Royal Rumble

The IPL returns in a time of upheaval in Indian crickets leadership

While his fellow Royal Challengers trudged one by one to the middle to shake hands with Suresh Raina and Albie Morkel,Virat Kohli refused to budge. He remained at the deep midwicket fence instead,kicking,screaming,flinging a towel as far as it could go in the humid,almost soupy Wankhede air.

Some 30 seconds before,Kohlis eyes had followed the balls trajectory,from Daniel Vettoris fingers to the middle of Morkels blade,through the sky directly above him and into the stands. When Vettori began the last over,Chennai Super Kings had needed 12 to win the first qualifier and reach the IPL final. Bangalore seemed to have one foot in the title decider after Kohlis unbeaten 44-ball 70 earlier in the evening.

Vettori was Bangalores captain,Kohli their captain-in-waiting. Was such petulance in defeat becoming of someone marked out for leadership? Or was the outburst an indication of the high standards he had set for himself and expected his teammates to meet?

Nearly a year on from that match,its difficult not to get swayed by the second conclusion. It has been a year,after all,that has seen Kohli grow so much in influence that he is one of Indias most important Test cricketers,and one of the worlds best ODI batsmen. It has been a year,after all,that has seen Kohli officially anointed Indias captain-in-waiting.

The IPL,meanwhile,returns with Indian cricketers at the helm of all but three teams,in a surreal re-enactment of the decade past. Sachin Tendulkar has stepped down from captaining the Mumbai Indians,while Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid have taken charge of separate rebuilding projects. MS Dhoni defends a major title he won last year,while two men who have stepped in for him when he has missed matches for India,Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir,skipper Delhi and Kolkata respectively. Against this backdrop,Kohli remains captain-in-waiting at Bangalore. The future isnt upon us just yet.

But the future isnt as clear as it seems. Sehwag,for instance,spent the entire tour of Australia as the unwitting subject of rumours suggesting a leadership rift between him and Dhoni. When Dhoni was suspended for the final Test,it was Sehwag who took over. Gambhir,meanwhile,has won six out of the six ODIs he has captained India in,and might have felt a little miffed that the vice-captaincy went not to him but to Kohli when Sehwag was rested for the Asia Cup. Both Delhi openers will want to remind selectors of their captaincy credentials with their IPL displays.

On Monday,Kolkata bowling coach Wasim Akram questioned Indias selectors for promoting Kohli over Gambhir. If I were Gautam Gambhir,I would certainly like to have taken this opportunity to prove a point as the KKR captain. He is a very good captain who leads from the front. I dont know why the Indian selectors removed him from the post of vice-captain, Akram said. This is the first time I have seen a vice-captain axed for the teams poor performance. This should make him more determined.

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Gambhir scarcely needs to become any more determined than he already is. Everything about him screams determination,from his default facial expression to the way he squirts the ball into the leg side with both feet off the ground. His surname,translated from Hindi,means serious or grave.

Sehwags visage and demeanor belong on the opposite end of the spectrum,but the lack of surface tension cant mask the fact that he couldnt have gotten where he is without industrial quantities of drive and ambition. Behind that laconic exterior,Sehwag might still harbour dreams of captaining India.

None of this speculation would have made any sense at this time last year,when Dhoni launched the 122 nd six of his ODI career into the Wankhede stands. A month and a half later,a second IPL triumph further entrenched this feeling that the Indian skipper could do no wrong.

How long ago it all seems now. Ahead of the fifth edition of the tournament,Dhoni is in a no-win situation. Leading Chennai to a third title will tell us little that we dont already know about him. But denying him that triumph will spur on a number of ambitious men-including Mumbais new skipper Harbhajan Singh,for whom a strong display could represent a way back into national reckoning.

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As all this unfolds,Kohli will remain a shadowy captaincy presence. He led Bangalore in three matches last season when a knee injury forced Vettori to sit out. This year,even a fully fit Vettori will need to be at the top of his form to hold down a place throughout the tournament. Such is the wealth of foreign talent jostling for four places. It is well within the realms of possibility,therefore,that Kohli will take charge at some point,part-time or full-time. It isnt just Dhoni,Sehwag and Gambhir who look anxiously over their shoulders as a spiky-haired form looms into view.