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da pixbet： Dileep Premachandran26-Mar-2009Leadership means different things to different sports. In football, thecaptain’s armband is more a sign of recognition than an acknowledgement oftactical nous. When people talk of the immortal Brazilians of 1970, theytalk of Pele and Jairzinho, Gerson and Tostao. If they do mention CarlosAlberto, it’s for the rocket into the Italian net, and not his leadership.Cricket couldn’t be more different. When we speak of the great sides,they’re almost always prefaced by the captain’s name. Warwick Armstrong’sAustralians of 1920-21. The Don’s legendary team of 1948. Ian Chappell’s Ugly Australians. Clive Lloyd’s Calypso Men. Mark Taylor’s new-ageAussies. You can’t separate the team from the leader, the victoriouscampaigns from the men who made the crucial calls.After American Football, where the quarterback reigns supreme, in no othersport does the captain exert the same level of influence. So, when John Buchanan, acknowledged as one of the great coaching brains of our age, comes out and says that it doesn’t really matter who leads a team, peoplewill sit up and take notice. More so when the man being marginalised as a result of the new theory is the most successful captain that India has ever had.”It could actually be of benefit to someone like him because it could free him up for his batting, when he just needs to do his batting or for hisfielding when he just needs to do his fielding or when he needs to just dohis bowling without the burden of the 20-over format on hisshoulders,” said Buchanan when asked about Sourav Ganguly not being giventhe Kolkata Knight Riders captaincy for the second season of the IPL. “The laws of the game state that you need a captain for certain formal roles, such as the coin toss, but thataside, I see there is scope to challenge the way teams have been run inthe past.”His idea of collective leadership has already drawn an incredulousresponse from Mickey Arthur, who has plotted South Africa’s rise to thetop of the world game in conjunction with Graeme Smith. Ganguly himselfdidn’t appear best pleased with the idea, saying: “Tomorrow I can jump outand say we need four batting coaches, four John Buchanans and Shah RukhKhan [the team owner] can say we need six Andy Bichels. These are allopinions, these are the ways they are thinking Twenty20 cricket can beplayed. We’ll have to wait and see because it’s completely new, it hasnever happened in sports.”Even in this era of coaches, the one consistent line has been that the captain has the final word once the team crossed the rope on to the field of play. Does a coach sitting on the sidelines really have a better feelfor what’s going on in the middle?One of Buchanan’s more strident critics, Shane Warne, might also have athing or two to say about this latest theory. The story of last season’sIPL was the story of the Rajasthan Royals, the basement-dwellingcandidates who went on to be champions. Warne was captain and coach, and the inspiration behind a less-than-star-studded side punching way above its weight. He made household names of the likes of Yusuf Pathan andRavindra Jadeja, while Sohail Tanvir and Shane Watson finished up as thestars of the tournament.Try telling those men that Warne didn’t matter, that it could just aseasily have been Mohammad Kaif or Kamran Akmal leading the side. The teamthat lost to the Royals in a thrilling final was no different. MS Dhoni’scomposed style of leadership helped the Chennai Super Kings recover from amid-season slump, and nearly repeat his feats with India’s Twenty20 teamless than a year earlier.There’s a tendency to denigrate the twenty-over game as hit-and-giggle andlittle else, but for the captains, the margin for error is infinitesimallysmall. One bad over, and the game could be finished. In a Test match, youcan have one poor session and still come back to wrest the game away. InTwenty20, there are seldom any second chances.Arthur spoke of the players getting mixed signals, and that’s the biggestproblem with this Politburo model of captaincy. Who has the final say?Even in this era of coaches, the one consistent line has been that thecaptain has the final word once the team crossed the rope on to the fieldof play. Does a coach sitting on the sidelines really have a better feelfor what’s going on in the middle? And if there are four or five “leaders”on the field, who makes the crunch calls? Instead of relying on one man’sinstinct, do you put it to a vote?As with any experiment, it can’t be rubbished without giving it a fair go.Just don’t expect Warne or Dhoni to buy into it. Ganguly, who won 21 ofhis 49 Tests and led India to a World Cup final, probably won’t either.