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[dextrous]

Wow! I just want to say this is one of the best threads I've seen in a long time 

[vijay]

 

With Gavaskar he has blots as a skipper that the other greats did not have.  These are things which are not really associated with skippers who have team first in mind.. Rams
Rams, that is why we are cricket fans. We can look at the same things differently. See my thoughts on the points below.

1) Dropping Kapil the best player in the team in 1984 against England after a loss.  It created such divisions in the country there were protests in lots of cities.  He brought him back after one test, justifying what everyone thought of this man all along.  Misuse the power.
Or one can argue that no star is bigger than the team's interests and it showed guts on the part of the captain to get that message through even though it involved a great player and knowing fully well that lot of people would cry foul. Agree or disagree, I would rather have that then a politically correct do-nothing type.
2) After being declared LBW in that famous Melbourne test which Vishy and Kapil guided India to victory Gavaskar got annoyed with Lillie and the decision.  He took Chauhan out with him and after intervention from the manager and other senior players he let them back out.  You do not expect that from a Skipper of a team.  Whatever the reasons a captain should always keep his emotions in check.  That is why I personally feel it shameful to put a Gavaskar in the company of a Lloyd or a Brearley.  This other gents never let the emotions get the better of them.  No wonder they had the utmost respect of the players which Gavaskar never had.
It was a spontaneous act that turned to out to be a great move. India were being out gunned through the entire series, they felt that they were on the wrong end of a lot of umpiring calls, and then when Gavaskar- Chauhan were in the middle of a great rear guard action pulling us out of a 180 odd run deficit, Gavaskar got the marginal lbw call. Gavaskar started to walk, and then Lillee abused the guy some more. (Yeah what do you expect from an idiot who happened to be a great bowler. This is the same guy who kicked Miandad in the rear too).  So now you have a guy on the receiving end of a bad call and abuse to boot- and with what had already built up through out the series- he released the tension by doing the walk out. It lit a fire in to this team at the fag end of this series. They had only 143 runs to defend, and that evening- because Kapil Dev was hurt- he opened the attack with Ghavri and Patil, and after a couple of overs of Patil- gave the ball to Doshi. The Indians took 3 quick wkts (including the process guy- GC) before close of play for 20 odd. And then Kapil did his magic the following day. The big part of that of course was Kapil's bowling. But in addition to that, you had a team that was previously down, now totally fired up, and a captain making all the right moves. Suddenly, defending 143 seemed like defending 443. India squared the series when Australia were bundled out for 83. India achieved something it hadn't done before, getting out of Australia without losing the series. Yeah maybe Gavaskar went off a bit there. But I would rather have that, then some polite guy meekly going down in defeat and then shaking hands with the opposing captain for a series well played. Baloney. You're supposed to be human, get mad and where appropriate use it to energize your team.

3) A great skipper has team in mind.  That is why under them the players give more than 100% and it shows in the results. They do not bring in regional politics in the way of team selections.  Gavaskar in his captaincy always promoted mediocre players into the team from his Zone and notably from Mumbai.

It did show in the results. He ended his career with a positive win-loss record and overall because of the number of draws pulled off, the regularity with which we used to lose tests really came down. As far as regional politics go, I don't think Gavaskar sat there and said we have a guy who bats like Don Bradman from the south zone and a guy who bats like a gully cricketer in the west, lets pick the west zone player anyway. First of all, he isn't a selector, he is a player and a captain. He can make recommendations to selectors based on his own experience playing on the domestic scene. It is the selectors' job to take those recommendations for they are worth.Could there have been in Gavaskar's recommendation? Sure, he played in the west and had more exposure to guys in the west Back then we did not have that many international games and guys like Gavaskar, Vishwanath, Bedi, Kapil  etc. were regulars in domestic cricket. So if a guy like Ghulam Parkar was having a great season, chances are greater that he would see that (because he played with him regularly) then if a guy from Bihar was scorching up the joint. Now lets carry this a step further. Once a team goes on tour, the captain's power does become greater because he has a great say on who makes it in the final eleven. So, what do we find there? Ghulam Parkar plays one test, gets exposed and he is gone. Ghulam might argue that one test is not enough of a chance to prove that he had the mettle to play the international game. True or not, he got no additional breaks because the captain came from his home town. In fact, if any body got a bit of a break (and deserved it too), it was Vishwanath. Vishwanath in the last 2-3 years of his career struggled a lot. But Gavaskar backed his case for inclusion throughout. Nepotism for the brother-in-law? No. He was backing a great player to get out of a slump.  

[vijay]

Blwe:The debate is not about Indian cricket or Indian captains.  I just merely gave a list of great captains I have seen in the last 30 years world over to Kban1.  To me Gavaskar is not in the same class of the other 3 captains I mentioned in my first post of this debate.  Also if someone want to rank Gavaskar in the class of the other 3 great captains then that is their opinion.  The analogy there is if someone compares and say that Malhotra and Vishy are in the same class in their opinion then they have that right.  As they say to each his own.

You are right Rams....about Gavasker.
I agree, he was not a good captain. He is an icon like SRT.
The subject started with Lloyd, Brearley and Border..........the 3 top captains of Modern cricket. But we have inevitably meandered into discussing Indian captains.

Hey! An Indian captain can be in the world top 3 too.   

[ramshorns]

A great skipper has team in mind.  That is why under them the players give more than 100% and it shows in the results. They do not bring in regional politics in the way of team selections.  Gavaskar in his captaincy always promoted mediocre players into the team from his Zone and notably from Mumbai.

It did show in the results. He ended his career with a positive win-loss record and overall because of the number of draws pulled off, the regularity with which we used to lose tests really came down. As far as regional politics go, I don't think Gavaskar sat there and said we have a guy who bats like Don Bradman from the south zone and a guy who bats like a gully cricketer in the west, lets pick the west zone player anyway. First of all, he isn't a selector, he is a player and a captain. He can make recommendations to selectors based on his own experience playing on the domestic scene. It is the selectors' job to take those recommendations for they are worth.Could there have been in Gavaskar's recommendation? Sure, he played in the west and had more exposure to guys in the west Back then we did not have that many international games and guys like Gavaskar, Vishwanath, Bedi, Kapil  etc. were regulars in domestic cricket. So if a guy like Ghulam Parkar was having a great season, chances are greater that he would see that (because he played with him regularly) then if a guy from Bihar was scorching up the joint. Now lets carry this a step further. Once a team goes on tour, the captain's power does become greater because he has a great say on who makes it in the final eleven. So, what do we find there? Ghulam Parkar plays one test, gets exposed and he is gone. Ghulam might argue that one test is not enough of a chance to prove that he had the mettle to play the international game. True or not, he got no additional breaks because the captain came from his home town. In fact, if any body got a bit of a break (and deserved it too), it was Vishwanath. Vishwanath in the last 2-3 years of his career struggled a lot. But Gavaskar backed his case for inclusion throughout. Nepotism for the brother-in-law? No. He was backing a great player to get out of a slump. 

Vijay:

1) You cannot be farther away from the truth when you say Vishy got into the team without merit in the last 2-3 years of his career.  Except for the one series against Pak where Vishy was woefully out of form(dropped immediately after the Pak. series), he was never really at a stage where he needed favors from his brother-in-law to cling on to his place.  He held more than his own to be in the team. 

The below year by year stats prove that.

After that one series failure he was dropped once and for all.  If anything one can argue he should have been brought back in 1984 series against WI's where we could we have used Vishy when we got trashed by a mad WI's team which lost the World cup.


Test Batting and Fielding in Each Season by Gundappa Viswanath
Season             Matches    Inns   Not Out  Runs    HS    Ave    100   50  Ct     
1980-81 (v Aus)     3          6       0            213   114   35.50    1     0   3   
1980-81 (v NZ)      3          5       0              64     46   12.80   0     0   2   
1981-82 (v Eng)     6          8       0             466   222   58.25    2    1    2   
1982 (v Eng)         3          5       1            189     75* 47.25   0    3    5   
1982-83(v SL)       1          2       0              11       9   5.50     0    0    1   
1982-83 (v Pak)     6          8       0            134      53   16.75   0    1    1

Also just so that the relatively younger people on this DG knew how high an esteem Gavaskar holds Vishy please read the following, an admission from Gavaskar.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunny hooks Lillee in sledge-festAdd to Clippings
PRADEEP VIJAYAKAR

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ TUESDAY, AUGUST 12, 2003 11:15:57 PM ]

MUMBAI: Little Master Sunil Gavaskar warned that players might come to blows if personal abuse on the field was not stopped immediately.

Breaking his silence on the fallout of his stirring Lord Cowdrey Spirit of Cricket Lecture at Lord’s last month, Gavaskar reiterated that sledging has become a dangerous monster. ‘‘I have seen even schoolboys in Kenya behave shockingly on the field,’’ he told this reporter in an exclusive interview on Tuesday.

The former India captain’s labelling of Aussies as masters of sledging (during the lecture), however, raised a new storm. It prompted his old enemy, Dennis Lillee, to even belittle him as an ordinary player.

 Gavaskar, the highest century-maker in Tests, had no hesitation in agreeing that his brother-in-law Gundappa Visha-wanath was a better batsman than he was. ‘‘I agree with Lillee that Vishy was better. In fact, I am on record about this and I repeat that Vishy was the best batsman of my generation because of the quality of the bowling that he faced and the conditions under which he made runs.’’
 Gavaskar, however, was quick to return to the issue of sledging. Pointing out that sledging was short for sledgehammer in the Australian vocabulary, he said: ‘‘obviously, it can’t be very subtle.’’

 ‘‘Those who are defending sledging are (in fact) those who practise it,’’ he charged. ‘‘If personal abuse is part of the game it is a different game that I have played. ‘‘The West Indian players never did it. Courtney Walsh, the world’s highest wicket-taker, never uttered a word. They may have indulged in eyeball-to-eyeball tussles but that’s not the same as personal abuse. That’s not what the fans want to see,’’ he added.

Responding to Lillee’s taunt about his walkout from the pitch in 1981, Gavaskar explained: ‘‘It was triggered by personal abuse on Lillee’s part. If you look at the video, I am walking towards the pavilion. I turned back only on hearing the abuse and then took (Chetan) Chauhan away. Had there been no abuse I would have vented my anger out in the dressing room,’’ he said, adding, ‘‘I expressed regret about the incident then itself, and again during the Cowdrey lecture.”
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Again I have to bring the above article only because of Vijay's claim that Vishy got a long rope from Gavaskar or someone is utterly wrong.  A legend like that needs no favors.

[ramshorns]

With Gavaskar he has blots as a skipper that the other greats did not have.  These are things which are not really associated with skippers who have team first in mind.. Rams
Rams, that is why we are cricket fans. We can look at the same things differently. See my thoughts on the points below.

1) Dropping Kapil the best player in the team in 1984 against England after a loss.  It created such divisions in the country there were protests in lots of cities.  He brought him back after one test, justifying what everyone thought of this man all along.  Misuse the power.
Or one can argue that no star is bigger than the team's interests and it showed guts on the part of the captain to get that message through even though it involved a great player and knowing fully well that lot of people would cry foul. Agree or disagree, I would rather have that then a politically correct do-nothing type.
2) After being declared LBW in that famous Melbourne test which Vishy and Kapil guided India to victory Gavaskar got annoyed with Lillie and the decision.  He took Chauhan out with him and after intervention from the manager and other senior players he let them back out.  You do not expect that from a Skipper of a team.  Whatever the reasons a captain should always keep his emotions in check.  That is why I personally feel it shameful to put a Gavaskar in the company of a Lloyd or a Brearley.  This other gents never let the emotions get the better of them.  No wonder they had the utmost respect of the players which Gavaskar never had.
It was a spontaneous act that turned to out to be a great move. India were being out gunned through the entire series, they felt that they were on the wrong end of a lot of umpiring calls, and then when Gavaskar- Chauhan were in the middle of a great rear guard action pulling us out of a 180 odd run deficit, Gavaskar got the marginal lbw call. Gavaskar started to walk, and then Lillee abused the guy some more. (Yeah what do you expect from an idiot who happened to be a great bowler. This is the same guy who kicked Miandad in the rear too).  So now you have a guy on the receiving end of a bad call and abuse to boot- and with what had already built up through out the series- he released the tension by doing the walk out. It lit a fire in to this team at the fag end of this series. They had only 143 runs to defend, and that evening- because Kapil Dev was hurt- he opened the attack with Ghavri and Patil, and after a couple of overs of Patil- gave the ball to Doshi. The Indians took 3 quick wkts (including the process guy- GC) before close of play for 20 odd. And then Kapil did his magic the following day. The big part of that of course was Kapil's bowling. But in addition to that, you had a team that was previously down, now totally fired up, and a captain making all the right moves. Suddenly, defending 143 seemed like defending 443. India squared the series when Australia were bundled out for 83. India achieved something it hadn't done before, getting out of Australia without losing the series. Yeah maybe Gavaskar went off a bit there. But I would rather have that, then some polite guy meekly going down in defeat and then shaking hands with the opposing captain for a series well played. Baloney. You're supposed to be human, get mad and where appropriate use it to energize your team.

Again Vijay I already said in my previous posts you can interpret the above incidents in every which way you want. 

1) For a neutral fan the dropping of Kapil in 1984 after the ENG. loss was a very thoughtless decision which was based on emotion than on reason.  Like I said you win and lose as a team.  By dropping your best player if you think you sent a message to the rest of the team then that is sheer ignorance.  Such was the impact of that decision everyone from nook and corner were very critical of Gavaskar and guess what he had to do, bring Kapil back after a game.

2) That 1981 incident where he took Chauhan out after getting declared LBW, we were on the verge of losing that game owing to forfeit because of the Captains decision.  Thanks to the manager and some of the seniors and cool heads like Vishy it did not come down to that.  In the end we won owing to the singlehanded efforts of Kapil and Vishy the genuine match winners.

3) Sure I have no problem in having an Indian as a great skipper as well if I see it that way.  The fact is Gavaskar's overall deeds as a captain are not in the class of a Lloyd or a Brearley.  Just like I do not mind having Indian greats like Vishy and SRT as best bastman of all time based on their deeds.

[suraj]

I agree with rams on the SMG-Lillee issue but dropping kapil was right and does not reflect SMG in poor light. Kapil's was a selfish act of indescretion and there was nothing wrong in dropping him.

BTW I am a bigger fan of Kapil Dev than SMG by far

[vijay]

Rams-
Gavaskar has put Vishwanath on a higher pedestal consistently throughout his career. (By the way, that would also defeat the argument that Gavaskar only liked West Zone guys). I am a Vishwanath fan too. And while I like anything that makes him look good, the fact of the matter is those statistics are deceptive. Typically, in those series he had one good inning that made the average look half way decent. For the most part he was had on the cheap during those years. It was tough to watch.  Compare this stuff with what he did until '79 vs Australia at home (the last consistently good series he played), and one could see the drop from the typical high standard one came to expect from a great like Vishwanath.

[Blwe_torch]

Blwe:The debate is not about Indian cricket or Indian captains.  I just merely gave a list of great captains I have seen in the last 30 years world over to Kban1.  To me Gavaskar is not in the same class of the other 3 captains I mentioned in my first post of this debate.  Also if someone want to rank Gavaskar in the class of the other 3 great captains then that is their opinion.  The analogy there is if someone compares and say that Malhotra and Vishy are in the same class in their opinion then they have that right.  As they say to each his own.

You are right Rams....about Gavasker.
I agree, he was not a good captain. He is an icon like SRT.
The subject started with Lloyd, Brearley and Border..........the 3 top captains of Modern cricket. But we have inevitably meandered into discussing Indian captains.

Hey! An Indian captain can be in the world top 3 too.   

Yes, you are right....that is very much possible. But the fact is none of the Indian captains come within the top-3 in the World as yet( when we are considering the All time Greats).
Even if you add a 4th one...I believe that happens to be Imran Khan.
That too is limited by my own knowledge....I have not at all thought abt Douglas Jardine, Don Bradman, Ali Bacher and Gerry Armstrong......not to mention Frank Worrel too!

And a few other contemporaries like Steve Waugh and Mark Taylor....

[kban1]

First of all, applause to rams, blwe, vijay, and suraj for a wonderful ongoing debate.

Secondly regarding 3 points rams has raised.

1) Dropping Kapil -- I remember this oh so well --it was gut wrenching to have to chose between two favorites, Kapil & SMG. But Kapil did play an awfully irresponsible shot (and Kapil was a batsman in form that series) when the explicit instructions were to save the match. This after the first innings when India scratched to 325 based on lower order --the last 5 wickets contributed more than half.

In light of this, it was a very tough and gut wrenching call for everyone concerned including the selectors --remember Kapil was even more popular than SMG at this time. Its a 50-50 decision, as in arguments on both sides are aplenty, but it still took a lot of guts to make that disciplinary action call.

2) Melbourne 1981 -- I believe the abuse hurled at Gavaskar by lillee as well as some Aussie players was "c**nt". SMG's autobiography makes that clear --he mentions an uncharitable term used to denote a woman's anatomy. He lost his cool and walked off - please keep in mind, this is language unacceptable even today, not to speak of back in 1980's.

Now, India saved the fofeiture thanks to the manager's timely intervention and SMG can be faulted for being impulsive, but how does that detract for SMG's tactical acumen.

If you are looking for activities to knock a captain, here is a list of captains who had several glitches which should discount them from being considered astute captains.

1) GC -underarm incident, terrible treatment of Kim Hughes
2) AB - he continued the bad treatment of Kim Hughes
3) Steve Waugh -- his treatment of Slater is there in both his book as well as Slater's.
4) LLoyd asked his bowlers to bowl a barrage of beamers and bouncers against the Indian batsmen at Sabina Park in 1976.

The thing we have to decide is what are we judging -- does a few mistakes negate the sum total of a captain's contribution, his acumen, his far sightedness, and leadership ?

3) Selecting players from WZ  ?

As Vijay pointed out, it is one thing to back someone from WZ because SMG has played with them, it is another to say he alone was responsible for this. Please remember the balance of power in the BCCI -- before Jagmohan Dalmiya came along and shifted the balance of power away from Mumbai to another section of the country, by and large, the power was centred in Mumbai / WZ from age immemorial (read since inception). This was true in SMG's time too -- so one should consider the alternative regarding WZ selections rather than zero in on one person to lay all the blame at.

On  a totally different note, I have been reading Kapil's autobiography (thanks to roublen who sent me the book), and Kapil has this to say about SMG (paraphrased).

"I would select SMG as my all time Indian captain for his skill in leadership, strategy, fighting as an unit, showing how to fight other nations on even terms, and finally for being a visionary in terms of shifting the mold from a spin based attack to a pace based attack because he recognized where the future lay"

In between the lines, Kapil credits SMG for being SG before SG ever came along. Incidentally, Kapil's choice for alltime Indian ODI captain is SG.

[achutank]

Now this is funny. All the Pundits here seem to have forgotten in their haste to even mention the great Khan.

Captaincy is relative. It is always in the context of the team. The King Khan did more for Pakistan cricket than could be possible by the sheer will power of his. He took players as disparate as Zaheer and Miandad and made them into a force to reckon with right up to the nineties. His picking up of youngsters seemingly out of the great Pakistan wastelands is the stuff of legend. And his Cornered Tigers speech in 92 is nearly equal to the Gita of Cricket if you may.

No matter how talented the Pakis are their attitude sucks so much that they have always inevitably failed to be No. 1. Except when the Khan was around in the 80s where they recorded good number of wins and they became an ODI world force. I do not think Miandad would have had his Sharjah without the Khan sitting in the Pavilion goading him on with a stern look between overs. And what people do not remember is the improvements Imran brought into his game till his last series. He developed into a No. 4-5 batsmen in the last two years of cricket and his straight six inspired our Sidhu.

He was an astute thinker and great motivator. And he took streetboys to the doorstep of greatness. That a few could never cross that treshold is their own failure (Abdul Qadir [who could have done a lot more], Aquib Javed, Salim Yousouf to mention a few). And those who did acknowledge his presence in their lives forever.

[Blwe_torch]

I agree Achu.
But I have mentioned Imran Khan in my post....a couple of posts back. He is certainly one of the most influential captains of all time.

[suraj]

Now this is funny. All the Pundits here seem to have forgotten in their haste to even mention the great Khan.

Captaincy is relative. It is always in the context of the team. The King Khan did more for Pakistan cricket than could be possible by the sheer will power of his. He took players as disparate as Zaheer and Miandad and made them into a force to reckon with right up to the nineties. His picking up of youngsters seemingly out of the great Pakistan wastelands is the stuff of legend. And his Cornered Tigers speech in 92 is nearly equal to the Gita of Cricket if you may.

No matter how talented the Pakis are their attitude sucks so much that they have always inevitably failed to be No. 1. Except when the Khan was around in the 80s where they recorded good number of wins and they became an ODI world force. I do not think Miandad would have had his Sharjah without the Khan sitting in the Pavilion goading him on with a stern look between overs. And what people do not remember is the improvements Imran brought into his game till his last series. He developed into a No. 4-5 batsmen in the last two years of cricket and his straight six inspired our Sidhu.

He was an astute thinker and great motivator. And he took streetboys to the doorstep of greatness. That a few could never cross that treshold is their own failure (Abdul Qadir [who could have done a lot more], Aquib Javed, Salim Yousouf to mention a few). And those who did acknowledge his presence in their lives forever.

Achu,

DD and myself had also mentioned Imran Khan- we are not considered pundits

[achutank]

you are more like maulvis like me for mentioning imran.

(with no offence to anyone especially amla)