Always The Bridesmaid
India lost the final Test at Bangalore to lose the 1986–87 series against Pakistan. Kapil Dev was widely cricticised in the media for his captaincy. The selectors retained him as captain in the Reliance World Cup at the beginning of the 1987–88 season. Shastri failed with the bat in the Reliance Cup but formed a successful bowling partnership with Maninder Singh, another left arm spinner. India topped its group but went down to England in the semifinal. Kapil Dev received more cricticisms for skying a catch to deep midwicket when a win was still a possibility.
About this time, Vengsarkar emerged as the strongest candidate to take over from Kapil. He had had a dream run with the bat, starting from the series in England in 1986. In 1987, the newly established Deloitte ratings (the forerunner of the current LG ratings) ranked him the best batsman in the world. The Indian selectors have conventionally leaned towards making the best player of the team the captain. So before the home series against West Indies, Kapil was sacked and Vengsarkar was made the Indian captain.
Vengsarkar had his left arm fractured in the third Test and Shastri captained India for the only time in his Test career. On an underprepared turning track in Madras, India won the toss and elected to bat first. Debutant Narendra Hirwani took 16 for 136 as India won by 255 runs to draw the series 1–1. Apart from this, Shastri did little with bat or ball. West Indies won 7 of the eight one day matches, he was the captain in six of them. Vengsarkar meanwhile picked up a six month ban from BCCI for writing newspaper columns. So Shastri continued as the captain for a three nations tournament in Sharjah in April. Sri Lanka and New Zealand were the other teams and India won easily.
India travelled to West Indies in early 1989. Though a failure overall, Shastri played the best innings by either side in the series. It came at Bridgetown in the second Test. India trailed by 56 in the first innings and lost the six second innings wickets for 63. Batting at No.3, Shastri was last out for a courageous 107 out of 251 allout. Looking back at the end of the his career, he was to consider this his finest innings. The bowlers were Malcolm Marshall, Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh and Ian Bishop and the pitch, difficult.
On the way back many of the Indian players took part in an exhibition match in USA. BCCI suspended the players. Though the suspension was later revoked, Vengsarkar was sacked. Srikkanth became the new captain and Shastri, yet again, the deputy. After an indifferent series in Pakistan, both were excluded from the tour of New Zealand in 1990. Azharuddin led an experimental team which a selector called the 'team of the nineties'. Within a few weeks, the phrase got the status of a joke. Shastri was recalled for the tour to England that summer as the vice-captain.
Read more about this topic: Ravi Shastri