At a time when English cricket was left
in debris, Andrew Strauss, a well and truly defensive player by
mindset at that time, forged an historic bond with Andy Flower and
rose from the burned wounds, to take his team to the top of the
world, which also involves the more sentimentally important, back to
back Ashes victories.
But sadly, management has always brought down the best of talents. While many would be missing seeing the wrath of Shoaib Akhtar when ignited, Sourav Ganguly's imperious victories abroad may be tinkling in the minds of the Board with India's all time 0-8 low in Tests against Oz and Poms. Inspite of Strauss' constant refusal that Kevin Pietersen had no reason behind his rather abrupt retirement(not the first this year), it's a readily understood fact that some of those texts sent by KP may have stained something. Been a thorough gentleman in his cricketing life, there is no other reason why Andrew Strauss chose to retire mid-way in an already high-octane contest between the two sides. But no love lost, he has been a wonderful catalyst to take England to a new level.
Arrogance comes with a price, and a
match-winner along with it. Temperamental hot-heads have always
graced the most beautiful of sports. Sir Ian Botham, Shoaib Akhtar,
Shane Warne, Kevin Pietersen, Ricky Ponting cannot be ruffled with
unless you give them the freedom to execute their skills, give them
that and they will smack you on your faces with some more victories
for the team. A lot had been spoken about the 'KP-Moores' saga and
how it completely changed the fraternizing equation between a coach
and a captain. But from there on, the magnitude of what Kevin
Pietersen can do single-handedly just kept cropping up. He is a part
of England's greatest Test victory ever(as far as I see it), the 2005
Legendary Ashes series and also brought home his surrogate country's
first ever trophy in the name of the 2010 T20 World Cup. But now
without him being offered a central contract, it almost blows away
England's chances of posing a threat to India. With Pietersen and
India's weakness exposed against a very much feeble NZ side, there
would not be surprise if England would have managed to get back their
revenge in India, but that is mostly not to be hoped anymore.
Somehow, there have been many instances
when the temperament of a player has been misunderstood and the
captaincy job has been thrusting into his hands. After just one
series, with under-achiever Gautam Gambhir doing the grinding job for
India throughout, Virat Kohli was propelled to take the
vice-captaincy job. Another contrasting instance in cricket's most
easily most free format of the game, the domestic veteran, yet
uncapped George Bailey was made the captain of Australia while David
Warner, whose name was doing the rounds of the next captain, suddenly
vaporized. For the same, shooting up Alastair Cook as the Test
captain seems more like a desperate measure after the recently
concluded obituaries of Straussy.
Alastair Cook is a good talent and has the guile and the suave of an absolute class player. But
handing him captaincy just considering his batting skills could prove
double-edged. A player like Hashim Amla should never be burdened with
anything else apart from scoring runs. Even Rahul Dravid fell back
when he had to attend to captaincy. Somewhere I feel, the apt person
to fusion the ever-so-egoistic English side should be Matt Prior. He
was not only the unsung architect of England's 2009 Ashes victory,
batting at Number 6, he has shown the temperament to what it takes
for his side.
His batting is positive, wicket-keeping is really quick
and free-flowing and he rarely gets mixed up with any off-field
controversies. I just wished age was on his side but could still be
a more technical, ruthless and experienced captain.
