Vettori has a point to prove

Well though Daniel Vettori couldn't take his team farther than what his predecessors could do, may be he can think of something as a captain of the Royal Challengers team in the forth coming Indian Premier League. Daniel Vettori has been named as the captain of the Royal Challengers Bangalore. Last time, it was Anil Kumble who not only took his team to the finals of the tournament in 2009 but also did it in style when initially under the captaincy of Kevin Pietersen emerged as the second team from the bottom of the table. From there onwards, RCB emerged as runners-up losing to Deccan Chargers.

En-route to that, the Royal Challengers Bangalore beat Chennai Super Kings equipped with the highest run-getter of the tournament-Mathew Hayden in the semi-finals of the same. In 2010, though the Royal Challengers team failed to reach the finals losing to the same old rivals-the Chennai Super Kings, they beat the Deccan Chargers in the one off game to make way into the Champions League T20 tournament. There too, Anil Kumble held the crown for taking his team to the finals. This time, there is no Anil Kumble and someone no doubt has to take his place and there can be no other player but Vettori who can do it.

If other players in the team are given a close look at, there is Chris Gayle, who can only be considered to captain the West Indies which is filled with individual talents and not as a team. Then we have the Sri Lankan hard hitting batsman Tilekaratne Dilshan who can be given a consideration considering his batting capabilities and with the fact that he has captained the Kings XI Punjab team earlier. But, Vettori scores over the Sri Lankan in my point of view. Then we have Mohammed Kaif who is seen playing cricket once in a year in the IPL alone.

Making him a captain could be dangerous. If A B deVilliars is made the captain, another Greame Smith can be expected and a disastrous Royal Challengers team could be anticipated like what happened to South Africa in the recently concluded world cup in the sub-continent where South Africa failed to chase down 172 against England. There is not other player about whom anything regarding his captaincy can be mentioned here in this post. The list includes Mayank Agarwal, Arun Karthik, Sreenath Arvind etc. If any of these players be made the captain, it would be better top drop the RCBs from contesting in the tournament.