Tendulkar declines Indian Test captaincy

NEW DELHI—Sachin Tendulkar has declined the Indian Test captaincy, citing personal reasons, two days before the national selectors are scheduled to decide on the position. The Board of Control for Cricket in India confirmed that Tendulkar turned down the offer as he felt a younger captain would be better.
“Sachin Tendulkar has conveyed to Sharad Pawar [BCCI president] that he was not in a position to accept the captaincy of the Indian team for the Tests,” Niranjan Shah, the board secretary, said in a statement. “He [Tendulkar] was of the view that presently the Indian team was doing extremely well and the Board must think of appointing a younger person as the captain, looking at the future of the team.”
The board also clarified that Tendulkar didn’t reject the captaincy as a mark of protest, especially after the dropping of seniors like Rahul Dravid. “We wish to clarify that Sachin has not written any letter nor has he expressed anguish about anything as is being projected in the media.”
Tendulkar, 34, was widely tipped to be named as India’s Test captain - he was vice-captain during the Test series in Bangladesh and England - after Rahul Dravid resigned in September. “I don’t feel right about it at the moment,” Tendulkar told CNN-IBN, an Indian news channel, after it was earlier learnt that he had spoken to members of the board.
The Telegraph, the Kolkata-based daily, quoted an unnamed source as saying the selectors are set to hand the captaincy to Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who has played 20 Tests. “My understanding is that Sachin is not keen and has made that known to some people,” he said. “So Dhoni looks the favourite. It’s a plus that he is already the one-day and Twenty20 captain.” However, Greg Chappell, who quit as India’s coach in April, said Dhoni may be too inexperienced for the Test captaincy. “He [Dhoni] is doing his apprenticeship in the limited-over forms of the game,” Chappell told the news channel Times Now. “Probably another 12 months or more I think before he is perhaps ready for all three of them. A tour of Australia behind him will finish him off nicely as a cricketer and as a potential leader.”
Ravi Shastri, who was India’s manager in Bangladesh earlier this year, felt that handling the Test captaincy to Dhoni would burden him. “It will put him under a lot of pressure. In future he may do it but not at this moment,” he told PTI. “He has a lot of talent but I think he is not ready for this responsibility now.” Shastri also advocated having separate captains for the Test and ODI teams. As for India’s coach, he said it would not be wise to rush the process. “There is no need to rush things to get a coach. We need to pick the ideal person. We just can’t take anybody and make him the coach. And the team is winning, so why the tension? We’ll wait for the right time and the right man for the job.”
The selectors are due to meet at Mohali on November 8 to announce the team for subsequent one-day internationals in the current series against Pakistan, and pick a Test captain. India’s cricket selectors were undecided on Tuesday whether to offer the Test captaincy to youthful one-day skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni or go back to ageing senior pro Sachin Tendulkar. We have not made up our minds, nothing is final yet,” one of the five selectors told AFP following a media report that Tendulkar had rejected the post. The selection committee is scheduled to meet in Mohali on Thursday to pick a successor to Rahul Dravid, who unexpectedly stepped down in September for unspecified reasons.
Dhoni, 26, led a young Indian team — missing Dravid, Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly — to victory in the inaugural world Twenty20 championships in South Africa. The popular wicketkeeper-batsman was also named one-day captain, but the experienced Tendulkar, 34, had been widely tipped to take over the Test role for the upcoming series against Pakistan and Australia.
India hosts Pakistan for three Tests starting later this month and plays four Tests in Australia from December before another home series against South Africa in March.
Tendulkar served two stints as captain between 1996 and 2000 before he voluntarily quit in March 2000 saying he wanted to concentrate on his batting. Under him, India won four of 25 Tests with nine losses and 13 draws.
The Kolkata-based Telegraph newspaper on Tuesday quoted unnamed cricket board sources as saying that Tendulkar had declined to become captain and the selectors were set to pick Dhoni for the Tests.—Agencies