Thursday, January 29, 2015
The wall - Reminiscence #2
Harsha Bhogle on Rahul Dravid
The wolf who lived for the pack
Rahul Dravid batted exactly like the person he is: stately and upright, dignity and poise his two shoulders, standing up to everything coming at him with minimum fuss. He picked his shots carefully, almost like he was weighing the risk for fear of letting himself and his side down. There was little about him that was flamboyant - there isn't with an oak - and patiently, brick by brick, he built giant edifices. He is a good man and he batted like a good man.
And like with most of his choices in life, he has chosen well again. He has not craved a full house on its feet, there has been no grandstanding. The retirement is a sports-page event not a gossip item. He knew it was time. "I'm sure you have thought it through," I said when he called. "I know this is the time," he said. "Any longer and it will be for the wrong reason." I expected nothing less from a man it has been my privilege to watch and to know for 16 years.
It was but a feather that prevented him from getting a century on debut at Lord's. He would have liked it, for he has this sense of history about him. He would have wanted to be on that honours board, and 15 years later he inscribed his name there with a Dravid special. They love him there like he is one of their own, and indeed England has been a recurring motif in his life. The 1999 World Cup; the majesty of 2002, when he outbatted the world and produced one of his finest innings in Leeds; winning a series as captain in 2007; and then those three centuries last year that reminded us once again what Test cricket was all about.
At Lord's he remained not out from No. 3; at Trent Bridge he opened the batting and was ninth out; and at The Oval, at the age of 38, he had but ten minutes between deliveries as he batted through the innings for six and a half hours, before returning to open the batting. A standing ovation had just died down before another took its place. I stood too, not for the first time.
And he loved to explore England, on foot, in buses and in trains; always asking about the latest musical and offering extended reviews of those he had seen. One such exploration took him to Scotland, from where he returned humbler, if that was indeed possible. He was getting paid to play, he said, but everyone else was paying to play - taking unpaid leave, shutting down shops, all for the sheer joy of playing. He learnt, he said, how much you can take for granted as an international star. I can see why he will continue to be a giver, why his doors will be open for other cricketers. And I hope they learn from him never to say no.
There were two things Dravid didn't really love in cricket: opening the batting and keeping wicket. He was asked to do both at various times, and I asked him if he ever contemplated saying no. He didn't enjoy it, he said, but took it as a challenge, to see how good he could be. This acceptance of challenges is what has defined his cricket and made him one of the finest team players there has been. A challenge, he said, allowed him to understand himself better, it gave him a reason to play sport. If he shied away, he would never know how good he could be. He kept wicket in about 70 one-day internationals, never most convincingly, but he allowed himself to look bad for the team to look good. It was always the team for him and in the little piece he wrote for the book that my wife Anita and I did, he quoted Kipling: for the strength of the wolf is the pack and the strength of the pack is the wolf. It was nice to see a cricketer quoting from literature.
It is away that the most memorable innings were played; in New Zealand in 1999, England in 2002, Australia and Pakistan in 2003-04, and in the West Indies in 2006. To that extent, he was the true successor to Sunil Gavaskar
The team is like a pot, Dravid often says. Some put in and some take out. The more who put in, the fuller it gets, and those were the players he enjoyedplaying with the most: those who put into the pot. He was one of the leading contributors and there was never an effort at gaining sympathy or media attention for it. He gave quietly. He was one of the reasons why India recovered so quickly from the match-fixing issue around the turn of the century. India had some outstanding men of integrity at the time. Tendulkar, Dravid, Kumble, Ganguly, Laxman and Srinath. It was a good group to belong to.
The turn of the century was also the coming of age of Dravid as an international cricketer. He had proved people wrong about his ability to play one-day cricket at the World Cup but then went to Australia convinced he needed to do well there to gain respect. It is a word he will often use in conversation ("the respect in your dressing room and that of your opponents is what matters") but in quest of it that time, he tried too hard, cocooning himself into a mass of nervous energy. He struggled but returned in 2003, at the height of his powers as a batsman, to peel off a double-century in Adelaide that won India a famous Test.
He scored many in that phase, most of them away and throughout his career, his home and away averages have sat close together. It is the mark of a genuinely great player. And it is away that the most memorable innings were played: in New Zealand in 1999, England in 2002, Australia and Pakistan in 2003-04, and in the West Indies in 2006. To that extent he was the true successor to Sunil Gavaskar.
And his father will be proud of that. Oh, we family folk are suckers for that kind of sentiment. In 1994, when I used to do the highlights of domestic cricket for ESPN, Dravid's father would often call to ask if he could get highlights of his son's batting. The request was always very politely made and a thank you was always offered when I met him. You can see the shyness in the genes, the correctness. I don't mention it lightly. In our obsession with saluting the here and now we sometimes ignore what produced success. If Dravid senior was proud of his young man, Rahul was proud enough of his mother to be the photographer when she received her PhD. It might seem a small thing to do but it tells you a lot about the person. Giant edifices are built on solid foundations.
And so it is with a touch of emotion that I will say goodbye to India's finest No. 3. He wasn't the Wall, not for me. Yes, his defence was as perfect as it could get, his steeliness so admirable, but he played shots that warmed the heart. The cover drive, with the big stride forward, and the prettiest of them all - the whip through midwicket played so late and while so nimble on his toes.
He will be missed, as the great always are. He will see his children grow, take them to school, imbibe in them the reading habit (for he read more than most people I know and couldn't understand why others didn't), but from time to time he must tell the new flowers that will inevitably bloom in our cricket of the need to put grit over beauty, team over self, challenge before rejection, humility before arrogance, for that is what he stood for.
Well played, my friend. You have the honour of leaving the game richer with your legacy and none of us can ask for anything more than that.
Sunday, December 08, 2013
Why I do not get high on MSD
I was reading the article that came today in ET. A wonderful piece by Boria Majumdar on MSD. It read "Mahendra Singh Dhoni yet to pass litmus test of Indian captaincy". Now that is a catchy news headline. I started reading it, and these paragraphs struck me as most of my own thoughts. It mixed statistics and viewpoints, and it dragged in old memories to the statistics.
However, in the Test match format, he still has a lot to prove. Just a year-and-a-half earlier, we lost 8 consecutive Test matches away from home, a record that just doesn't go with the man tipped to be the best ever. We also lost a home series against England, which, more than anything else, was acutely disappointing. And Dhoni as a batsman can seriously do much better than what he has done in Test in overseas conditions. It is as if he doesn't like the format and finds it a little too daunting on occasions. It is in this regard that his legacy has to improve significantly.
And it is this poor overseas record that prompts me to bring Sourav Ganguly back into the debate on India's best captain. This debate is regarding Test match cricket and nothing else. Under Sourav, more than anyone else, we learnt to win overseas. Since taking over in 2000, he won us a crucial Test match at Headingley in 2002. India went on to draw that particular series 1-1 against the English.
We followed this up with a runner-up finish in the 2003 world cup winning 8 consecutive matches on South African soil. And then came the absolutely incredible test win at Adelaide. This win meant we drew the 2003-4 series down under 1-1. The honeymoon was complete when India beat Pakistan in Pakistan 2-1 in March-April 2004.
And in the series down under in 2003-4, it was his century in the first Test at the Gabba that set the tone for the contest. It is in key away series that I'd love to see MSD come good. We are playing 14 Test matches overseas between December 2013 and January 2015. Each of these Test matches will need MSD to be at his inspiring best. It is upon MSD to encourage his young brigade and lead from the front. We need a Ganguly like 144 to set the tone and unless that happens, his legacy as the best ever can never be doubtless.
With the advent of T20, it was almost clear that I can be soon boxed up as a relic of the past. I do not say I was a regular player who always played in long form of the game in whatever level I played. No. Far from that, I usually played game with overs of 10, 12, 15, 16 or 20. Now why are these numbers so relevant? We used to play with spells of 2, 3 or max 4 (main) bowlers. Our games were most similar to T20 in all of the big strategy that they hype in the papers. Then why would I consider myself so distant from the shortest version of game?
My school days were mixed versions of listening to elders speaking about the glories of football and watching the excitement of ODI in DD. So far as to regularly play either of these games, I played lagori (7 stones), uppum pakshi (salt and bird??), kallanum police-um (Theif & Police!!) and the usual games of Goli, carroms, ludo &c. The first time I played football, I got hit by a 6" or 7" ball right below my solar plexus. I couldn't breathe for next (4)5 minitues! I switched to the safer game of cricket. Then came the glory days of watching Donald, Waqar, Mike Atherton, Mark Waugh, Akram and Sachin. I was hooked to the long form. Those guys were throwing their all out for batting/bowling a whole day while I could barely manage 4 overs on a trot.
Was it the admiration for those or the lack of ability on my part that made me say that long form is better? Maybe. Though I would say a good player is good in all forms of the game. Then comes the question of statistics. Statistics are never good in a small sample space. At least, this much I have learned in my engineering. A few advantages of learning without experience , and which sometimes pacify my inner urges of going out and bowling damn fast or curling the ball, which I still do in my mind.
When Sourav and Sachin used to win matches for us, with those great opeing partnerships, we used to jump up in glee. We used to say, next world cup is ours. It does not matter if Baichung Bhutia is going to Aston Villa, Sachin is Yorkshire's first overseas player! We may not participate in FIFA world cup, but the next ICC world cup is ours. The "next world cup" had to wait for 3 editions which I faithfully watched and in the end said, again, "next time". We were not so bad in long form. When Ganguly became captain, there was an energy in the team - winning energy! Nobody can say earlier teams lacked energy! Srinath and V(egetarian) Prasad used to spit fire! But we started winning.
In both long form and short form we started winning.
I have stopped watching tests because I have to earn my bread, for which I have to work and my manager doesn't give me leave to watch cricket for 90 hours played in the sun (wherever they are played!). I do not watch ODI's because they are usually slog matches. And when I watch the T20 matches, I do not see flair in strokes nor do I see fire in the balls. I have kept away from the game which had given me so much of proud moments, sad moments, fine moments and all other emotions for a young kid high on sports.
Under Dhoni, I am not finding that winning energy in tests.Is the Captain to blame? So much for the statistics - I would rather say the way he gives youngsters a chance might be the culprit. Ganguly made the team out of youngsters, but he somehow managed to make them perform in winning situations. Dhoni does not seem to get that always right. He might be experimenting too much, but test is not simply given the name like that. That is where you either fail or pass. Anyone who plays 90 over, and comes out good should be trained/mentored. I would say, forget the glams of Kohli in Flying Machine, Jadeja in Reebok, take the players through the hard test of playing the long game. Let the game speak, not the 20-30 clips in Star sports or ESPN.
I hope Dhoni get to like winning in tests as much as he likes to win in other two forms.
Labels: All Time, Cricket, India, Self
Monday, August 09, 2010
Eleven: India
Just tweaked here and there, and made a team, just because I did not like the original one and I wanted my own.
1. Sunil Gavaskar
2. Virender Sehwag
3. VVS Laxman
4. S R. Tendulkar
5. Gundappa Vishwanath
6. Kapil Dev
7. Mohinder Amarnath
8. Syed Kirmani
9. Anil Kumble
10. E.Prasanna
11. B.S. Chandrasekhar
And no One Day eleven. Man, I am not interested. What next, Twenty-20 All time XI!
Anyone who haven't read the original, please do. There is a Third list. If you miss it, not even Cric info can give you that knowledge :P
