|
EVEN as the dust settles on the reported feud between Mahendra Singh Dhoni and the selectors, Dhoni's spat will be marked down with red ink on his career sheet.
Having said that, he is not cricket's first captain to take his disagreement with the wise men or establishment to extraordinary lengths. In his case, the reported threat to quit over the omission of RP Singh.
The most riveting of examples in Indian cricket is the Polly Umrigar incident in 1958-59. The captain wanted a batsman for the fourth Test at Chennai against West Indies in the light of a sudden resignation of captain Ghulam Ahmed and the pulling out of star batsman Vijay Manjrekar.
Umrigar wanted Mumbai's Manohar Hardikar but the selectors (headed by Lala Amarnath) did not give in and a Services batsman called A K Sengupta was picked for his one and only Test. It is also believed that then Board president R K Patel sent Jasu Patel, no relation to the BCCI boss but a man from his region. Patel did not play eventually.
Umrigar quit as captain in protest overnight and Vinoo Mankad was appointed skipper through a discussion behind the toilets of the Corporation Stadium (Chennai) just before the start of the Test.
India also had a new captain for the fifth and final Test in Delhi â Col Hemu Adhikari. Four captains in five Tests reflected the politics in Indian cricket.
Along the way, we've heard of captains fighting hard for players who they believed in.
Sourav Ganguly fought hard for the inclusion of Harbhajan Singh for the home series against Australia in 2001. Now, the majority in the panel believed that Harbhajan was not the best option but Ganguly was convinced and engaged in a tooth and nail battle in the committee meeting prior to the first Test against Steve Waugh's men in Mumbai.
Interestingly, India tried three left-arm spinners in that series â Rahul Sanghvi for the opening Test, Venkatapathy Raju for the second in Kolkata and Nilesh Kulkarni, the tall man from Mumbai in Chennai. But by then Harbhajan had well and truly proved himself as a match-winner and Ganguly was right.
It is learnt that Ganguly had only one selector to support him when it came to Harbhajan, but he won in the end. The Bengal man was also known to push for Yuvraj Singh. Where the selectors didn't give in was when Ganguly wanted spinners like Nikhil Chopra and leggie W D Balaji Rao too. According to sources, he also fancied Punjab batsman Vikram Rathore, who was given a crack at the opening position under Mohammed Azharuddin and later Sachin Tendulkar.
Tendulkar, it is believed, had a rough time to get his way at selection meetings. Ramakant Desai was a fine man as chairman of selectors but his views did not find support with the rest of the selection committee.
During his first stint as captain (1996 to 1997), Tendulkar was once quoted as saying in a Kolkata-based paper that he was not happy with the team he was given for the 1997 tour of Sri Lanka.
Differences between captain and selectors were witnessed beyond the sub-continent too.
Ian Chappell remembers the 1975 Ashes tour on which manager Fred Bennett wanted to send Jeff Thomson home for some misdemeanor. So Chappelli went to his room and was told that Jeff would be sent home, a move, which had the Australian Board's support too.
Chappell asked the manager whether he had all the tickets of the team and said that the manager could take all the tickets to the travel agent and the entire team would go home.
He wanted Thomson because he was confident that he would help Australia retain the Ashes and if there was a problem with a player he was there to have it fixed.
But then, Board officials have been known to use the roundabout way of solving problems.
Chappell of course had his way; Thomson was not sent home and Australia went home with Ashes honours for the second time in succession.
Two seasons earlier, Chappell learnt about the selectors' intention to omit his vice-captain Keith Stackpole for the 1973-74 tour of New Zealand. Chappell was not happy with the changes during the home series against the Kiwis and so the news surrounding Stackpole caused him to say 'I've had enough of this'.
He went to see selector Sam Loxton to check whether this was true. When he discovered that there was a layer of truth in it, he told Loxton that he and the senior players would not tour New Zealand if Stackpole wasn't in the tour party.
Things turned out for the better when Loxton's fellow selector Neil Harvey told the captain that Stackpole would indeed be part of the tour and if he had any further problems he should come to him rather than Loxton.
In 1991-92, Allan Border had the establishment in sixes and sevens when he decided not to take the field for a while on the last day of the fourth Test against India in Adelaide. It was Border's way of protesting against the dropping of his vice-captain Geoff Marsh for the final Test in Perth. What followed was worse. While the rest of the team traveled to Perth, Border decided to stay put for a day and a half before the Test. He eventually made it but Marsh was not in the playing XI. Instead, they picked Wayne Phillips, a Victorian not to be confused with the wicketkeeper-batsman from South Australia. Wayne Phillips Jr never played after his Perth Test debut.
| 
