Second coming

If there are apprehensions over Tendulkar’spromotion among 900 million selectors, they hinge on his first 17-month tenure as skipper from August 1996 to December 1997. His initial triumphs at home — a one-off Test against Australia, a three-Test series against South Africa and the Titan Cup — were soon forgotten on away series when he seemed increasingly at sixes and sevens, frowning away in bewilderment as his team’s lacklustre performances started rubbing off on his batting, as conspiracy theories started floating around.

So will new responsibility once again start telling on India’s most viable brand name? For one, Tendulkar has made it amply clear that it was not the burden of captaincy alone that weighed him down those 17 months; reports that he would not like to have Mohammed Azharuddin in his squad and that this time around he wants increased say in team selection indicate the phantoms in his mind. After all, he surely remembers the time in the Caribbean he SOSed for a particular spinner, and was sent a bowler he had never heard of, thetime his batsmen inexplicably crumbled under no pressure.

Tendulkar too needs to reassure a nation where cricket is religion that he too has learnt his lessons from the past. That he has left behind his Bombay obsession, that his management of his star bowlers will be more imaginative, that he is less brittle mentally. To be fair — and to use Geoffrey Boycott’s dictum that the little master is a thinking cricketer — every time he has been through a lean patch, he has learnt from his mistakes.

He no longer gifts his wicket with mindless slashes to square. In any case, 1998 marked a turning point in his career, the year "the mongol became a moghul", and his poise after his father’s death during the World Cup points to increased maturity. Yet, tremendous responsibility rests on Tendulkar’s shoulders. Not only does he have to nurture a millennium side, he also has to go beyond the horses for courses philosophy and inculcate professionalism and attitude among teammates given to drooping shoulders. Havinghanded him the baton, the board would do well to give him a chance and ensure him the requisite support and flexibility.