In the 12 minutes of play today, Virender Sehwag was finally conquered. By lowering skies. Sehwag and Rahul Dravid took strike just short of 2.30 pm and it can be safely conjectured that there was only one thing that forced them to disregard the gloomy reading on the light meter: the possibility of 11 more runs to get past Pankaj Roy and Vinoo Mankad.It gave Sehwag enough time to get past the 250 mark but when, on 254, he tried to slash Rana Naved ul-Hasan over the keeper for another boundary, the impatience appeared bewildering. That’s how he plays, said Dravid later.Once Sehwag was gone, it was always going to be a matter of minutes before the light was offered again, and accepted by Dravid and VVS Laxman.At the end of this dismal draw, however, there was still a statement to be made. Their hopes for a grand record may lie buried on this flat track but the contradictions with which India took the field on Friday at the Gaddafi are still alive for another airing at Faisalabad.The Ganguly question is not really about India’s most successful captain gaining entry into a middle order that is already full up. It is now not even about the hysterical politics that brought him to Pakistan. It is really about India’s new captain and his capacity to assert himself, his ability to forge a gameplan to construct a winning team.India came apart after their historic Test series win in Pakistan in 2004. After a mild recovery against Sri Lanka at home, Pakistan is the ideal location to assert a revival. There is a team — such as it is because of openly covert pressures from the BCCI — and, now that it is in Dravid’s care, it is incumbent on him to carry it to improvement.There are far too many in this squad keen and capable to offer opinion. The unfortunate question after a match that began with footage of the menage a trois of Dravid, Ganguly and Chappell in animated discussion is: who calls the shots? Or translated, in a more directly personal context, is Dravid in charge?It was put to him yet another way. By choosing to open in Lahore, in a team squeezed out of a specialist opener to accommodate Ganguly, was he making a statement to his team? ‘‘I’m not trying to make any statement to my team’’, said Dravid. “They know me too well.’’But here’s the thing these experienced teammates must know about cricket. Long after controversy and speculation have been softened, scorecards preserve longer-lasting narratives. The card says: Sehwag 254 c Kamran b Naved, Dravid 128 not out, Laxman 0 not out. India 410/1 in response to Pakistan 679 Here’s what that scorecard will preserve for later: India strolled into a fixture against a team historically dreaded for its pace attack without a specialist opening pair. The captain risked his wicket.Dravid did make a statement, and it’s as old as his participation in international cricket: team above self.That statement has irked his detractors. But it does carry danger. It put the onus on him to prove his point each time, with his very last performance. This then is likely to be the way with Dravid’s captaincy.He, at least for the near future, stands committed to proving his worth as skipper and as batsman with his achievement on the field of play — each time anew. It is tough, but that is the only way Dravid has played his cricket.This is what he said, in response to a query on what was said in that three-way conversation with Ganguly and Chappell that turned all of India to lipreading: “What I would like to say is that there was no issue. We were discussing cricket. It’s between us. Please don’t interpret everything as a problem, every discussion as a controversy. I can only request you not to blow it out of proportion. If it gets misinterpreted there is not much I can do. I have to learn to live with it.”There he is wrong. He learnt to live with it a long time ago.
