What vintage 'record players' have to say

TOMORROW is not just another one-day. Overnight-and-day, the litmus Chennai Test yields pride of place to the Bangalore fest. Down Eden and up Chepauk Road we travel to the Garden City. Kelvinator cool had Steve Waugh and his men, misleadingly, shown themselves to be, initially, in Australia's carrying the battle back to our spin at Chepauk. For, shortly before lunch last Monday (as Harbhajan Singh struck seven times yet again), the Aussies had folded up like a parachute descending (326 for 3 to 391 all out). In such a context, let us rewind from Chepauk to that `Edenosedive' by Australia. As Venkatsai Laxman's golden domestic run at last translated into that state-of-the-art 281, you beheld that `VVS' just could not `strike' the previous day's rhythm in carrying on from where he had left off on 275, scimitar in hand. A 275 that had seen `VVS' blazingly cross the `Laxman Rekha' of 274 (so challengingly set by Steve Waugh) to emerge as India's Atlas.

Yes, that 275 not out just about put in the shade the 274 lead Australia had taken at Eden. As Laxman went follow-on and on, Steve Waugh came under predictable fire for having asked India to bat again. Steve Waugh's response, here, should have been that he had no Kapil Dev, as coach, for a spot follow-on counsellor. For Kapil could have told Steve that, when Tendulkar's India had not dared to enforce the follow-on in the case of a John Wright's New Zealand behind by 275 runs (in the October- November 1999 Ahmedabad Test), where was there any question of putting in the opposition again now - with Australia ahead by but 274 runs!

The unvarnished truth about Eden, of course, is that Laxman batted Australia out of that second Test in a style that lent substance to Rahul Dravid's `smack-on' 180. Rahul here played better than he had ever done before. Still Dravid played with fire when, upon reaching his 100, he let his upheld bat do the baiting - in a straight helmet-raised confrontation with the media in India. In that `pay-off' moment, Rahul sowed the wind. The whirlwind never is far off, with the media, in India, always in an air-conditioned position of comfort! What Sourav and Rahul must never forget is that this `sudden-death' game is, at all times, a stern reminder of James Shirley's famous line of thought: ``The glories of our blood and state, Are shadows, not substantial things; There is no armour against fate: Death lays his icy hand on kings.''

Sachin, as captain, got to the essence of the matter, early last year, when he noted: ``You have your job to do, I have mine. You do your job writing, I do mine batting.'' Rahul Dravid is a performer with a mature head on still young shoulders. This much is manifest from Rahul's ready response to that loaded query about whether he now preferred batting at number six. Spot on was Rahul in his rejoinder: ``I have batted at one, three and six. If Sourav and John (Wright) ask me to carry the drinks on to the field, I will be glad to do that. I have no hard feelings that Laxman has gone in at number three. He has grabbed the opportunity with both hands and I congratulate him on that.''

That this game gives Rahul the scale of TV focus Indian performers of a matching calibre did not get, even in the recent `Palmolive' past, is a factor Dravid must never overlook. To the extent that Rahul is so much more in the Yul Brynner `spot' light, the camera of criticism, too, is inevitably trained glaringly upon him. So Rahul should accept with equanimity the critical price he has to pay for being a TVIP. By contrast, Laxman's Eden strength lay in his intrinsic resolve to take international setbacks in his willowy stride. Laxman just bided his time in hitting back. Rahul too, to be fair, did nothing less than strike back at Eden - but with a vengeance! That is to say, Rahul took some of the flavour out of cutting Wallaroo Warne to size in venturing to mix up media-bashing with Aussie-lashing. The pen still is mightier than the sword to which Rahul (180) put the Kangaroos. As Rahul battles to rediscover his now variable slot in India's neo-batting order, this gifted technician will divine that 180, in one Test, still means the batsman is on zero in each fresh innings he begins - a harsh truth so tellingly underlined, as a TV commentator, by Sunil Gavaskar.

Sunil Gavaskar made runs by the ton. So much so that he had the late Sir Donald Bradman acclaiming: ``It disappoints me that I never had the pleasure of playing against Sunil.'' The Don said that in hailing Sunny Gavaskar as the finest opener in the world when (on Thursday, October 29, 1983), in the second Test vs Clive Lloyd's West Indies, Sunil `Kotlambasted' Malcolm Marshall and co for 121. As that century saw Gavaskar weigh 29 Test tons in the same enviable scale as Bradman, Sunil displayed the savoir-vivre to respond, becomingly, to The Don's generous comment on his batsmanship. Observed Sunny: ``It's very kind of The Don to say so'' (that Sunil Gavaskar is among the world's best), ``but surely Bradman remains the greatest. Not until someone hits 30 hundreds from 51 Tests could you argue against that!''

What `record players' (of such rare vintage) have to say is enlightening in terms of an enduring humility coming through as their distinguishing trait. In responding to The Don's compliment the way he did, what Sunil implied was that not until someone scored 6997 runs from 79 Test innings could you argue against Bradman's numero-uno niche in world cricket. Indeed, in first- class cricket too, The Don stands as the supremo with an average of 95.14. Not all of Sunil's exploits (in 21 years, 25,834 runs from 348 matches in 563 innings - 61 times not out - for a first- class cricket average of 51.46, with 340 as his highest: 81 hundreds and 105 fifties) could bring Gavaskar on a par with Bradman. Not even on a par with the man who rates second only to Bradman (to this day) in first-class cricket averages. Yes, compared to Don Bradman's 95.14, Vijay Merchant's first-class cricket average of 71.64 (in 32 years, 13,470 runs from 150 matches in 234 innings - 46 times not out - with 359 not out as his highest: 45 hundreds and 52 fifties) abides as a 71.64 Indian high behind only Don Bradman's 95.14. A startling stat to which the Indian media should have drawn timely attention when Bradman was no more.

When I asked Merchant how he felt about rating second only to Bradman in the world at 71.64, there was a gleam in Vijay's eye. But only fleetingly. In the very next minute, Vijay Merchant came back with: ``Please never again mention my name in the same breath as Sir Donald Bradman, it's sacrilege to do so! It's your runs in Test matches that really count. And, here, from 18 innings in 10 Tests, I fell short of even 1000 by as many as 141 runs! Our own Sunil Gavaskar is miles ahead of me by now, so where is there any question of your equating me with Sir Donald Bradman?''

This is the point for Rahul Dravid to take from the life and times of Vijay and Sunil - that an international-class batsman always prepares for the morrow. Thus Sunil verbally pre-empted Venkatsai Laxman's 281 by underscoring (as a TV commentator a full three years ago) that his ``236 not out is a ridiculously low score''. That set the Eden scene for Sunil to reassert (on Wednesday, March 14, 2001): ``For a country that has been playing Test cricket for close to seven decades, 236 was a pretty poor highest individual score. It is for this reason I had been virtually pleading for someone to go past it.'' Laxman now obliged Sunil and, upon returning with 275 not out on that ecstatic fourth evening of the second Test, forgivably exulted: ``It's really thrilling to break a record created by a legend in world cricket. The 237th run was the most important run of my innings. It overshadowed all the shots I played.''

It certainly did. And Sunil, in applauding Laxman's feat in the vein he did, clearly implied that, while his unbeaten 236 materialised when India had already surrendered the Test series 0-3 to Clive Lloyd's West Indies, Laxman's wand-in-hand 275 helped halt Steve Waugh's Australia from sealing the rubber 2-0 at Eden itself. Circumstances were not such that Laxman, upon reaching Sunil's 236 not out, could possibly entertain thoughts of stopping at that personal score! Like Mark Taylor had done upon touching 334 not out in that March 1998 Peshawar Test vs Pakistan - as his head-bowed tribute to Bradman's `334' status in Australian cricket, a status symbol dating back to the July 1930 Leeds Test vs England!

As for `Brown Bradman Gavaskar', even while Sunil went public about his 236 not out being sure to be overcome, do you want an insight into what perhaps were Sunny's innermost feelings when Laxman took that `single of singles' to reach 237 runs? We have the ground position pat here in Sunil Gavaskar's own words, as the Little Master wrote upon Courtney Walsh's overtaking Kapil Dev's 434 Test wickets: ```A record is a personal feeling of satisfaction that is hard to put into words and it is precious to the individual. Sure, records are meant to be broken. But still, when it is taken away from you, there is a tinge of sadness, especially if the record has been with the individual for some time. It takes a little getting used to, not being the number one, and for some it can be a traumatic experience.''

For Sunil, the truly traumatic experience, happily, was Laxman's epic 281 raising the platform for India to `square the circle' 1- 1. It is sad that cricket today is played at a pace so frenetic that there was not enough time - and space - for viewers to absorb the true extent of Laxman's achievement. Inside 72 hours of Laxman's 281 helping India tables-turningly win the Eden Gardens Test by 171 runs, Sourav and his men were face to face with the grim reality of Australia's having run up a score of 326 for 3 by close on the first day of the final match in the series. Now that Chennai Test, too, is behind us - before us is the `fitness test' that is the Bangalore International. Who could have envisioned that cricket would metamorphose into something so fast-moving `one-day'?

RAJU BHARATAN

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Sport
Previous : Driving the message home
Next     : He was the first strategist of field placing