‘The Indian fan today is running world cricket, make no mistake about that… there’s no doubt that they are very demanding’

That puts me in very good company. I am honoured.

But it also tells us that cricket is something we take seriously, second only to politics.

Sometimes, I think, too seriously.

Politics or cricket?

Cricket! Politics, we must take seriously. We probably don’t take it seriously enough.

Why do you say we take cricket too seriously?

Well, when I say that, I mean there is so much emotion and passion involved in the game that I think we tend to forget sometimes that it’s just a game and that winning and losing are part of the game.

Sometimes, I think, people take it too personally, the winning and losing of an Indian cricket team. And it’s the same way when we win—they can get so excited and so happy that it can get a bit too much.

I like what your coach, Greg Chappell, said the other day; he was talking to an Australian paper, I think, and he said working with these guys is like escorting the Beatles. You go to the airport and you have 50,000 people lining the streets. It’s wonderful.

It is. I must say it’s a privilege to play for India, it’s an honour. … Indian fans are the best fans in the world, there is no doubt about it. The kind of reception we get, they are demanding, there’s no doubt about it.

And they are unforgiving.

They are unforgiving, but you must realise that the Indian fan today is running world cricket, make no mistake about that.

And that is why this is the richest part of the cricketing world right now, isn’t it?

It is. I think it’s where the financing of world cricket is. I wouldn’t say completely, but definitely a major part of world cricket today is being run by Indian companies. Part of that is also the result of our economy and the growth that we have seen over the last 10 or 15 years. The success that is India is being reflected in the cricketing world as well.

But being booed by your own people…the way you were in Calcutta… I remember speaking once with Sunil Gavaskar in 1983, the last time, I think, until now, that an Indian team played an international match in Srinagar. And the team was booed and the crowd supported the West Indies and, in fact, Gavaskar mentioned to me that it was the fastest he’d seen anybody bowl, Malcolm Marshall in Srinagar. The combined effect, how does it work on your mind? I know many players who went to Srinagar came back scarred from that experience, having an Indian crowd take a position against you…

To be honest, I’m not the first Indian captain to be booed on an Indian ground and I won’t be the last…

But this was for non-cricketing reasons.

I was lucky not to face it on the boundary line. But some of the things the boys heard on the boundary line and some of the abuse they were given was not nice. But, you know, having said that, we didn’t play well on the day; it was a day when we were totally beaten by a good South African team, we were outclassed. People were upset; there were a variety of reasons for why they were upset, some of it was legitimate, some of it was not. I mean, there is no point getting into that. I think as an international sportsman, you have got to accept these things sometimes. It is not always an ideal situation, you don’t always come back feeling very nice, but you understand it. You can rationalise it…Like I said, I am not going to be the last. People are demanding, but they are very loving as well.

Let me give you Kapil Dev’s regional theory of Indian cricket. He says, if you look at the west, it’s all talent and very little hard work. If you look at the south, a lot of talent, a lot of hard work. If you look at the north, some talent, loads of hard work. Then, he says, if you somehow get it all together, go east, go to Calcutta and perform, because you get 100% adulation. To get abused in Calcutta, then, must be particularly galling, isn’t it…?

I have always done really well in Calcutta, I love playing in Calcutta. I mean, the experience of playing with Laxman that day. And six months before I went there for the last game, I’d got a 100 in each innings to win a game against Pakistan. To win a Test match for India against Pakistan and score a 100 in each innings is very special. I love playing in Eden Gardens, it’s a great venue and a great place to play cricket…

Talking about Pakistan, Rahul, what do you take to Pakistan? What have you learned, what memories of the last tour do you take to Pakistan now?

I take back some very fond memories, both on and off the field. On the field, we won a series abroad; we were the first team to win a series in Pakistan. Personally, it was a good series for me, both the one-days and the Test. Just meeting people, making friends outside the cricket field. I have some very good memories of that trip. I think the couple of months that we spent there were really enjoyable. It was a very different time when we went last time, we hadn’t been there for 13 or 14 years and there was a bit of apprehension. But we really had a lovely time there.

Were you surprised by the way the team did?

I wasn’t very surprised because, to be honest, we’d just come back from a very good tour of Australia, we’d played some very good cricket.

But we had heard the same talk as we hear now: Shoaib Akhtar, Sami, Kaneria, home pitches, home advantage.

You will hear these things all the time, Shekhar. The talk before a series has not changed in the nine years that I have been playing this game.

But there’s still this general feeling that it’s Pakistani bowling versus Indian batting. And our batting, as we’ve seen lately, has shown some change. We were nearly exposed by South Africa, then we were exposed in at least one match by Sri Lanka.

We have a good batting line-up and that’s been our stren-gth. Over the last four or five years, we have had a group of players who’ve played probably some of their best cricket as batsmen. Whether you look at what Sachin’s done or Sehwag, Laxman, Sourav… all four or five of us have played probably some of our best cricket at this point of time.

But right now there’s a patchiness to it.

There is a certain amount of patchiness to it, but there’s some quality to it as well. And that will be a key part of the series. Our batting coped really well with their bowling the last time… Veeru got about 300, Sachin nearly got a double 100, I got a double 100. We can repeat that sort of performance with our batting.

But you have got a much better tail now, a much shorter and a better tail.

We have some good players in the tail, that’s one of the goals of trying to improve this team. I think one of the challenges for me as a captain and for us as the team management is how do we get the best out of our players, how do we make them improve, not only as players but also as individuals, how do they grow? I think that by giving them different challenges, different opportunities, we are seeing that not only are they relishing it, but they are also growing and becoming better cricketers.

Talking about that last series, you talked about your double 100, Sehwag’s triple 100 and Sachin’s near-double 100. A question about that. I mean, questions have been raised about when you declared and why you declared. Have you thought about it…?

Well, I was never sure that the Test match was going to finish on the fifth morning like it did. I mean, the match finished 80 overs before the end of the day and if I had known that we were going to have that much time, I would not have declared at that point of time. But, of course, I was not privy to that knowledge and I wanted to have a crack at the Pakistani batsmen that evening. That’s what I felt would give us the best chance to win that Test match and we were in a position to. It was Sachin’s and Veeru’s knock that had actually got us into that position. I think there again a lot was made out of it. Sachin and I have respected and known each other for so long and we get along really well. Between us, the issue was sorted out as quickly as possible; we spoke about it and what we said is obviously something that will remain personal. I really admire and respect him and appreciate the way he handled not only that episode but a lot of things in his life.

Rahul, let’s talk about captaincy. It is often believed that a player’s own attitude to the game reflects on his captaincy. How do you define your own approach to captaincy? I know your answer will be that you have had the job for too short a time.

That will be my answer, thank you! Like you said, I have done it for a short period of time, but I don’t think that the way you bat is necessarily the way you will captain. I think that’s a cliche. People say, oh, he’s an attacking player, so he’ll captain attackingly. Or, he’s a defensive player, so he’ll captain defensively. I think they are two different things. You bat according to your skill level; and you captain according to the way you think about the game, according to the resources you have. There is no point for a Bangladeshi captain, with the resources he has, being blindly aggressive. I don’t think the two are related.

But your own batting has evolved.

It has, over the last four or five years…

In fact, John Wright said you are fitter in your 30s than you were in your 20s.

That is probably true. I think the awareness of fitness, it has always been there, but it’s probably been more professional since 1999-2000. I remember when I first started we were not that professional about our fitness. But I think over the last three years, since we have had a trainer, since we had Adrian Le Roux and now Greg King, there’s been a more professional approach to it, say, in terms of what we eat and don’t eat. And the game’s also become professional…

And how has the business of captaincy changed? How do you motivate players? Because this is a team of stars, superstars.

I don’t think I need to motivate people to play for India. I think people should be motivated to play for India, and they are. In my experience, if you look around and see who are the great players that you’ve played with, you realise that you have never needed to motivate them to play for India. Those are the kind of people you are looking for in a team. You are looking for people who not only motivate themselves but also inspire other people. I think the mistake you can make in teams is to club people who are not that keen, not that motivated, who don’t have the hunger to improve. And if you get them in an organisation or a team, with a group of motivated people who want to do something, you can end up demotivating the people who want to do something. You run a newspaper and I think you will agree with me that in any team or any organisation, a few people, if they are not motivated and if they are not keen for the organisation to do well, they can demotivate the actually keen people. And it is important to get those people out of the way.

The difference is that when we find people like that, if we wish to, we can tell them to go. It does not become a public story. It is not something on which one billion people have a say.

Well, I don’t make all these decisions. Contrary to public opinion, the coach and I don’t have a say in everything. There is a chairman and five selectors…

As a leader, if you saw a negative influence developing around somebody—as I am sure you have seen in your career—now that you are captain, how would you deal with it?

I think there are two ways to deal with it. You talk to the people involved and try and get them on track. And if you feel that people are demotivating other people in the team, and are not playing for the team, then you have got to take some hard decisions sometimes and that’s the way it’s got to be.

Have you seen that happen?

No, I would not say that. To be very honest with you, I have been very happy with the team and all the players I have got.

But people who bring in a brooding presence?

That’s not good in any team. What I’m saying is, it’s not rocket science. Anyone who brings a brooding presence, or anyone who doesn’t want to improve—I am not just saying that people need to be nice, but what I am saying is that people need to constantly improve. Because if they improve as individuals, the team grows with them. But if they stagnate, and if they don’t want to improve, then they bring down the whole team with them. So with people like that, obviously tough decisions have to be taken. But that’s international sport. And there are no tough decisions. What you are actually doing is, you are making a decision that helps the majority.

And you find between you and Greg Chappell and the current dispensation on the board and the selection committee, all of you have the strength and the confidence to take tough decisions when they need to be taken?

Yeah, I’m sure when the tough decisions need to be taken, they will be taken. I hope there will be no need to take those decisions.

How do you take tough decisions without taking tough decisions? You now sound like a diplomat.

You have to be! What I am saying is that I hope no one will ever give us reason to take tough decisions.

One of the problems that many people see is that this is a team full of senior people and senior influences. There’s you; there’s the coach, who is a very strong presence; there’s a former captain, Sachin Tendulkar; there’s a strong vice-captain, Virendra Sehwag; there’s another very recent former captain, Sourav Ganguly. In fact, we saw in the Kotla match in Delhi, it looked as if Irfan Pathan was getting instructions from three different people…

I think you want to get as many people involved as possible. At the end of the day, I take the final decision.

You can’t captain by committee.

You definitely can’t, but you can take advice by committee. Finally, the captain is at the end, and whatever decisions have to be taken, I have to take those decisions. I don’t have all the knowledge in the world, I don’t have all the ideas about cricket, and I’m not fool enough to believe that I have all that knowledge. I know that to be successful as a captain and as a team, I’ll have to get help from other people, whether it’s the coach, senior players, people outside the team as well… I might get opinions from other people, but the final call lies with me.

But when the buck stops with you, you better have the power to take that final call.

It does. That what’s the challenge of leadership is all about.

And that’s quite clear to you?

Definitely. There’s no doubt about it. Obviously there’s not much I can change about what people feel and do, but (there’s) what my teammates know. And that is what’s important to me… What we actually want to do is to encourage opinions from the younger people—a youngster might come up with an idea which you have never thought of. And we have had that, you know. We want people like the Kaifs and the Yuvrajs, even the Irfans, the Dhonis, the Rainas—everyone to come up with ideas. What we are trying to do is encourage people to talk, to express their views.

The last time we spoke, you said what India needs most of all is a wicketkeeper/ batsman. You think that wish has been answered a bit now?

Well, Dhoni’s had a great start to his career, there’s no doubt about it. He has done really well, he’s got a fair distance to go. Like everything in India, huge hype gets created, but he has the potential, he has done really well. He has got what it takes. And the good thing to see is that there’s not only Dhoni, there’s Dinesh Karthik who’s done quite well, there’s Parthiv Patel.

We suddenly have talent.

Yeah, we’ve got talent and they’ll push each other throughout their careers, they are about the same age. So that’s going to be very exciting for Indian cricket.

But one area where we don’t see that much talent coming up is spin bowling, unfortunately.

Well, we’ve got two great spinners.

I mean, out on the bench.

That is true, probably. I haven’t had a chance to see what the domestic talent is, but even there, some of the senior players I talk to in domestic cricket, or coaches, tend to tell me the same thing that there isn’t much spin bowling around. But all that can change.

Tell me your thoughts on your visit to Pakistan. What is your mental preparation, what are you looking forward to?

It is a great opportunity, a great challenge and a great team, it’s a great chance for this young team, I think, to grow and to take this as one step in the journey that we want to accomplish. And to enjoy it. I think that’s more important…

And what will decide this series?

Discipline. Discipline will decide the series.

Would you like to elaborate on that?

Well, the team that’s going to be more disciplined, the team that’s going to find courage and character in critical times, is the one that’s probably going to decide the series.