We know our Wizard with Words is a very keen follower of the game, so we asked him this question for the January 15 edition of Das ka Dum with Dr Bhaskar Das.
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Q: Purely as a longstanding observer on leaders and leadership, is it a good idea to have so many in captaincy of a cricket team like we’ve been seeing in India?
A: I believe in general that leadership is about delivering an outcome, and inspiring a team to believe in shared values and shared destination.
Given these basic tenets of leadership, let’s look at the character required for each format of the game. While T20 is about innovatively breaking all rules of the game with courage and gumption, T50 needs a mix of aggression and caution (at an estimated ratio of 65:35). And in the case of Test matches, temperament, patience and knowledge of the techniques of the game are very critical.
These are true for both the leadership and the team members. A superior skill in one format might not be possible to transfer to another format.
The challenge is to nurture three different sets of team who have to mingle and spend time together to develop camaraderie among themselves and the leader to earn the confidence of the team and decide on the composition of the team, depending on the various situational imperatives (apart from usual alleged politics and nepotism which is an organisational ‘given’).
It’s the same as any business- legacy or startup temperament, or sector-wise challenges, or imponderables of consumer behaviour etc. Cricket or sports in general have their respective business models. But the skill, character , culture and strategy make all the difference between success and failure—and that’s equivalent to delivery of an outcome.
Net-net , I am in favour of changes in the captainship and team composition on the basis of my logic.