VVS fights shy of inheriting captain’s headaches

hyderabad: in addition to his own woes with the bat, sourav ganguly has another headache to deal with: the crumbling edifice of his leadership. the latest and worst in a string of losses came when india seniors suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of india 'a' in final of challenger series at bangalore last sunday. this has fanned the embers into a fire and set the rumour mills to work.media speculation over the last couple of days indicated that the argument in favour of replacing him as the indian captain is gaining support. and one of the names that cropped up was hyderabad's v v s laxman who has come out of the series with an enhanced reputation both as player and leader. the tall middle-order batsman led india a side commendably, which is borne out by the second string side's two wins over the seniors side in four days. laxman took time off to talk to the times of india during a fitness schedule at the gymkhana ground here on tuesday. as one who has kept controversies away, it came as no surprise that laxman ducked the issue. he feigned ignorance about the speculation, unwilling to read too much into his team's success. the ever-modest hyderabad captain only gave credit to his teammates. we played as a team. everyone contributed their mite. laxman was all praise for his hyderabad teammate daniel manohar. a batsman basically, daniel did well as the fifth bowler in both the matches he played.we were one bowler short and daniel filled the slot commendably. the three wickets — s s das, deep dasgupta and virender sehwag - he took in the first game broke the seniors' back. to bowl seven overs and concede just 30-odd runs was a real good effort in the final.and again he got the vital wicket of deep dasgupta to boot.as for his batting, he was unlucky to get out in the final. we should be hearing more of him in the days to come. maybe as an allrounder, laxman added. laxman also spoke highly of himachal pradesh opener sangram singh.he was a revelation. his innings in the final was a gem of a knock. he looks a good prospect. that laxman realised the potential of these two players and inspired them to perform speaks again of his leadership traits. and then his views on sangram sends out a hint to his hyderabad teammates that they better watch out for this youngster when they come face to face with him when they play himachal pradesh in the ranji trophy knock-out later this month. how does he see the forthcoming one day series against england? it will be highly competitive, not just because they will be at near full strength but because their performance in the last two test indicated that they were running into form. they will run us quite close.