Mumbai: V.V.S. Laxman, the grand stylist of the game, may go against the grain of popular thinking that Sachin Tendulkar failed as a captain. He lists out the reasons why Sachin was unable to succeed as a captain and how he opted out at the right time to leave it to others.
But, as a human being, there is none greater than the Little Master is what Laxman reveals in this chat with R. Mohan at Sachin's 200th Test match in Mumbai.
Q: You played such a lot of your cricket with Sachin Tendulkar and must have enjoyed a lot of interaction Can you pick one special moment that reveals his greatness as a man, Team India colleague and batting mentor?
A: There have been so many occasions over the years in which I was indebted to Sachin Tendulkar in the course of having played so long with him that it is hard to pick any one to highlight what he is like as a person.
There are pages and pages of statistics, all his records to showcase him and his achievements.
I can recall so many experiences in which he let that personal touch come through. But one incident I will never forget was in 2001 just after that fantastic series against Australia that we won. Harbhajan and I signed up with Pepsi after that series and we had a photo shoot in Mumbai.
Sachin had invited both of us to dinner. After the Pepsi shoot I had gone to do a shoot for another sponsor and I had wrongly estimated the traffic and the travel time. The shoot was in Colaba and by the time I reached Sachin's home it was 11.30 pm. I was supposed to be there at 8 pm.
What struck me as amazing was both he and his wife did not have dinner. In fact, both of them waited for me to turn up so they could serve dinner and we could all eat together. That really touched my heart. You never expect such a great personality and a super star of the country to wait for you and then his wife too did the same. I will never forget that gesture of Sachin and Anjali.
Q: What was he like in the dressing room?
A: He was a huge influence. He was the one person I used to approach more than the coach whenever there was an issue with my batting. I feel he has a great eye for spotting something wrong which is happening on the technical front. He would point out whether it was good or bad.
He would observe things very accurately. He had the eye to know even if you had made some subtle changes in your batting.
Always, I used to go and talk to him about my batting and in so many instances he helped me out.
If I was going through a rough patch and I wanted to change a technical aspect of my game, he was my go-to man. I always cherished that relationship with him. When a colleague comes and helps you with your game it feels very special. The knowledge he has about the game and the technique makes him a very special person. I found his inputs were the best. He would readily come over to watch me bat in the nets and give his advice, which I treasured.
Q: What was he like on the field? The impression from outside is he is not a confrontational figure who liked to scrap with the opposition. What is your take on this from the inside fence?
A: On the field he was very intense. He had that super competitive spirit. He never wanted to give the opposition an inch. He and Anil (Kumble) would be the two cricketers who would always pump up the entire team. If a big partnership was building against us, both of them would be the ones to come out and tell all of us that we should have a better body language and that we should be aggressive to break the stand.
That was probably what gave him the edge over the others.
Q: But why do you think he failed as a captain?
A: Honestly , his statistics are not great as a captain, particularly one-day cricket. But in Test matches I felt he had a good chance. Maybe, he failed on two very important occasions -one in Johannesburg and the other in Barbados in 1996-97. But I think he had a team in which there were many seniors and they were failing a lot and a lot of youngsters were just coming in, I think he did not have the right team who could contribute along with him to win matches. It is not one or two persons who win matches but we should have seven or eight guys who would perform at a crucial time. He probably did not have that kind of team with him.
The other factor is the support structure. In 2001, John Wright was appointed as the first foreign coach and there was a support structure that came with him.
That kind of really helps the captain to lead on the field. You have professional trainers who monitor the physical fitness of the players.
You have a physiotherapist who monitors the injury aspects. And then you have the computer data from the analyst on how the opposition plays and you can plan strategies for the opposing batsmen from that data and how to approach their bowlers, etc. all this was not available to Sachin. He took a lot of burden on himself plus he was the mainstay of the Indian batting. I feel also that he was not happy that the players he was asking for were not given to him by the selection committee.
All these aspects frustrated him and he gave up the captaincy altogether. Once that feeling came to him that he was not getting anywhere as captain he took a good decision to say pass on the job.
It is good that he gave up captaincy ideas and concentrated on batting because Indian cricket could not afford to lose such a batsman. I still feel he had it in him to become a good captain.
Whether he was captaining or not, he gave a lot of inputs for the team whenever we were strategising about the opposition.
He was a very smart thinker on the game.
