AS an explosive willow-wielder who could tear any bowling attack to shreds (Len Pascoe and Bob Willis would readily vouch for that!) Sandip Patil was often exasperatingly cavalier in his approach to the game. But he got away because runs rarely deserted him during his brief but exciting international career.
Unfortunately, when he assumed the managerial reins of the Indian team, luck turned its back on him. It was, therefore, only a matter of time before the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI), too, would follow suit. Yet, the unceremonious sacking of Patil did take the cricketing fraternity by surprise. What perhaps undid Patil was the fact that he carried the laid-back airs of his playing days into his high-pressure job as manager. He didn’t get away with it. As the new president of BCCI, Raj Singh Dungarpur, said on his first day in office: "It is a result-oriented world."
But when the Sahara Cup began in Toronto, Patil seemed firmly in the saddle despite a string of failures. His six-month tenure was due to end on September 30 and there was no indication that he would be denied an extension. "It was a tough decision and was arrived at after much deliberation," says BCCI secretary Jagmohan Dalmiya. But sources reveal that the move to replace Patil was initiated immediately after India went down to Pakistan in the fifth match of the Sahara Cup in Toronto.
It wasn’t just the frittering away of a 2-1 lead over Pakistan that sealed Patil’s fate. The flashpoint was the Indian think tank’s inexplicably callous handling of Saurav Ganguly, who was dropped from two of the five Toronto one-dayers to accommodate Vinod Kambli despite being, on current form, India’s most reliable batsman after Sachin Tendulkar. Low on confidence, Kambli did little to justify his inclusion. And Ganguly sat in the clubhouse twiddling his thumbs. As Sunil Gavaskar wrote in his fortnightly newspaper column, India now had two frontline batsmen whose con-fidence had been shaken, and quite unnecessarily in the case of one of them.
The Ganguly episode wasn’t the only thing that went wrong for Patil. In England, Navjot Singh Sidhu walked out on the team and Patil asserted that he wasn’t aware of any problem between then skipper Mohammad Azharuddin and the temperamental Sidhu. Patil’s protestations of ignorance did not reflect well on his managerial skills.
Another faux pas occurred in Colombo during the Singer World Series. In the needle match against Australia, vice-captain Anil Kumble threw away his wicket with a wild heave when a simple defensive prod would have taken away four overs from Australia’s quota as penalty for the latter’s failure to send down its overs within the stipulated three-and-a-half hours. The glaring error of judgment, and by the vice-captain at that, did not show the team management in good light.
Since taking over as manager after the World Cup earlier this year, Patil lurched from one disaster to another. Five months, five assignments, five failures: the Singer Cup in Singapore, the Pepsi Cup in Sharjah, the England tour, the Singer Cup in Colombo and the Sahara Cup. He had to make way for Madan Lal.
But did Patil deserve the shabby treatment? Was it fair to deprive him of a chance to manage the Indian team at home before hanging him? The debate might rage on, but the final verdict will have to wait until Madan Lal, who has been appointed for a whole year, has had his chance. Temperamentally, nobody could be more different from Patil. The latter was a dasher, Madan Lal was a gritty bits-and-pieces utility man. Patil was a bit of a shirker, a poor fielder. Madan Lal was a trier whose athleticism on field was often held up as an example.
It is this example that Tendulkar hopes his teammates emulate. Madan Lal, on his part, is confident that the present Indian team is capable of doing much better: "It is a young team that also has lots of experience. I am sure it will click. All that is needed are a few good wins to restore its faith in itself."
Dungarpur has emphasised the need for mentally and physically tougher players who can withstand the pressures of contemporary cricket. It is in this context that Madan Lal’s elevation should be viewed. Tendulkar, keyed up and brimming with aggro, needs a manager who is equally involved. Sandip Patil, casual and carefree, wasn’t. But Madan Lal, focussed and persevering, could be the ideal foil for India’s new captain.
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