THE CURSE OF FIC

Ray Jennings, coach of Royal Challengers Bangalore, recently talked about Bangalore's future, tipping Virat Kohli as a strong contender for the captaincy after Anil Kumble finishes his career. "Virat Kohli showed a lot of maturity in recent months and became a part of the Indian set up. For me, he is very much our future captain. How long Kumble is going to be around? I think Kohli can take over from him," he said. "I have no doubt in mind that he can be India's captain in two-three years. I have watched him for a while now and he has been maturing and understands his game better."

Hmm! Future Indian Captain (FIC). Interesting!

At the start of the last decade, Sourav Ganguly had taken over India's captaincy and by 2002-03 period, given some brilliant results. At that time, Mohammed Kaif used to be regarded as the FIC. After all, much like Virat Kohli, Kaif's CV included a feat of having captained India's U-19 squad to a World Cup win. Remarkable achievement that!

But where is Kaif now? Somewhere deeply buried in the ruins of the archaic structure of Indian domestic cricket. I don't believe he deserved what he got, but that's for another day. Here is a man who was tipped for Indian captaincy in the future, but few know where he is right now.

Other youngsters who were considered for Indian captaincy in the future during the past one decade were Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag.

Yuvraj! Captaincy!? Dear Yuvraj, you are not even a certainty in the Test squad as of yet. You have also been relieved of the captaincy duties of Kings XI Punjab. Even Preity Zinta knows her cricket! And also, you are no more young!

Sehwag! Out of the side for some time, he made a wonderful return and now is one of the most vital cogs in the Indian team. But he has admitted himself that he has no interest in the Indian captaincy and would prefer to continue scoring runs. If he continues the way he does, does it really matter who the captain is?

So, the men who had been tipped to take over from Ganguly and Dravid have almost no chances of becoming the skipper of Team India. If given a choice, Kohli would certainly choose to walk the Sehwag-path (though I have a feeling he may well go down the Yuvi-way - hope he's not the next Kaifu).

Now that Jennings has predicted Kohli for the highest position in Indian cricket, Kohli-fans must keep their fingers crossed that he does not get affected by the curse of the FIC.