Kaptan Goes Kaput

The team managements of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka appeared to have read the pitch much better than India. But why? Dravid had coach Greg Chappell to draw from for a fund of ideas. Tendulkar was frequently consulted as V-C though India's most successful captain, Sourav Ganguly, was only called to a meeting of seniors after the Bangladesh defeat.

Like Mohammed Azharuddin did in the 1996 World Cup semi-final in Calcutta, Dravid's disastrous decision to bat first against Bangladesh in the opening match will haunt him for some time. Curiously, he defended that decision. The minnow's seamers, Mashrafe Mortaza and Syed Rasel, fully utilised the bounce and movement. "I don't know if we can regret it. The pitch had a pretty dry look about it," he said. "We could have batted a lot better. The ball did seam around a lot more and for a bit longer than we had expected."

In the do-or-die match against Lanka, his use of the slow bowlers left the pundits—professional and armchair, serious and casual—scratching their heads in disbelief. In a tacit admission of "past mistakes", Dravid opted to bowl first. In the Bangla match, the conditions were similar—a sunny day to start with, the wicket having some early juice for the faster bowlers. Under those circumstances, he decided to bat—and that jeopardised India's show in the World Cup.

Dravid also did not bank on Sehwag's off-spin as much as many will have expected, especially in the game against Bangladesh when Habibul Bashar and Dav Whatmore used three left-arm spinners very effectively. Then, he chose to bring on Sehwag only in the 39th over when Bangladesh needed just 31 runs with seven wickets in hand. And in the game against Sri Lanka, Sehwag was not even given a bowl.

Dravid's team, uniquely, boasted of three men who had scored in excess of 10,000 runs each in one-day cricket. But he ended up admitting his batters could have done a lot better. "We had the quality and should have done better, we just didn't bat well," he said. Dravid may be among the best batsmen in any world side, but his captaincy is still a work in need of lots of progress. The question is, should he even get another chance?