Captain a club side? No thank you

It is said that wicketkeeping and umpiring are the most thankless tasks in cricket. I haven't kept wickets at any level, except backyard cricket, but I imagine it *is* an extremely demanding job. Mentally, it requires intense concentration over long periods of time. Physically, it requires both fitness and agility. At least in the past, wicketkeepers didn't need batting averages like those of top-order batsmen. But the likes of Gilchrist and Sangakkara have tacked on that requirement as well, to the wicketkeeper's already intimidating job-description. So I'm glad I'm not a wicketkeeper, and I salute the wicketkeepers of the world.

As for umpiring, this might cost me a few lbw decisions, but I'll go out on a limb and say that I don't think it's particularly demanding, at least in club cricket. In international cricket, a lot of pressure on the umpires comes from the crowd noise affecting concentration, and the fact that TV replays ruthlessly and instantly expose umpiring errors. No such pressure in club cricket. Leave alone giving the odd dodgy LBW, I once let an over run to 8 balls simply because I got caught up in watching the bowler: a fellow left-arm spinner with a nice, smooth action. Big deal. A yell from the scorer, a call of over, and the matter was buried. Such a lapse in international cricket would've made the umpire a laughing stock. In club cricket, umpiring errors are not heavily scrutinised.

I've umpired my share of club games, and I don't agree with umpires in club cricket who describe their task as a thankless one. In 5 of the 7 leagues I have played in, in 3 different countries, the umpires were actually paid. Albeit not much, but the players themselves were *paying* to play. In some leagues, the host team was required to provide lunch to both the umpire and the opposition. Every captain I've ever known has made it a point to say "Thank you" to the umpire at the end of the game. So how is umpiring in club cricket a thankless job? I'm not saying it's an easy job. Mentally again, it requires virtually the same level of concentration as wicketkeeping. But physically, it is a walk in the park, quite literally! Overall, I just don't see it as being as hard as being an all-rounder, a fast bowler, or that electric fielder in the circle.

One of the toughest jobs in club cricket, in my opinion, is actually that of a captain. Simply because the captain of a club team has to be the manager, selector, coach, groundsman, travel agent, and social activities chair. In India, I had only ever captained two teams. The first was my school's under-13 side. Frankly, that doesn't count. At that age, the coach and the kids' parents did everything. Let alone all those other tasks, the coach even set the field and made the bowling changes, from outside the ground.

The second team I captained in India was my TNCA league team, in Chennai. I played 7-8 years of TNCA league cricket and took nearly 150 wickets, but I only captained two games, the first of which was washed out. The second one was a seesaw encounter that went down to the wire. Towards the end, I lost the plot, and got angrier with my team, the longer the game went. It leaked out the next morning (thanks to my vice-captain) that I had tickets to see the hit Bollywood movie Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, on the evening of the game. The longer the game went, the feebler my chances became of making the show, hence my anger. The manager scolded the 18-year old for prioritizing Kajol over cricket, and that was the end of that captaincy stint.

It was based on this sterling resume that I was nominated captain of the cricket club at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where I got a first taste of the responsibility that came with leading a club team. I think I did a passable job, handing off the role at the earliest opportunity to vice-captain Tanweer Alam, who became one of the best captains I've known. I thought I was done with captaincy forever, until Microsoft Cricket Club 'rewarded' me with the captaincy of one of its 4 teams, for the 2010 season. I tried to refuse, but some senior members of the club persuaded me to take the job.

The fun began in April, with the division of the 4 teams, based on strength, balance, and player availability. It was time to think like a selector. Once the season began, the captains were in charge of practices. Time to think like a coach. As captain I had to strike a balance between giving all players the opportunity to bat, bowl, and field (since they'd all paid fees to the club), and giving the specialists an extended go at their specialty.

On the eve of a game, it fell upon the captain to pick a XI. Should a captain choose a committed journeyman who attended all practices, or a superstar at the regional level, who may have missed a couple? On some days I had more than XI and it was incredibly hard to leave someone out. On other days, there weren't XI available. One had to beg players to fill vacancies, and plead with their wives to let them play.

The problem in club cricket is that every player's goal, unlike in professional cricket, is different. Some players are playing strictly on a recreational basis, others are trying to get chosen for a representative team, and a few have played a higher level of cricket, so don't care much for club cricket. The goal of the captain in this situation is to make everyone happy, but also to win! Did I mention the captain also needs to be a diplomat?

Finally, there was game day, when the captain needed to ensure that the players had transportation to the venue, that the ground was ready with creases, boundaries, and 30-yard circle marked, that food and water were arranged for, and that the umpires were paid. I tried to delegate some of these tasks to others, of course, but the final responsibility if anything was amiss, lay with the captain. There were other miscellaneous tasks as well: ensuring availability of equipment for practices, communicating score-sheets and captain's reports, etc. All these, apart from trying to decide the batting order, and whether to bat or field if we won the toss.

I'm guessing this is the life of any captain in club cricket, anywhere in the world. I only ran into it after coming to the US. But what a life it is! It is for the reasons above that I think being the captain of a team is one of the toughest tasks in club cricket. People tell me I did well this year. My team qualified for the knockout stages, before being eliminated in the semi-finals. I love the sport, the team spirit, and the camaraderie, but I'll be honest in admitting that captaincy isn't my cup of tea. I know a lot of folks though, who excel at captaincy, and even enjoy it. I admire them, for they are better men than I.