It is now official. Virat Kohli is the undisputed king of Indian cricket.
In achieving this status he has surpassed all his predecessors, who have also had the privilege to be powerful monarchs of the sport in the country.
We have had some strong captains, like Tiger Pataudi, Sunil Gavaskar, Sourav Ganguly and MS Dhoni, but we have never had them always in charge.
All of them have had their wings clipped, some time or the other, by a strong Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) or a powerful head honcho.
Kohli, however, has gone one step ahead of all of them and could go down as the first Indian captain to have sole control of the team. This is because off the field there are more pressing issues.
An Unhealthy Sign for the Sport
The old guard of the BCCI is licking their wounds, the management team led by the CEO is still not fully in power and the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) is looking for fresh blood in their panel.
So, right now Kohli controls Indian cricket, and that is too much power vested in one man. This is an unhealthy sign for the sport in the country, because effectively everything will now run on this individual’s whims and fancies. Today it is the coach, tomorrow it could be someone else.
Maybe the origin of this story lies in the way Kumble was first appointed in 2016, by the sometimes-defunct-sometimes-operational Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC). In a midnight coup, Kumble was brought in as an applicant and thus Kohli’s favourite, Ravi Shastri, was ousted in the race to be Indian Head Coach.
If Kohli’s views had been sought then, maybe this situation could have been avoided. But then we have an amateur ad-hoc set-up which has no respect for processes.
Players Have Always Held More Sway Than Boards
No wonder then that we have ended up with this mess.
All those saying that the players should not have power to decide the coach have obviously not read Indian cricket history. Whether it was Mohammed Azharuddin getting Bishen Bedi sacked as the Indian cricket manager (the designation in 1990 for coach) or the very same members of CAC, along with Kumble and Rahul Dravid, getting in a foreign coach in place of Kapil Dev– it has always been the players who have held sway.
In fact, for nearly two decades, the same set of people (CAC, Kumble and Dravid) have been involved overtly or covertly in the selection of the head coach. This time however the CAC have clearly failed in their role to resolve the Kumble-Kohli matter.
Maybe former CoA member Ramachandra Guha was right. There is indeed a superstar culture in India.
In a similar coach-captain fight in England in 2008-09, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) sacked both coach Peter Moores and captain Kevin Pietersen. In India, we have just bowed to the wishes of the captain. That’s the difference between a professional system and an amateur honorary set-up.
Kohli’s toughest phase as cricketer and captain started on 18 June, when India let Pakistan off the stranglehold that Sourav Ganguly & Co had managed to achieve on their arch rivals. Now, as Indian cricket sides start playing overseas more regularly, there won’t be the same level of results as at home.
Repeated Tests for Kohli From Here On
Kohli’s temperament and mettle is going to be tested as we move forward. The next two years will either make or break Kohli as a cricketer and captain. Remember we tour every possible country from now: Sri Lanka (July-August), South Africa (December-February), England (June-September 2018), and the list goes on. We could well have bloody noses and tattered reputations at the end of these tours.
Kohli will have to shoulder the responsibility for everything from now on, because he has won the right to be called the King of Indian cricket.
A weak selection panel, with a lightweight like MSK Prasad as chief selector, only makes Kohli’s task that much easier – because there is absolutely no one to challenge him. There are a few gaping holes in Indian cricket which requires more than an individual to fix issues.
Kohli will find that when the going is good, everyone in Indian cricket eco-system, including the fans, will shower praises. But Indian cricket system is very unforgiving, today Kohli may claim victory in the battle against Kumble, tomorrow it could well be his turn.
Anything is possible in Indian cricket, and Kohli will clearly have to watch his step from here on.
Kumble’s resignation letter released on Twitter is as much an indictment of the BCCI’s functioning, as that of Kohli. He needs to be able to take the Kumble letter in the right spirit or remain the same petulant young man who could not resist taunts from the crowds in Australia.
(Chandresh Narayanan is ex-cricket writer for The Times of India, The Indian Express, ex-Media Officer for ICC and current media manager of Delhi Daredevils. He is also the author of World Cup Heroes, Cricket Editorial consultant, professor and cricket TV commentator.)
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