From: pvr@rice.edu (PVR Narasimha Rao)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.cricket
Subject: Re: A gist of the interviews - Prabhakar, Kapil, Baig....
Date: 10 Apr 1992 02:33:30 -0500
Organization: CS Dept, University of Texas at Austin
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

In article <00958CB8.5F771AC0@vms.csd.mu.edu>, 9063iyerm@vms.csd.mu.edu (Murali
Iyer) writes:

> First, Prabhakar's comments. Prabhakar's quotes were made in an interview for

> not. He also says that Shastri or Kapil should be made captain. He says neithe
r
> Manjrekar nor Tendulkar is senior enough to don the mantle. He feels that the
> captain should be a man who comands respect from all players.

As a person who advocated SRT for VC on rsc, let me make one thing clear
(because, some subsequent articles suggested that some guys misunderstood me
as suggesting SRT for captaincy). I _never_ suggested that SRT should be made
captain. I was only suggesting that he should be made VC so that he can take
over the mantle from Kapil (or Azhar, if that is the case) after 5 years.

I wonder why Prabhakar was even commenting on that alternative (i.e. Tendulkar
donning the mantle). It's just unnecessary to consider that now.

> He says Azhar should have impressed upon the board that the team should have
> had a break after the test series before starting the world cup. He says the
> tour was too long, and the longest he has ever been on (How many has he been
> on, could someone tell me please?). Also, his offer to open the innings in the

Though I don't like to criticize Azhar for that, it looks like the length of
the tour had its toll on some players, mainly the youngsters. Srinath and
Banerjee bowled much better in WSC than in WC. Probably, the length of the
tour was a main reason. It was, after all, their first tour!
However, it would've been difficult to know it a priori. I think it is silly
to criticize Azhar for that.

About your question: Neglecting his pre-Reliance Cup career (which wasn't
anything special), he had been on three tours - to Pakistan, to NZ, and to
England.

> face of repeated failures of the openers seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. H
e
> also feels that the management thought that there were no openers other than
> Srikkanth and Shastri (A tinge of bitterness?).

Ajay Jadeja was an ideal replacement for Shastri in tests after Shastri was
injured (Srikkanth was struggling in tests). Also, Prabhakar, who did
reasonably well as an opener earlier, has enough reason to be unhappy because
he didn't get to play any good oneday innings. He was sent almost at the end
in almost every match. In tests, he batted reasonably well despite being sent
in late.

> Shastri was expected to do better in bowling too, and his "loss of confidence
> in his bowling" was a major setback. And Shastri is reported to have put his
> foot down and stuck to opening the innings instead of helping the team in the
> slog overs. Atleast the team management seemed to have confidence in his
> slogging ability.

Seriously, I agree with the management on that. Those who have Shastri of
post-Reliance era in mind (Shastri would come in at #5/6/7 with 10 overs
remaining and would start playing an openers' knock) may find it strange.

He is one person in the team who can slog well with a reasonable consistency,
if only he sincerely wants to do it. If he is keen on scoring atleast X runs
or has some goal like that, he gets bogged down, but if he is asked not to
bother about his score, he can destroy the bowling (I repeat, with reasonable
consistency, which doesn't mean 100% success rate). If he can get his bowling
confidence going, he can be used as a bowler-cum-slogger. It'll be good for
India. It's unfortunate that he insisted on opening. May be, he was afraid of
losing his position in the ODI team completely. He should do something about
his bowling also.

> There was also a column about Srikkanth and he seems to be cool and believes
> that he has not done a bad job, though he feels that he was not very lucky(he
> admits to relying on luck and reflexes to succeed). He points out that he has
> scored about 600 runs in 19 OD matches which is not bad.  He says he is happy
> that Pakistan won the cup, but adds --tongue in cheek-- that good play and a
> bit of luck helped them along. He is determined to do well and feels that
> people who judge him should do so objectively.

He scored 488 in the last 18 matches, as far as my calculation goes. He didn't
score well in the second match against SA (he scored 59 in the third one). So
it can't be 600 in 19. It'll be 510-530 in 19.

Anyway, his performance in the last season in ODIs was next only to SRT's
(overall). He scored 313 runs at 31.3 to SRT's 401 at 44.56. He was clearly
better than all others. Perhaps, he has a point when he says he has not done a
bad job.

--------
PVR Narasimha Rao