Azhar looks to redeem himself

MUMBAI, MAY 8: By captaining India in the coming World Cup in England, Mohammed Azharuddin may equal Clive Lloyd's record of leading his ...

MUMBAI, MAY 8: By captaining India in the coming World Cup in England, Mohammed Azharuddin may equal Clive Lloyd8217;s record of leading his country for the third time in the World Cup, but when it comes to the performance of the teams India and West Indies in the tournament, Azhar8217;s record hardly matches up to that of Clive Lloyd.

While West Indies, under Clive Lloyd, have won two World Cups and were runners-up to India in 1983, the Indians, under Azhar, could not qualify for the knock-out stage in Australia-New Zealand in 1992 and made it only upto the semi-finals in 1996 where they lost to Sri Lanka in Calcutta in an ill-fated match which had to be awarded to Sri Lanka after the crowds, sensing an Indian loss, forced stoppage of play.

Mohammed Azharuddin will be looking to redeem himself in this World Cup, knowing that in all probability this will be his last World Cup. Azhar, who is already 35, will be 38 by the time the next World Cup takes place in 2002 in South Africa and might have played his lastmatch by then.

Moreover, while Clive Lloyd was lucky in having an all-conquering team with the likes of Greenidge, Haynes, Richards to take care of the batting and the fearsome bowling attack of Holding, Roberts, Garner, Croft and Marshall making them virtually unbeatable, Azhar has had to captain teams which were much less formidable with the team revolving around only a couple of players whose failure used to spell doom for the team.

Azhar also had luck going against him and the team in the 1992 World Cup when they lost to Australia by only one run after the target was reduced according to a new rule introduced during that World Cup. Their match against Sri Lanka was also washed out denying them valuable points. Though India beat arch rivals Pakistan in that World Cup, they could not qualify for the knock-out stage. Azhar had everything going for him in the 1996 World Cup-home conditions, crowd support and players who knew the nature of the wickets inside out to take advantage of them. The Indians thenalso had a tremendous morale boosting victory in the quarterfinals against arch rivals Pakistan at Bangalore. In the semi-finals they started of with a bang capturing two Lankan wickets before they could get into double figures. The Lankans then lost the third wicket with just around 35 runs on the board and India looked like taking their appointed place in the final.

However, after this the situation changed drastically with the Indians slacking considerably and allowing the remaining Lankan batsmen, particularly Aravinda de Silva to go for the bowling. Another mistake Azhar did was electing to field on a brand new wicket. In the second half when India batted, the dew made the wicket crack up and the Indians were held in the spin web of Jayasuriya as they kept losing wickets regularly. After India had lost eight wickets, the crowd, sensing an Indian loss, started pelting bottles and the match had to be abandoned with the match referee who ironically was Clive Lloyd awarding the match to the Lankans.