SHARJAH, APRIL 12: If a week is a long time in politics, three days is an eternity in the game of cricket. It was only that long ago that India were at their wits end after taking yet another hammering from Pakistan, then suddenly an injury to Mohammed Azharuddin propelled Ajay Jadeja into the captaincy and the transformation has been evident.Jadeja is a natural leader - he complements his outgoing personality with a good cricket brain. In addition, he doesn't find captaincy a burden that weighs him down. Rather, he is inspired by the challenge.This has shown out in his play in the last two matches where he first produced a magical over to help his team beat England and then in the return bout, he contributed with the bat. Alec Stewart, on the other hand, is struggling to carry a substantial load and as so often happens in those situations, the run of play is going against his team. In a tournament where the team batting first has prevailed, Stewart lost his third successive toss and to compound hisproblems, runs have dried up for the opener.Personal success generally has a positive affect on a captain and this is certainly the case with Jadeja. He is not the type to wait for something to happen, instead he is proactive and always looking for opportunities to give his team an edge. This applies to batting as well as bowling and Jadeja came up with a good ploy when he used Javagal Srinath as a pinch-hitter. Srinath is quite a capable batsman and he has the good sense to loft the ball straight when he's looking to clear the boundary. He has the added advantage of being a good player of the pull shot, which means that bowlers are wary of trying to bowl just short of a length to keep him quiet.Srinath used this shot to good effect against the medium pacers Andrew Flintoff and Ian Austin and his presence had a positive affect on Rahul Dravid.Dravid is a good player, consistent and determined, two qualities that make him a must in this Indian side. However, to improve his play, he needs toconcentrate on placing the ball better and he should also look to dominate the bowlers more often.Once Srinath showed his intentions and forced England to push the field deeper, Dravid was able to pick up his scoring rate, but as a top order batsman, he should be able to achieve this result on his own initiative. It is important for a batsman to be aware of the psychological ebb and flow of a game and to know when increasing the tempo will cause the opposition the most discomfort. As a number three, Dravid has to be capable of setting the pattern of play and by doing so, he would improve his already good reputation.For their part, the England camp has some major headaches, the bulk of them with the batting. Unless Graeme Hick is firing, they lack a dominant batsman who strikes fear into the opposition. It is important to have a dominator as the rest of the batsmen feed off him, taking advantage of deeper set fields and bowlers who are shaky after taking a hammering.At the moment, England has a numberof batsmen making useful scores, but no match winning efforts. Where Jadeja was able to inspire the team with his deeds, Stewart is struggling for form with feet that just won't go in the right place and this eventually has a draining effect on his confidence in all facets of the game.Even though England has a home ground advantage in the World Cup, they need to work hard to ensure that they don't go into the tournament devoid of confidence after suffering a series of soul-destroying losses.Having turned things around, the trick for India will be to keep the momentum going and unearth a plan to unsettle a very confident Pakistan outfit. This is where Mohammed Azharuddin will have to play an important role and he could do no worse than take a leaf out of Jadeja's captaincy manual.
