PAST & PRESENT
Settling scores
RAMACHANDRA GUHA
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When it comes to cricket, and writing about it, the emotional stakes are high.
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Photo: The Hindu Photo LIbrary
Dream team: Members of the successful 1971 team; (from left), Ajit Wadekar, Bishen Singh Bedi and Sunil Gavaskar with Indira Gandhi.
FIFTEEN years ago, I put down, in print, an all-time Karnataka XI. I was chastised, also in print, by Suresh Menon. He took issue especially with my choice of all-rounder. This was P.E. Palia, a left-arm swing bowler and attacking batsman who had played in India's first ever Test team (at Lord's in 1932), for the Parsis in the Bombay Pentangular, and for United Provinces in the Ranji Trophy before coming to Bangalore to play for Mysore (as Karnataka was then known). "Did P.E. Palia mean as much to Karnataka cricket as A.V. Jayaprakash?", asked Suresh Menon.
Valid criticism
At the time, I had not met Mr. Menon, but from his other writings I guessed that he was roughly my age, lived in Bangalore, and had been around the city's cricket grounds at the same time and in the same worshipful state as myself. His criticism stung — for, behind it there was cricketing logic, and more. Mr. Menon was accusing me of betraying his generation, which was also mine. Had he and I not sat in the same stadium (though unbeknownst to one another), watching A.V. Jayaparakash bat doggedly down the middle order, take wickets with the new ball, and pouch catches close in off Prasanna and Chandrasekhar, in that glorious year of our Lord 1973-4 when Karnataka, our Karnataka, beat Delhi and Bombay en route to winning the Ranji Trophy for the first time?
Of all the criticism I have received — and that is plenty! — this one hurt most and has stayed longest. But I have good news to report. Fifteen years down the line, I can take revenge on Mr. Menon. For, he has just published a book called Dream Team India, which picks an all-time Indian one-day side. Of the first 11 names he puts down, I concur with 10, and have merely mixed feelings about the eleventh. But would you believe it, an Indian born at the same time as me, who has the same memories of listening in to the radio as a schoolboy while India took the cricket world by storm first in the West Indies and then in England in that still more glorious year of our Lord 1971 — would you believe it, this Indian has gone and chosen, as his twelfth man, someone called Ajay Jadeja? Does he really think that Jadeja could bowl half as well, bat one-fourth as well, or field one-tenth as well as Eknath Dhondu Solkar?
Had this been a common or garden variety of cricket writer I would not have complained. But Mr. Menon appears to know the game, and he can write. Consider these other judgements from his book:
On Sachin Tendulkar's batsmanship: "Sachin is the one-stop shop of batsmanship. You could watch Sehwag for the straight drive, Dravid for the on drive, Ganguly for the square cut, Laxman for the square drive, Dhoni for the lofted shots, and so on. Or you could go to Sachin for all of these."
On B. S. Chandrasekhar's batsmanship: "`Chandrasekhar' means `Collector of Moons' in Kannada, and Bhagwat Chandrasekhar collected more moons in his career than most, 23 of them in Test cricket... It might be blasphemous to start an essay on one of the great bowlers by focusing on his batting; it is done only to first sweep away the irrelevancies of his game."
Glowing portrait
On the varied skills of India's greatest all-rounder: "For cricket fans born after Kapil Dev played his last international, let me help you get a picture of the player in your mind. Imagine Mahendra Singh Dhoni with a wider range of strokes, better defence and more assured footwork, and you begin to get some idea of Kapil the batsman. There has been no modern equivalent of Kapil the bowler in Indian cricket. Although Kapil seldom fielded close-in for India, he loved to take catches at gully, where he would casually snatch the ball out of the air while the spectators looked towards the boundary after the batsman had played a rousing cut. In the outfield he was as good as the best. Imagine a taller, more loose-limbed Mohammed Kaif."
Wrong choice
When I picked P.E. Palia instead of A.V. Jayaprakash as the all-rounder in my Karnataka team, I was probably influenced, subconsciously, by sentiment — by the fact that Palia lived down the road from my grandfather's house in Bangalore, and had sometimes offered a tip or two to my father and uncle as they played in the street. But I can now see that my choice was wrong, and perhaps unpardonable.
The confession made, the retraction offered, my conscience is clear. Will Mr. Menon also come clean? How could he so betray his judgement and our generation? Solkar was once known (unfairly) as the poor man's Gary Sobers. Ajay Jadeja cannot even qualify to be the destitute man's Eknath Solkar.
E-mail: ramguha@vsnl.com
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