We caught up with Krishnamachari Srikkanth, the former captain of Indian cricket team on his trip to London for promoting Num TV and cricket for an informal chat. Srikkanth, a very entertaining cricketer proved to be simple and interesting with his straight forward replies. .

- Nila

 

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Can you form your dream team for One day International?
Assuming that you are asking about Indian side, I'll start from players played for 1983 world cup.
Difficult to decide on the opening pair...could be of any combination between the first four:
Sachin
Srikkanth
Ganguly
Sidhu
Azhar
Kapil (C)
Kirmani
Roger Binni
Kumble
Manoj Prabhakar
a spinner( Raju/Manindar singh/L.Sivaramakrishnan/HarbajanSingh)

Coach :Gavaskar

What are the qualities required for captaincy?
Cricket is a confidence game.The captain should be confident enough to boost up players' confidence.He should know the nuances of getting things done from each player.Should have risk taking and decision making capacity.

Do you think Ganguly has all these qualities?
Partially yes.He has good leadership qualities.But I think he is bit impulsive and short tempered.If he can control his temper I think he will make a good captain.

If captaincy is offered to Sachin again do you think he will succeed?
We should wait and see.

When smaller countries like Pakistan and Srilanka are able to bring out a successful team, why are we not able to do it with one billion population?
The main success of any team is the balance of side.We are not able to get good combination of batsmen,bowlers and wicket keeper.We also lack allrounders and wicket keeping batsman.Even if we had an all rounder in the calibre of Manoj prabhakar, we would have been far more successful.Kirmani used to be a very useful wicket keeping batsman.In the present team,certain positions are just filled for the sake of filling it,for eg, wicket keeper.
Unless we focus on the balance of side, it is going to be this way always.

Is it because we don't have talents or we are not nurturing the right kind of talents?
I think that we are not nurturing the right talents.We need to identify talents and shape them up especially we need to identify more allrounders.

Will there be a situation ever where past cricketers are involved in BCCI administrative roles?
We'll have to wait and see.As of now they are involved in selecion and coaching but not in administarive roles.

Why are we not preparing pitches suitable for seamers?
I think we should start preparing sporting pitches which would initially assist seamers .In the later part of the match would assist spinners.Only when we play on such sporting pitches in India,we would be able to get used to it and play well abroad.Currently we are doing well only in India.

India is coming to england next year.How do you think they will perform?
It all depends...When we were here in 1986 we won the series 2-0.We need to pick up the right kind of team, right set of bowlers...Test matches are won by bowlers.Batsmen can't win test matches.Our bowlers have done well outside India.Unfortunately our batsmen do not back them when needed. For eg in the recent Srilanka series, bowlers did very well in the first test but the batsmen failed .So the right combination is important.Probably,if we pick up the right combination, we should win against England as they are not a very good team.

Against which bowler you felt it was easy to score runs?
Depends on my form.If I'm in good form , I used to score against any bowler.

Against which bowler you would not like to play ?
Malcolm Marshall and Wasim Akram

The best innings you have come across?
G.R.Viswanath's 97 not out in chennai during 1974-75 series against West Indies.It was a classic match winning knock.Andy Roberts was firing on cylinders.No one except Viswanath could score against him.

Who would you rate as the prospective upcoming cricketer?
I still rate Hemang Badhani as a talented player.He did not perform well in the recent Srilanka series.If groomed well , he can become a good player.

How difficult or easy is it to get into Indian team today compared to your days?
In a way it's bit easy today.In our days, we used to play for state in Ranji Trophy and if we perform well, we used to get selected for South zone.If we prove there as well,we will be given a chance against the visiting team.From there we go on to the Indian team.Now players can go from Ranji trophy straight into the Indian team if they manage a couple of good scores in the Ranji Tropy matches.

Why do we loose against Pakistan most of the time even when we are in our best of our forms?
I would not accept this.There are times when we have done very well against Pakistan.It's all how you look at it.

Have you regretted for your early retirement any time?
At times, yes. Ofcourse, we can't do anything about it now.

In your days, you were a good entertaining cricketer.Presently who do you think as one such?
Defintely it is Sachin.

Do you think Indian team's performance entirely depends on Sachin?
I won't say it depends on only Sachin.But he is the main driver.

What kind of charities are you into?
Whenever I get opportunity, I collect funds either by playing matches or by other means.My general opinion is that whoever can promote charities, they should utilise their popularity and do it.

 

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