"Gambhir" issues to be handled

On February 28, 2012, the Indian squad for the Asia Cup to be played in Bangladesh was announced. While some of the senior pros were “rested” for the tournament, the bolt from the blue decision was the alleviation of Virat Kohli to the role of vice-captaincy, stripping fellow Delhiite Gautam Gambhir of that spot. The decision however, couldn’t be disputed much. Virat Kohli was in the form of his life post World Cup, putting up scores after scores, impressing the cricketing fraternity day after day.

Gambhir, on the other hand has struggled ever since. He had a terrible start to the series against England and that came full circle when he suffered a severe head concussion while fielding, throwing him out of the equation for at least a couple of months. Even after making his return to the fold, Gambhir kept struggling, and though he did reasonably well in the ODIs, he just wasn’t able to convert those starts into three figure marks. In Tests, his performance just kept hitting a new low with every match with his only significant contribution being the 80 odd he scored at Sydney in an effort to save the test match which eventually went in vain. The move by the selectors was a clear indication to Gambhir that he better started taking his spot seriously.

March 13, 2012, opening the innings for India, Gautam Gambhir reached his first 3-figure score in almost 18 months, scoring an exact hundred against Sri Lanka. And ever since then, Gambhir has been on a sort of mission to prove a point.

May 27, 2012. The mission that Gambhir undertook at the start of the Asia Cup, culminated into a tournament win for KKR, beating Chennai at their own den, at their own game. Fittingly, the final match was played between two sides led by two heavyweight contemporaries Dhoni and Gautam, who have been at a sort of logger heads for a long time now.

And now, with this success under his belt, the debate is expectedly raging up, whether if it’s the right time for Gautam to take over the captaincy for India. Well, to begin with, what Gautam achieved as a captain, cannot be disputed by any means. The way he rotated his bowlers during the match, the way he designated certain specific roles for each player and the way he went about the execution of his plans gave ample proof of a mature head that he now carries over his shoulders. However, again, success in the IPL can never be a benchmark to judge any player’s/captain’s calibre in the first place. These mistakes have been made in the past and not learning from them would be an even bigger mistake. For all the maturity of Gambhir, Dhoni still is the best guy available for the captaincy duty and the selectors must know this and must not get swayed by the recent happenings. Leading an Indian team is far different from leading an IPL team.

Though it’s not as if Gambhir hasn’t led the Indian team before. In November 2010, during the home ODI series against New Zealand, when most of the senior pros of the Indian team had been rested, Gambhir led the team to an outright 5-0 series win over them showing the first signs of having the potential to lead the Indian team. He missed out on another captaincy duty when in June the Indian team toured the West Indies, due to an injury caused during the IPL and therefore missed out on an important opportunity to seal his place as the next in line for the role of captaincy.

The IPL success though, finally brings him back in the contention for that crown of thorns, that is the Indian captaincy. Still, however people may debate on this topic, it simply doesn’t seem to be the right time for handing over the mantle to Gambhir. Dhoni has had much success leading the team and has been terrific in the limited overs formats, therefore there is no question of choices when it comes to choosing between the two. May be another year down the line, when Dhoni will most probably opt out of test cricket as he has indicated before, would be the perfect time to hand over the captaincy to Gambhir. That phase however, would be a really critical one and Gambhir needs to ensure that he performs with the bat until then since the likes of Rahane and Mukund are already beginning to put pressure on him for that opening slot. Another pressure will be from Kohli, for the captaincy.

However, despite all the noises pointing that Kohli is a better choice for the captaincy in the future, as of now, or even in the next one year, he doesn’t seem to be cut for the task. The guy is just too impatient at the moment and needs ample time in the international circuit to mature as a person. This is where Gambhir’s role would become even more important. Apart from leading the side, he has to act as that bridge joining the period from Dhoni conceding his captaincy to Kohli taking it over. But like I said before, we do not know if Gambhir or for that matters, any other player would be around in the scheme of things until then. So it’s important that Gambhir sticks around and raises his game at the highest level. The man always sets very high standards for himself and now is the time for him to live up to those. In the interview after winning the final, Gambhir had said, “Mission Accomplished”. But the mission in reality is far from over for this feisty south-paw and one can only hope that he knows it.