In defense of Vettori

Sometime, during his disastrous term as Indian captain, Tendulkar was asked, what is it that he thinks has gone wrong with his captaincy. After all, Tendulkar as we know is a fabulous player. That apart, he is known to be actively involved in the on-field decision-making — known to chip in with valuable advises when the chips are down. Then why on earth did he not succeed in the role he was, if we say, made for?

Tendulkar had a very plain answer, not one to be jotted down and re-published years later. He said, some decisions work on some days and the same fail you on others. He even cited the incident when he promoted Robin Singh to number three against Sri Lanka in an ODI in 1997, and the burly batsman came back with his only century. He tried the same in another game, but Robin failed to repeat his heroics. Precisely, he was pointing to ‘luck’. This is where statement became dull.

Pardon him, we said, he is still a kid. Don’t you remember, during your childhood, you had also hidden behind such alibis? Lesser grades, broken pencil lid, they all could be attributed to bad luck and forgotten. Tendulkar is, still, a kid.

Luck is a peculiar word. We either use it sparingly or tend to overuse it. Azharuddin would prefer, “Boys didn’t play well.” Probably, putting the blame on luck sounded too sissy to him. Inzamam-ul-Haq on the other hand was laughably benevolent in his use of the word.

Yet the importance of luck in the game cannot be totally negated. Former Australian captain Richie Benaud once said,

“Captaincy is 90 percent luck and 10 percent ability.”

Benaud was an institution in himself and possibly knew the nuances of leadership better than many of us. Today, when Vettori’s decision to bowl the 19^th over the match against Chennai backfired, we were left with two choices, either to believe that Vettori is strategically impotent or simply seek shelter in that filthy word. Calling Vettori the former would be foolish, for he is the same man who had guided Bangalore to the finals last year. An astute leader, Vettori has led New Zealand with distinction in every version of the game. So it has to be the latter.

Among the five regular bowlers that Bangalore had, Zaheer Khan, Vinay Kumar, Muralitharan and Vettori himself were done with their quota of overs. Chris Gayle who is capable of chipping in with some important overs of off-spin was unavailable for bowling. All-rounder Raju Bhatkal who had gone for 35 in his two overs had two more overs left, but would going with him for that over have been a sane decision?

Bhatkal’s first over had gone for 20 runs and his second for 15. On the other hand, there was Kohli, not even a regular part-timer for his national team. Kohli’s medium pace had given away eight runs from the first over. Forty-three runs from two overs is monumental by any standard. Vettori even in his scariest dream would not have imagined Morkel smashing 28 runs off the second last over of the game. Yet it happened. Maybe, because it had to happen. There will be arguments like he should have saved Zaheer or Murali or Vinay, but in cricket, like in life, many things depend on that filthy thing called luck.

Other articles that might interest you :

https://www.sportskeeda.com/2012/04/12/explosive-super-kings-rule-over-the-royal-challengers/

https://www.sportskeeda.com/2012/04/13/the-finishers/