HOW many in India know that, at the end of the ill-starred 1936 tour of England that saw Lala Amarnath so shockingly sent back to India, the Maharajkumar of Vizianagram, as the Indian captain, made a last-ditch attempt to see that the Beaumont Inquiry Committee was not set up to look into the goings-on during that trip? That 1936 team returned to India by sea, of course. But Vizzy flew back ahead of the rest of the team and tried his level best to ensure that Sir John Beaumont did not enter the fray. But Vizzy failed in his effort and, in a huff, withdrew from cricket altogether for a spell.

Mohammed Azharuddin, of course, was in no position to see that the Raj Singh Committee was not set up to inquire into the Navjot Singh Sidhu affair. Azhar, in fact, was not there in India even to object to Sunil Gavaskar being part of the committee! Azhar had taken prior permission of the Indian Board to stay back in London. Stay back with whom is relevant in its own way. For R. Mohan gets to the 'heart' of the matter when he writes in The Sportstar (July 27):
''I am not a prude to suggest, like many have done, that his (Azhar's) friend should not have travelled on the tour bus. If Azhar wrote to the Board and the BCCI was happy to allow his companion access to team facilities, that is fine. Sangita Bijlani's presence had little to do with the Indian team's lack of results. Whether she was a distraction or not is for Azhar to decide.''

The distracting truth here is that if Azhar had come back with the team and the Customs officer at the airport, sighting his bag, had asked, ''Anything to declare?,'' the Indian captain would have been stumped for an answer. For what Azhar had in the bag was just not worth declaring 13 and 0; 16; 5 and 8 from three Tests. From 5 innings, just 42 runs, a score you expect to flow off Azhar's finely tempered blade, within the hour, in a single Test.

Even the argument that Azhar should now concentrate on his batting alone washes only up to a point. For India has no fewer than eight away-Test matches coming up in the new season, three of them against South Africa (against Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock), five against the West Indies. Against bowling of such velocity, how perpendicular can you expect Azhar to be, at this advanced stage in his career, is a cricketing point that needs no elaboration. You want no 'distraction' against fast bowling of such dimension, do you? In fact, the whole problem could be solved in a trice if the selection committee took the gut decision that Azhar, from the point at which Sachin Tendulkar takes over, will play for India only in one-dayers.

It would be a ruling terribly hurtful to Azhar's pride, no doubt. But it would be a very pragmatic decision still, seeing that eight Tests are due to be played on pitches in no way designed to draw the teeth out of fast bowling. Therefore, sublimating his ego, Azhar must discern that his batting is going to be value- judged in much younger company now, sans the cushioning of captaincy, once Tendulkar assumes command. In such a youthful setting, it is best that the batsmanship of Azhar, still so wristy and willowy, is exposed to the world in all its strength rather than in all its weakness.

Beyond question, as a one-day batsman, Azhar will continue to be a rare asset to Tendulkar's India. As a one-day/five-day mix, Azhar and his batting can only go on to suffer fatally in the overs specific game too. It is the moment of truth for Azhar and the selection committee alike. Playing only the one-dayers for India would offer Azhar an opportunity, finally, to go out of the game with the tele focus on him intact, with grace and dignity, something we instinctively associate with the man.

Once such a 'limited-overs' decision is made if at all it comes to be made there should never ever be any woolly rethink about bringing Azhar back into the five-day game, because he does well in the one-dayers, as he is bound to do. Might as well stay with Azhar all the way, here and now, if that is going to be allowed to happen, bowing to the kind of ''public pressure'' that habitually mounts in India.

Of course, if Azhar himself determines that he does not want the softer alternative of the one-dayers alone at this point in his career when he has made runs by the ton for India in Tests that would be a highly personal decision to be deeply respected. Even in such an eventuality, Azhar's artistry at the wicket and in the field will certainly be missed by Tendulkar's India. Maybe the fielding revolution in Indian cricket was led by Eknath Solkar. But it is Azhar who has unfailingly helped sustain standards here, standards first set by the Nawab of Pataudi (Jr).

Indeed, I would commend to Azhar the way Pataudi went about it when he came to face, in the Indian batting line-up the very situation that confronts our captain today. Tiger Pataudi was deposed as India's captain by that casting vote, late in 1970. Four years after the tremor in our cricket, Ajit Wadekar told me that he had personally communicated to Pataudi that he was prepared to hand back the Indian captaincy to Tiger, if that was what was preventing this thoroughbred from accompanying the Indian team on the 1974 tour of England. ''I told Tiger we needed his unique batting experience in that country sorely on that 1974 tour, since it was a tour being made in the deadly first half of the English summer,'' I recall Wadekar recounting.

It must here be remembered that Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, by that stage, was back in Indian batting contention with 73 and 14 not out in the Chepauk Test, plus 54 in the Green Park Test, against Tony Lewis' England, early in 1973. Truth to tell, the overriding feeling in India then was that Pataudi was still integral to our team's batting, after the way Wadekar and co. had struggled, on our own homespun wickets, against the pace of Chris Old and Geoff Arnold. But Pataudi, according to Wadekar, refused to bite. Naturally, seeing that the carrot of captaincy was being dangled by the Vijay Merchant-elevated Wadekar. Tiger excused himself from that 1974 trip to England on the plea that, at that 1970 Wadekar turning-point itself, he had 'deposed' that he was 'no longer available to India for touring abroad!''

We shall, of course, take Wadekar's contention that he bounced back the Indian captaincy to Pataudi with a grain of salt. Mind you, Wadekar might well have made the extraordinary offer. But made it in the knowledge that it would be rejected offhand even with Vijay Merchant having ceased to be Chairman of Selectors. Pataudi was never one to say a straight no in such delicate matters. But nobody could be more eloquent in his silence than this princely performer.

So Pataudi let Wadekar go to ultra-cold England in 1974 an Ajit attired in a stylish grey suit that only momentarily set him apart from the rest of the team. Why stop Wadekar when he was out to make an 'exhibition' of himself in England? Only upon Wadekar's losing caste and the series 0-3 to Denness' England did Pataudi discreetly come back into the picture on his own terms. Pataudi was now firm about his voteback to India's captaincy being 'unanimous' on the part of the selection committee. This was Pataudi's master stroke in neutralising the 'after-effect' of that Merchant casting vote.

As Wadekar came to be bought off by the Cricket Board with the tempting 'benefit' offer of two one-day matches versus the very West Indies against whom Pataudi was gently insistent about being voted back 'unanimously,' Tiger found himself on unenviable test against the thunderbolts of Andy Roberts. Thunderbolts even on our fast-going-slow pitches, as the Chepauk crowd will recollect from the memory of the January 1975 fourth Test against Clive Lloyd and his men in which Roberts returned match figures of 12 for 121 on a wicket tailormade for our spin! Pataudi's scores in that Chepauk Test were 6 and 4, out lbw to Roberts both times.

True, Tiger got a distinctly dicey decision from umpire Sivasankaraiah second time out, but the point is he never looked like coming to terms with Roberts. And Pataudi's entire batting reputation had been built against pace, it was Tiger who, as captain, had always shown Indian batsmen the way. However now, in his comeback series against Lloyd's West Indies, Pataudi had hardly looked the part in the first Test at Bangalore during a sketchy knock of 22. After that, Pataudi had not been able to bat in the second innings, having injured a finger while vainly trying to take a skied catch offered by Keith Boyce. That unusual miss for Pataudi, and the finger injury it entailed, saw Tiger drop out of the second Test at Ferozeshah Kotla, a match we lost by an innings to be down 0-2 in the series.

When he returned for the third Test at Eden Gardens, Pataudi, before breaking his duck, failed to take timely evasive action against a flier from Roberts. Looking to the manner in which he went down in a heap, our hearts missed a beat. Happily, it turned out that Pataudi's reflexes had still been sharp enough to all but get out of the way of that ball that appeared to have got him in the chin. Certainly there was blood oozing out and Pataudi, in that traumatic moment, looked to have faced his last ball of the series.

Imagine our sense of disbelief therefore when, with a plaster covering that wound, with his chin up still, Pataudi stepped out to bat, that very afternoon, upon the fall of Madan Lal (48) in a total of 169 for six. The hand Pataudi got from the Eden Gardens crowd on the occasion had to be heard to be felt. No doubt Tiger had earlier told us in the pavilion: ''Pathan aadmi hoon, Zaroor wapas jaaonga (A Pathan I am, shall get back there).'' But to see him in the flesh now was still an ennobling experience. And Pataudi went on to hit a spirited 36, taking 19 off a Holder over, before being bowled by who else but Roberts, firing away with the second new ball.

It was a brave rearguard led by Pataudi as brave as Nari Contractor's effort to get back into Test reckoning with 130 for Borde's West Zone v Jaisimha's South Zone, in the October 1967 Duleep Trophy final, at the Brabourne Stadium. A final in which Pataudi, with 200 of the best, warded off a threat to his India captaincy, stemming from the manager's report on the 1967 tour of England. Contractor, following that 130, had let it be known that he was prepared to tour Australia and New Zealand under the captaincy of Pataudi!

It was one hell of a situation, a situation Pataudi countered with his brilliant suggestion made during the selection committee meeting to pick the team for the Australasian tour that he would like Sanjay's father Vijay Manjrekar in the Indian side as opener (''Why not? Vijay's bat is as straight as ever and his throw from third man still means only a single to the batsman!''). The selectors ultimately picked neither Contractor nor Manjrekar for that 1967-68 tour. Pataudi thus won his point.

But I have moved back to the Pataudi of late 1967, whereas we were on the theme of Tiger's Test form early in 1975. As Pataudi fell for 8 in the second innings of that Eden Gardens Test against Lloyd's West Indies, it was obvious his best batting years were behind him.

This inspite of his going on to lead India inspirationally enough, ultimately, to level the series 2-2, before going down in the final Test, the first one at the Wankhede Stadium. Pataudi's scores in that 1974-75 series against the West Indies read 22 and 'absent hurt' at Bangalore; 36 and 8 at Calcutta; 6 and 4 at Madras; 9 and 9 at Bombay (batting as low as at numbers nine and seven in what turned out to be his last two knocks for India). In sum, from 7 innings, Pataudi had only 94 runs to show not far removed from Azhar's 42 from 5 innings now in England.

Pataudi's answer to that predicament was in tune with the temperament of the man. There was no flamboyant announcement of his retirement from cricket. Pataudi just quietly let the Cricket Board know that he should not be considered for selection again. Pataudi faded out of the game with no scope for any questions being asked or answered. His unstated point was that, if he was no longer good enough to lead the batting against Andy Roberts, he might as well say: que sera sera.

I am not saying Azhar should emulate Pataudi's example, not for a moment. It has to be, as I noted, Azhar's own very personal decision in the end. But the challenge for Azhar now as for Pataudi then is the same: measuring up to peak pace in Tests. Like Azhar now, Pataudi was a super fielder still, early in 1975. But Tiger divined that it would not be a level field he would be playing if he lingered on, after a run of such poor scores against one who was then the fastest bowler in the world. Pataudi then was 34 years old, Azhar now is 33. It was a decision that stared Pataudi in the face. For Azhar, by contrast, the choice is by no means so easy. 'One day' he is so good. Next day, it is Test match time again... Good luck, Azhar.

Source: The Hindu