Will coach Kapil Dev hook the bouncers or duck under it?

This, probably, has given Kapil-bashers in the Board courage to underminethe Indian coach’s position even more. There have recently been a number ofreports in papers, quoting unknown sources, which say that the `Board maynot allow him to attend the selection committee meeting’ scheduled forSunday in Mumbai, to pick the Indian Team for the first Test against theSouth Africans.

In the absence of any official word from the Board on this issue and Kapilhaving no idea till date of what to expect and how to react to these`plants’, everything appears serene on the surface. But this just could bethe lull before the storm. Kapil, while refusing to comment on thesespeculative reports, remarked in jest on one such report (which had givenits source of the `scoop’ as `people close to Kapil’): “The only personclose to me is my wife and perhaps she is the one who has been the source ofthe story.”

The story says that Kapil and Tendulkar will be told to brief the selectorson their viewpoint before the selectors get together minus these two toselect the team.

Jokes apart, the ramifications of keeping Kapil and Tendulkar out of theselection committee meeting on Sunday, could be very serious. It isunthinkable that the Indian captain will be told to keep out of the actualselection process and the same, one would think, goes for Kapil. There is nodoubt that Kapil has been feeling slighted by the `outpourings’ of Lele andthe chairman of the Selection Committee, Chandu Borde, the bone ofcontention being Mohammed Azharuddin.

India’s wipe-out in Australia may have weakened Kapil’s position, butIndia’s greatest all-rounder feels that four months is too short a period tojudge him, that too on the strength of the `non-performance’ of the teamagainst the Australians, who are unarguably, the most difficult team to beattoday.

“Talk to me after two years,” said Kapil in reply to a question on whetherhe has failed to deliver the goods. This answer to the question from BishanSingh Bedi on a television programme recorded last week, only indicates thatKapil is looking forward to his job and is in no way contemplating`quitting’. And that too, with the tag of a loser. But what happens if theBoard continues to `humiliate’ him? Is he going to quit in that situationand convey to the cricketing world that players of his status and calibrecan’t be trifled with? Or is he going to hang on to this assingment whichhas catapulted him once again into the glare of the print and televisionmedia?

He did extend his career once before when it, probably, was time for him toquit. But that time he was chasing a world record. Today when he can offer alot to Indian cricket, will the machinations of the Board force him to quitprematurely?