The 34-year-old former Indian left-arm pacer RP Singh, a present member of the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC), has recently talked about his captains during his international career. In this talk, he also revealed the best captain of his life.
RP Singh represented the Indian team in 14 Tests, 58 ODIs and 10 T20Is where the left-arm pacer managed to pick up 40, 69 and 15 wickets respectively. RP was also a crucial member during India’s victory in the ICC World T20 2007.
RP made his international debut under Sourav Ganguly‘s captaincy during 2005 Harare ODI against Zimbabwe. While it was his only international match under Ganguly’s captaincy, RP also played international cricket under four more different captains. Those captains were Rahul Dravid (34 matches), MS Dhoni (39 matches), Anil Kumble (6 matches) and Virender Sehwag (2 matches).
Though he played only a few Tests under Kumble’s captaincy, RP chose the legendary leg-spinner as the best captain of his life. Talking about this, RP pointed out Kumble’s bowler mindset.
RP recently told Aakash Chopra on an Instagram chat, “Anil Kumble was himself a bowler and so he was the best captain of my life. I played only few matches under him but the he knew the psyche of the bowler. I said ‘I will bowl in-swing then he would say no continue bowling out-swing and postpone your thoughts’. Rahul Dravid would not do that. He was a bowler and he knew better about frustrating a bowler.”
Talking about Rahul Dravid’s captaincy, RP was impressed with his technical mentality as he called the legendary batsman as a technical master.
RP said, “Rahul Dravid was technically a very smart player, he would read the game and decided what to do. In the England series I asked to bowl from round the wicket but he should bowl a bit from over the wicket. I looked up to him after few overs and asked again and then he asked if the ball is swinging and even asked MS Dhoni. He allowed me to bowl round the wicket after that. Setting up the field in different ways, he was a technical master, he knew how to run the game.”
We haven’t seen anyone reading the game better than MS Dhoni: RP Singh
RP feels that the former Indian World Cup-winning captain MS Dhoni was the best to read the game. Under his captaincy, RP Singh and his teammates won the ICC World T20 2007.
RP claimed, “We haven’t seen anyone reading the game better than MS Dhoni. When to drag a situation, change it, leave it or how to carry on game from a situation, I haven’t seen anyone better than him in my playing career. He was a player who would read the situation differently.”
RP has also added that he and Dhoni are very good friends from the early time of international career, which they have still maintained despite having different opinions on the game.
RP added, “We used to spend time together, then he became captain and his graph kept going up and mine down. But our friendship is intact and we still talk and roam around together. In cricketing matters we have different opinions.”