Episode 35

Mar 14 2007

Team spirit in splinters

The blame game from the last game continued to spill into the new week. Inthe midst of all the chaos, the boys had forgotten their happy reunion with their family for a couple of days. It was interesting to watch the boys campaigning for votes on their own and with friends who carried on the campaign through their college, community, town and village.

When the time came to sit down and reflect, this time round it was the turn of the two contending captains who have not faced the danger zone so far. Mohammad Abbas and S Prabhu agreed that Prabhu, coming down the order, did not get enough opportunity to bat and so his batting was misunderstood.

Abbas denied he had bowled Amiteshwar in the last over of the match against Invitation XI out of fear of disobeying the coaches’ orders. He said he would not take on the mantle of captaincy if it were up to him. Prabhu, though, was more defiant. He made it clear that he would take the advice of the coach and support staff before the match, but once on the field, the decisions would be his alone. Asked if it meant coming into the danger zone, Prabhu said he would accept it if the decisions he took were wrong.

Praveeth and Sukhvir felt they had been unfairly judged by the selectors and their teammates. Both felt they could trust no one and that everyone spoke about team spirit, but was in reality very selfish. Sukhvir had thought his injury would get him back into the safe zone, but was shocked by the votes that went against him. He warned his friends that those who had voted him out would be in a similar quandary if they were ever put in the danger zone.

The fast bowlers’ club was hurt by the sentiments of the team, if Sukhvir and Praveeth were to be believed. They felt the batsmen had not done their job properly and left the onus on the bowlers, and then let them down with their votes. Sukhvir vowed to fight till the end as did Praveeth despite their voting lines being blocked for a week. While both felt Karan Joshi should be made captain for the next match, too, they continued to emphasise that each contestant’s worry about his personal safety was costing the team.

After all the confusion over captaincy in the last match—the players were annoyed that Robin changed the skipper midway through the match—S Prabhu was nominated captain for the next match against the Leicestershire team.

Abbas thought Prabhu would make a good captain, but Karan felt bad losing the captaincy. Some of the team members felt Karan was a better captain and wondered how Prabhu would lead the side. Personal preferences aside, the coach emphasised that now it was important to back the captain. There was no doubt that all eyes would be trained on the captaincy!