Unlike Pataudi, Wadekar wasn’t an Oxford idealist but a Mumbai pragmatist, with an eye for detail.
A week before the team for the West Indies tour in 1971 was to be announced, a nervous Ajit Wadekar asked the then skipper Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi: “Will I be in the team?” Pataudi replied to his younger colleague, who was enduring a run-drought in domestic cricket: “Yeah, you’ll be the captain, and please don’t drop me.”
As Pataudi had prophesied, Wadekar was named the captain, though there were whispers of Mumbai bias. But they were muted a few months later when Wadekar’s men won the series in West Indies, India’s first in the Caribbean. Three months later, they beat England at the Oval to pocked another series-win overseas. This was perhaps the real coming of age of Indian cricket, and the legacy of Wadekar, who passed away on Sunday, was sealed.
Unlike Pataudi, Wadekar wasn’t an Oxford idealist but a Mumbai pragmatist, with an eye for detail. Sunil Gavaskar made both his first-class and Test debut under him. Even in England, where conditions favour swing and seam bowling, he played three spinners, and his wisdom was vindicated when leg-spinner B S Chandrasekhar scythed through the unsuspecting English batsmen at the Oval. Several years later, as manager-coach, he brought the same pragmatism, which continues to be India’s strategy in-distress at home.
Wadekar encouraged youngsters, from Vinod Kambli to Javagal Srinath, besides revolutionising the concept of coaching. He instilled discipline and brought in a code of conduct. After Wadekar’s reign, there was no coach-cum-manager. But both his tenures ended in heartbreak — he was sacked after the “summer of 42’ in England in 1974 and he stepped down as coach following India’s semifinal exit in the 1996 World Cup. But as Wadekar would often say, “Just remember your 100s and forget the ducks.”