Conspiracy theorists will surely churn out many stories about why Rahul Dravid decided to quit as captain of the Indian cricket team. He was upset, they would say, that senior players like Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly avoided sitting at the same dinner table with him. There would be insinuations that Mr Dravid found the Indian dressing room a hotbed of intrigue. Mr Dravid’s departure will also be placed in the backdrop of all the recent controversies in Indian cricket, especially the spat between Mr Ganguly and Greg Chappell. It is better, though, to take Mr Dravid’s own explanation as the real one. It is perfectly logical for him to reason that he should quit the captaincy because it was taking its toll on his batting. He has enough statistical evidence to support such reasoning. For a batsman whose scores in the Tests averaged 60.12 when he was not the captain, it can logically be a matter of concern if the average fell to 44.51 in the matches he played as captain. Much the same thing happened to India’s two other most successful batsmen — Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly. They scored less as captains. Sunil Gavaskar was an exception in that the captaincy did not diminish his batting. But then, international cricket today is a very different ball game from what it was in Mr Gavaskar’s time.

But Mr Dravid’s departure as captain, like those of Messrs Tendulkar and Ganguly earlier, points to a bigger problem. It is the Indians’ inability to cope with pressure. Depending on the personalities of the cricketers, this inability shows in different ways. If Mr Dravid has his own quiet way of quitting, others may kick up a storm before leaving the captaincy. Yet, the captain of an international cricket team today has no choice but to be prepared to face all sorts of pressure. And some of the pressure can be nastier than the most vicious bouncers that even a consummate batsman like Mr Dravid would rather not face. The intense competition, the rigours of hectic schedules, high expectations of the crowds and, above all, the ever-present shadow of Mammon on the game and its management have dramatically changed cricket from the leisurely sport of another era.

This is the real issue about the captaincy that the Board of Control for Cricket in India should ponder. The question is how the administrators of the game handle the issue. It is not the same thing as having a bowling coach in order to improve the bowlers’ skills or having a fielding coach or a physical trainer. Mike Brearley of England proved to be a successful captain without being half as good as Mr Dravid or Mr Tendulkar as a batsman. England currently has different captains for Tests and one-day internationals. Australia has also experimented with the same thing. The point about all this is that other cricket-playing nations have sought to seriously tackle the challenges of captaincy. The BCCI now has to choose between the experience of a Tendulkar and the youth of a Mahendra Singh Dhoni. The real challenge, though, is to teach Indian players how not to wilt under pressure.