The captain of the Indian cricket team has to be a man of a different breed. Cricket evokes such tremendous passion among its followers in India that every action of the cricket team, particularly of its captain, is assessed under a microscope, and public reaction can swing from the highest praise to the harshest and often personal criticism. The position evokes respect, admiration and even a certain awe, just as it is also a hotbed of intrigues, jealousies and rivalries, often having nothing to do with the game itself. India’s Captains is a comprehensive account of the various aspects of cricket captaincy in India. It discusses the individual roles played by each captain—from C.K. Nayudu in 1932 to Rahul Dravid in 2004—and the unique strategies employed by them, even as it takes the reader into the world of behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing often involved in the selection of the captain. In the process, it offers insights into the peculiar circumstances leading to the appointment of four captains in a single series in 1958_59, the controversy surrounding Krishnamachari Srikkanth’s dismissal even after the team he led to Pakistan in 1989 performed so well, and the reasons for Vijay Merchant never leading the country in an official Test and M.A.K. Pataudi becoming the youngest ever Test captain at twenty-one. It also analyses how the mantle of captaincy can affect the on-field performance of even the best batsman in the world, Sachin Tendulkar, and what it takes to be Sourav Ganguly, India’s most successful captain. Interesting and often provocative, this is a book all followers of the game will enjoy reading.
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