When was the last time the captain of a cricket team was absent from the post-game press conference after a famous victory?
It would be a difficult question to answer, simply because it happens so rarely. Yet Ajinkya Rahane, on the day of his greatest triumph in his sporting career, the day he engineered the improbable, leading India to victory in the second test after the team was left in tatters in its worst debacle of test in the opening of the series. , did not address the press.
Not only did Rahane lead the team, one exhausted without its most talismanic batter in Virat Kohli and his two main bowlers in Ishant Sharma and Mohammad Shami, a team with two rookies, he was also the Man of the Match, the man who led – noted in the Test with 112 battles that will go on to be one of the great batting performances of the game.
But we didn’t get to hear from him. We couldn’t hear his thoughts, explore the plans he put in place to take down Australia, hear him talk about his own innings and the challenges he overcame. We couldn’t hear him talk about how he used the resources available to him with great ingenuity or how he paired Jasprit Bumrah and R Ashwin to run rings around Steve Smith and Australia.
Instead, we had coach Ravi Shastri. If this were football, the coach who presents his point of view at the end of a memorable win would pass without hesitation. In football, the coach is the face of the team, its main strategist, the man who makes all the decisions.
The reverse is true for cricket, where it is the captain, who stands in the middle, who leads the team through the game, makes the micro and macro decisions, and executes the plans that will lead to the outcome.
There can only be one excuse for the coach to speak to the press instead of the captain: Rahane was indisposed.
But we saw no signs of that during the time he spent on the field, or when he stepped up to the microphone in the post-game presentation.
Shastri has been a constant presence at press conferences when India wins. He was there after the historic Indian series win in Australia in 2018-19. He was there when India won the third round in South Africa with Rahane on the team. India had lost the first two without Rahane playing. And he was there when India rallied to win the ODI series in South Africa. On both occasions, and many others, Captain Virat Kohli was with him.
The only other time a captain stayed away from the press that I can think of is during the India tour of Australia in 2011-12 where India lost all four matches. On a tour in which both Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman retired, Dhoni did not attend press conferences. Instead, he sent a newcomer: R Ashwin.
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