Questions over India's preparations - Brearley
Former England captain Mike Brearley is regarded as one of the finest captains in the history of the game
Akhila Ranganna
25-Feb-2013
Former England captain Mike Brearley is regarded as one of the finest captains in the history of the game. He tells Sanjjeev K Samyal in the Hindustan Times, that while things have gone against India on the tour of England, their preparation has been poor and it has been sad to see their decline.
What about team's preparation? They play one game at Taunton. Threefourths of the team comes from West Indies, the rest come from India having not played at all. It seems priorities are not right, as a team and individually. Is it too easy to make a million dollars and the advertisements on top of that? They are in a very nice position, your Indian stars.
One of the things about captaincy is when things are going badly you have to intervene more. You have to be more proactive, be more energetic. When things are going well, you can almost take a back seat and just fine tune the machine. When Ishant Sharma had that excellent spell in England's second innings at Lord's, having reduced them to 62 for five, if Ian Botham was doing it, you couldn't get the ball out of his hands and I wouldn't let him. You have to seize those moments, they don't come back. It was ridiculous to start with a part-time spinner after lunch. I would have started with Sharma and Kumar.
Akhila Ranganna is assistant editor (Audio) at ESPNcricinfo