BCCI should consider Ashwin to captain India’s Test cricket team

Ravichandran Ashwin (Image: AP)

Since Team India lost the second Test under KL Rahul’s captaincy, and subsequently the ODI series, the scrutiny has increased over his prospect as India’s next Test cricket captain. Of course, Rahul’s stock as a leader hasn’t fallen as he has just been appointed the captain of the new team, the Lucknow Super Giants, for IPL 2022.

Senior player Rohit Sharma has been appointed captain (he missed the South Africa tour because of fitness issues) in the white-ball formats (T20 and ODI). The jury is still out as to who will be the Test captain. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and team selectors might not have anticipated this Test captaincy dilemma, especially because few would have thought that Virat Kohli would quit Test captaincy just ahead of his 100th Test match.

Besides Sharma and Rahul, wicket-keeper-batsman Rishabh Pant is being seen as the next leader (Sunil Gavaskar and Yuvraj Singh are among those who back Pant) most probably keeping in mind the MS Dhoni trajectory in cricket.

Very few bother to remember that despite winning a World Cup (the inaugural T20 in 2007), Dhoni was not rushed in to captain the Test team. Even then there was a similar crisis as the one seen today. Rahul Dravid, then Test captain and the current India team coach, quit captaincy despite winning a Test series in England (which came after 21 years). Then the selectors, led by former India captain Dilip Vengsarkar chose 37-year-old Anil Kumble.

Can BCCI’s chief selector Chetan Sharma and his colleagues take inspiration from Vengsarkar’s decision?

Can Ravichandran Ashwin be the next Test captain? Seemingly, Ashwin has got the credentials, and yet he is not a serious candidate for the job — why? Is it because he is from the southern part of the country and/or is a bowler — because majority of the captains have been batsmen above the Vindhyas? Such a question gains importance because, in 2014, much after his retirement, Kumble made a crucial statement at a conference on his deserving but inexplicably delayed anointment: “I became captain after playing 17 years for India so probably I became captain by default because nobody else wanted it.”

If Kumble had no serious competition in 2007, this time there are others, like Jasprit Bumrah, who have said that they are open to captaining the side. However, the inherent bias against bowlers, especially fast bowlers, almost rules out Bumrah at this stage.

That said, there are some similarities as well. Kohli has given up the captaincy, Ajinkya Rahane is out of form, and it might be too early to make Sharma or Pant Test captain. Moreover, the selectors would not like to burden Sharma with the captaincy of all formats, where the increased workload may affect his game. These factors tilt the balance in Ashwin’s favour.

However, it’s not that Ashwin’s candidature is flawless. At 35 years he’s not a ‘young’ player in the squad. Moreover, his place in the team when India plays overseas is not guaranteed. For the record, Kohli didn’t pick Ashwin for four back-to-back matches in England last year and India is still leading the five-match series by 2-1. Moreover, Ashwin’s performance in South Africa wasn’t sparkling.

What may work in Ashwin’s favour is that India is not having a tough schedule in 2022. Moreover, his place in the Playing XI is beyond doubt as the two-match series against Sri Lanka in February is at home, and so is the four-match series against Australia (most likely to be played in the September-October window). The Test in England is in the first week of July, and towards the end of the year, India will be going to Bangladesh (November-December) for two Test matches.

So, if Ashwin is given the job, he can do it for more than a year (with just eight matches scheduled as of now) which may allow the selectors to seriously assess the potential of Sharma and Pant.

In his seminal book ‘The Art of Captaincy’, former England captain Mike Brearley writes about the paradoxical qualities which is often needed in a cricket captain. “We could speak of antinomies of leadership-passion and detachment, vision and common-sense, an authoritarian streak and a truly democratic interest in team and points of view. One requires conviction, but also the capacity not to rush to answers but to be able to tolerate doubt and uncertainty.”

Anyone who has seen Ashwin captaining either in first-class cricket (he led Tamil Nadu after playing four first class matches) or in the IPL for Punjab will agree that Brearley’s description aptly describes Ashwin’s style of leadership.

Vimal Kumar is a senior sports journalist who has covered multiple cricket world cups and Rio Olympics in the last two decades. Vimal is also the author of Sachin: Cricketer Of The Century and The Cricket Fanatic’s Essential Guide.

Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.