PART 1: THE BIG THREE: STILL THE BACKBONE
Having come up with four blog posts on what needs to happen for Indian cricket to get back on the rails, it has become clear that what will happen is absolutely nothing. N. Srinivasan, in his sage wisdom, has announced yesterday that his first act on becoming Board President will be to do nothing in the aftermath of the England tour. The Board also immediately went on to extend Kris Srikkanth’s tenure as Chairman of Selectors. I always knew that our administrators had a blatant lack of interest in anything other than eyeballs and revenue. But Srinivasan has thrown his hat into the ring to compete with Ijaz Butt for the position of most vile and worthless cricket administrator in the history of the game. No doubt he is determined that India should beat Pakistan in the race to the bottom, a race engineered entirely by mal-administration.
In any case, one of the few good ideas I have heard – something that is simple and practical to implement, but which won’t even be considered – was Harsha Bhogle’s idea that a dossier of key Indian players be maintained, so that each can be monitored and treated in an optimum fashion. This has been done in England, with obvious results. Even though it won’t happen here, here is my dossier, also in many parts.
Part 1 will start with the backbone of Indian cricket: the Big Three. There were people who were saying as far back as 2005 that it was time for Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman to retire so that we could “build for the future”. (This is because they thought that once a cricketer turned 30, he was too old. Yet Yuvraj Singh is still referred to as a “youngster” even after he has turned 30). Greg Chappell tried his best to prematurely terminate these and other promising careers, and his brother Ian still goes on about how India’s problems are because these three are still playing. Had the Chappells had their way, there would have been no World Cup win, no rise to world no. 1. (Greg briefly turned his attention to destroying Australia’s chances of a return to world dominance with similarly ludicrous views. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, his tenure as Aussie selector was all too brief, but he did manage to finish off the wonderfully committed Simon Katich).
Some of those voices keep chirping away on this, and every time India does badly those chirps return. I don’t see the logic – it says, basically, that because India hasn’t retired its senior superstars, the youngsters are not good enough. That is a particularly perverse reasoning of cause and effect. Indeed, had it not been for Dravid, the ICC match referee would have had to call off the England series half-way through and simply declare it a knock-out. Even with Dravid, there was a good case to be made for that happening.
So, rather than waiting with bated breath for the seniors to retire, or ranting about how the seniors should be dropped, I for one plan to savor the twilights of their careers, and hope personally that it is a long and glorious sunset. So far, the indications are positive. Sachin’s performances in England were disappointing, but his last three years have been golden, combining some of the boyish enthusiasm of his early days with a complete mastery of his game. Indeed, that is the only word to describe Sachin’s batting: he is a master. He is someone who knows his own game inside out, but who also understands the game of cricket inside out. Watching him bat is not just an education on technique, it is not just a coaching manual – it is a tutorial on the finest nuances of the game. It is a batsman who can get into the head of the opposition, who can suss out of the conditions, who knows how to plan innings in his head before he executes them on the field. It is batting in a different dimension altogether. His relative failure in England was disappointing, but there was a beautiful poignancy to that, a testament that the game of cricket is rich enough to beat the designs of the even the most brilliant masters to master it.
Laxman’s technique against the swinging ball was always going to make him vulnerable in England, but over the past couple of years, he too has grown from being the artist who could make one gasp, to Mr. Dependable. His mental mastery of difficult situations at no. 5 has rivaled that of Michael Hussey, the only difference being that Laxman is much more beautiful to watch, and can still pull off shots of stunning magic with, quite literally, just a flick of the wrists. Sanjay Manjrekar, searching for a scapegoat after our defeat, suggested that Laxman was one of those whose “one-dimensional” cricket would now be under scrutiny. No doubt many others think that way, since Laxman has always been the fall guy of Indian cricket. Those people would be well advised to note that Laxman’s average since the start of 2010 has been 68, in spite of his poor series in England. This includes two match-winning knocks against Australia, two against South Africa, and one against Sri Lanka. Those who think he adds no other dimensions would do well to note his impeccable slip catching. (While the likes of Suresh Raina impress pundits by running around in the field like headless chickens, the minute you put them in the slips, the fingers seem to have a thick coating of butter. Good fielding in Test matches requires more than running around breathlessly like Usain Bolt). With a series against Australia coming up, I don’t know how we can even think of ending Laxman’s career.
And then there’s Dravid. What can one say? I thought that he was entering the last gasps of his career, but he too has had a revival this year to rival Sachin’s. He is the second highest Test scorer in the world in 2011, with only Alastair Cook ahead of him. His technical superiority against the moving ball was there for all to see in England. And more than that – something no youngster in India today has – was his temperament, his patience, his willingness and ability to play long innings without throwing it away.
But there is something greater about Dravid than his batting. In England, he opened, he kept wicket, he allowed himself to be drafted unceremoniously back into the one-day side. He has done all this throughout his career – always serving as the fall-back opener because of selectorial ineptitude or lack of talent; keeping wickets for years in one-day games while still making runs, only to be labeled as not being a one-day player; playing the difficult one-day games because our “one-day specialists” are not good enough, then being dropped without reason so that those very same specialists can beef up their averages on flat sub-continental tracks.
And this for me is Dravid’s true greatness, just as it is a quibble with Sachin. When we had to juggle our batting order in Trent Bridge, why couldn’t Sachin bat at 3 instead of Laxman? Everyone knows he has the better technique to negotiate no. 3 in England. Yet somehow Sachin’s role in the side is sacrosanct: if he really is one of the greatest batsmen to grace the game, then why does he need to be protected in that way?
Laxman is pure beauty combined with immense mental strength. Sachin is without a doubt the greatest batsman India has ever produced.
But Dravid is our greatest cricketer.
They don’t need to be managed. They need to be savored, and saluted.
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