic execution of his plans. The second Test win showed that the team was on the right path and understood the value of “discretion being the better part of valour” better than its critics.
We don’t know what kind of chemistry is shaping between his hard-boiled coach Gambhir and if a line of dos and don’ts has been drawn between the two. The road ahead is long and hard and the journey has just begun.
Regardless of how the series shapes, this much can be said for sure. He is soft-spoken yet firm, unsure yet exudes confidence, controlling yet gives proper space and respect to his teammates. The ever-smiling Gill has been a revelation so far.
The art of captaincy is not all about screaming and shouting. It is also about being quietly and gently efficient without stifling opinions. Television channels may no longer have to repeatedly use Kohli’s footage to garner TRPs. Gill’s infectious, disarming smile can launch a thousand products. India has found a new cult figure.
— The writer is the author of ‘Not Quite Cricket’ and ‘Not Just Cricket’
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