The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : An emotional journey back for Gavaskar

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Wednesday, Oct 06, 2004

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Sport - Cricket

An emotional journey back for Gavaskar

By K.C. Vijaya Kumar

Sunil Gavaskar, seen here talking to Sourav Ganguly, feels that Australia will find it tough to cope with the loss of Ricky Ponting due to injury. _ Photo: V.V. Krishnan

BANGALORE, OCT. 5. It was a journey back in time for Sunil Gavaskar as he alighted from the team bus at the Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Tuesday.

The last time he was in the Indian team bus was way back in 1987when he was the nation's premier batsman. Today, he is a consultant roped in by the BCCI to plug the latest batting woes afflicting the top-order on the eve of the first Test between India and Australia.

"Once I kept my bat and pads aside, I never thought I could get into the team bus. Yes, today was a bit emotional and it was nice to see some young eager faces inside the bus for a change," Gavaskar said. However, the man, who was the first to scale cricket's version of Mount Everest - the 10,000 run mark - was in no mood to reveal his advice to the batsman at the nets. "It is the first day for me and we will probably discuss at the end of the day areas that we need to improve upon," Gavaskar said.

No problems

On his role as a consultant, Gavaskar said, "I am a consultant and I would imagine that I will be dealing with anything that the team needs to consult me about on any input. Yes it is tough that I have just joined but the advantage is that I have watched the team at the Asia Cup, the Natwest series and the ICC Champions Cup. And the team's personnel are still the same, so I don't foresee any problem."

The alleged connection between Sachin Tendulkar's heavy bat and his tennis elbow did not find favour with Gavaskar. "I don't think it has anything to do with the weight of the bat. What happens in a long innings is that you tend to grip the bat harder and at some point you feel some strain on the top hand. I have had it and even then I had my share of productive series'. So I hope it is the same for Sachin as well," Gavaskar said.

He stressed that Australia will miss Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting. "Australia has lost a massive amount of experience with Steve Waugh having retired and Ricky Ponting having been ruled out. That is an enormous experience on and off the field and it is never easy to recoup that," he said.

Srinath, Prasad chip in

Earlier, Gavaskar watched the Indian team at nets while `retired' Javagal Srinath had a bowl and his pace-partner Venkatesh Prasad chatted up the fast bowlers. "I have been bowling for so many years and it is tough to disengage completely from cricket and I bowled at the nets. I did talk to the players, shared a few thoughts. It should be a good series as Australia is keen to settle scores after nightmarish tours in 1997-98 and in 2001 while India will press its home advantage," Srinath said.

Venkatesh Prasad empathised with the fast bowlers who will bend their backs on a flat pitch that promises spin. "The wicket is absolutely flat and looking at it the fast bowlers will find their confidence dip. I had a word with them on the pitch, the conditions, told them that they should create pressure through dot-balls and be enormously patient," Prasad said.

Hopefully with the presence of Gavaskar, Srinath and Prasad at the nets, some wisdom of the past would have seeped into the Indian team as it gears up for a historical series against Adam Gilchrist's men.

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