‘India’s fast bowling attack is no longer a oneman show’
coach. If something goes wrong, the captain takes the blame. I have seen him as a batsman but I still can’t rate him as a captain. As a batsman, I rate him highly. I am not passing judgement on him as captain; he has a long way to go. If you want me to compare him now with skippers likes (Mohd) Azharuddin, (MS) Dhoni and Kapil Dev, he has a long way to go. I feel they were really topclass captains.
I prefer him to be a little sober (though) I don’t think he will agree with me. We have a culture in our part of the world (India, Sri Lanka) in the sense that we are not as aggressive as the Australians or the English. You need to be aggressive when you have to be aggressive. You don’t have to be aggressive every time. You don’t have to show a lot of aggression when you are the captain. That can percolate down to the team, which is one reason I don’t show it. I get frustrated but I don’t show in the middle. If he asks me, I will say ‘calm down a bit’. He is young, he will learn. Give him five years; he will be a different actor. Honestly, I stopped watching cricket. I was very disappointed after the last cricket elections. I had the opportunity to contest for vice-presidency but I took a step back and allowed them to run. They ran it for two years, messed up everything.
Cricket was something like a religion to this nation, and we don’t have a religion now. A lot of people (now) don’t watch cricket. It’s all about wrong administration.
ON A HIGH Lanka great says gone are days when India relied on just Kapil or Srinath