Grit, Grandeur and ‘What’s my problem with Bongs’?

India - Blue versus Green: Match Report

It was a hot sultry day – who can ask for anything else in Chennai?

And at the crease were two masters of their trade. Two Indian batsmen who are perhaps the greatest exponents of the willow ever produced by the country.

When the tournament started in the mid nineties, there was an opinion that, to really judge the merits of cricketers across the nation, Sachin Tendulkar should be excluded from the events. Or else, the games - even whole tournaments - tended to become one man shows.

With Sachin’s battle scarred body struggling to remain match fit after bearing the burden of the team for a decade and a half, and with the pressmen and ex-cricketers with precious little contribution to the game snapping at his heels like the common mongrels, there was a hint in the air that Sachin is as much a mortal as any of the other cricketers in the fray.

However, the great little man just brushed aside all the skepticism. And there was no effort at making a statement, he did not have to prove anything to anyone. He just enjoyed himself. Balaji, Nehra, Praveen Kumar, Piyush Chawla and Hemang Badani, were all scorched by the willow wizardry as he scintillated the gathering with 20 sparkling boundaries and four towering sixes.

With Rahul Dravid smoothly rotating the strike and picking up the odd boundary, the master was in his element.

And even if the event was not international, the premier cricketers of the country had been assembled for some of the most important matches of the season, in front of the newly appointed chief selector, Dilip Vengsarkar. It was make or break for many. International stamp or not, the game was creating quite an amount of electric atmosphere in the ground, in the stands and on millions of television screens across the world.

The principal question was, can Sourav Ganguly create an impression? On Dilip Vengsarkar, a man whose commitment to cricket is underlined by the way he shuns media spotlight, one who ever since his playing days thought, acted and played only cricket and no other subtle game. Here was a man who is above zonal bias, as he always had been even when he led the Indian side for a brief while.

And it was an exhilarating sight. Sourav Ganguly, brought on to use his immense experience against the brilliance of Tendulkar and the guile of Dravid, bowled with immense determination, keeping it tight and wicket to wicket. And with the runs already on the board at 7.5 an over and Tendulkar tiring after a barrage of strokeplay in the sweltering heat, the batsmen picked up singles and played the medium pace with some degree of respect. Except for an improvised hoick over square leg which brought a boundary to Sachin, there were no other risks taken by the batsmen, who were more or less determined not to lose their wicket to Sourav.

A battle of experience, really scintillating stuff. Three great cricketing minds in tussle. It was here that the irritation factor crept in, in the form of the commentators in the newly launched sports channel, Neo Sports.

Rohan Gavaskar, shrewdly sent to Bengal by his big daddy to evade the talent pool of Mumbai, is almost a naturalized Bengali. What is more, with his handful of greatly uncuccesful one day internationals coming under Sourav Ganguly’s leadership, and his cricketing fortunes tuned to the showing of his adopted state, his opinions reflect the same sort of uninformed bias that one associates with the other players and ex-players of Bengal, Pranab Roy, Sambaran Banerjee, Ashok Malhotra, Raju Mukherjee to name a few.

Sourashish Lahiri, the other Bengal hope in the form of an off-spinner, came into bowl at this juncture and so, with Rohan Gavaskar on the microphone, there were two Bengal boys bowling in tandem.

Well, Sourashish averages nearly 37 with the ball in List A matches … but as usual, according to the Bengalis, only zonal bias keeps him from replacing Harbhajan in the Indian team. He started out well enough, with Sachin and Dravid content to take singles. Rohan Gavaskar went berserk about two Bengal players stemming the flow of runs.

Next, with a rank long hop, Sourashish got the wicket of Tendullkar, who played a tired pull into the hands of Mohammed Kaif at mid-wicket. And Rohan Gavaskar outdid himself in praising the variations in length by the wily Lahiri who had brought about the downfall of the maestro, who, incidentally, scored a 100 ball 139.

With Dhoni joining him, Rahul Dravid decided that the off-spinner had been treated with enough respect. He languidly took a step forward and gracefully flicked the ball and it sailed over the deep mid-wicket for an amazing six. Arun Lal, partnering the son of his one-time opening partner, was amazed. “It was just a flick of the wrist,” he said of the shot. Rohan Gavaskar was up to the task. “It’s a wonderful willow. Sheer quality of the bat that takes such shots past the ropes.”

So, Dravid’s majestic flick was just the mastery of his bat-maker.

In a rare display of unrestrained freedom that he rarely allows himself while playing for India, Rahul Dravid stepped out to the next ball and lofted it over mid on … it landed on the roof of the stadium. Whatever Rohan Gavaskar was about to say in continuation got swallowed down his throat.

A couple of overs later, Dravid repeated the shot, this time over deep mid wicket. The result was the same.

And then, Dhoni got into the act after Dravid had pulled Balaji down the throat of Wasim Jaffer at deep square leg. Sourashish saw him coming down the wicket, fired it down the leg side, and saw Dhoni complete his lofted on drive after turning his body square to adjust to the change of angle. The ball, hit with a straight batted swing, sailed over deep square leg for an amazing over-boundary. He followed it up with a six over mid wicket, a repeat of Dravid’s third, but if the captain had torn into it with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel, the wicketkeeper-batsman bludgeoned it out of sight with a sledgehammer. After two lofted sixes, Sourashish dropped it short. Dhoni, expecting the same, neatly cut it away to the point boundary. A lesson to a newcomer taught by internationally reputed masters of the trade. Sourashish finished with one for 68 from eight overs. Rohan, much of a silent spectator while the carnage was going on, was quite vocal about the two Bengal bowlers having checked the flow of runs during the endless post innings analysis. So much so, that another of his Dad’s partners, Krish Srikkanth, patted him on the back and told him that his place in the Bengal side was assured. That the score read 381 for 6 in 50 overs did not seem to matter in the context of the two Bangla bowlers.

The Green team batted, with Ganguly opening the innings with Wasim Jaffer. This was the moment all had been waiting for. Again, it was a tense, well fought battle, with the veteran left hander knowing that he had to deliver to get back into the team, with the gamut of young batsmen snapping at his heels, crowding him out.

As expected, Ajit Agarkar started with a short ball. When he pitched just short of a length, he was square driven to the fence. Excellent stuff, a wonderful battle, but for the same voice on the microphone. Rohan Gavaskar could not hold his admiration for his one and only Indian captain in check. Even when reaching out for a wide delivery from Munaf Patel, Sourav almost fell over and managed to scoop the ball just beyond the reach of the outstretched hands of the cover point, the neo-phite expert went gaga about Sourav’s excellent timing.

With the rooting commentator in the box, Sourav did show touches of vintage form … as also determination. An Agarkar bouncer, not really aided by the slow nature of the pitch, was neatly put away to the mid wicket fence. But, could one enjoy the joy of cricket with a player from Bengal hogging the mike? No way.

Wasim Jaffer, tall, elegant and smooth, flicked a ball to the midwicket and an easy three was converted into a two by some sloppy running. No one needs to guess who was at fault. With the Mumbai opener dashing down the pitch for the third, the Bengal veteran differed in opinion and sent him back. Rohan went on about Jaffer running diagonally and not straight between the wickets and hence being slow between the wickets- forgetting that he had completed two diagonal runs and was coming back for the third diagonal while Sourav had managed to huff and puff two of them straight as an arrow. While the new camera angles used by Neo Sports focused on some of the running between the wickets, Rohan mentioned that Sourav looked fit as he scampered between the wickets – if it can be called scampering after the gazelle like Dhoni and the fleetfooted Agarkar had run impossible singles and twos in their 21 ball association that yielded 53. Cricketers are supposed to be fit, but for Bengal, it is an unexpected delight – never mind that the other partner has to run diagonals to synchronize the time between the wickets. Rohan even mentioned Sourav having had match practice in Lancashire – where he actually spent about as much time on the 22 yards as a Bhagwat Chandrashekhar would have during one of his leaner patches with the bat.

Sourav looked promising with some stutters, but then, Dravid kept him on his toes. There were fielders placed in catching positions closed on the leg side as well as in the short cover. After all, there was a game of cricket going on, and the fielding captain has to take steps to get the wicket of the batsmen. Only, in Bengal, it is tantamount to being a traitor.

Sourav perished eventually, the dismissal brought about by his own indecision. With pressure mounting on him, with this innings being a crucial one, a lifeline that could just about be a pacemaker for the failing beat of his career’s heart, he could not really go for it with all his natural aggression. He checked the cut shot to a ball from Munaf that rose on him and was easily pouched at point. If he had gone through with the shot, he might have cleared the man stationed just for that very tendency. That he was disgusted with himself was evident from the way he swung his bat after the dismissal. It was a long and hard walk back for someone fighting tooth and nail to get back into the side, for once with his performance. The rest of the game was a meek surrender. With Kaif, Raina and Badani walking out with the asking rate reading 9 and above from nearly forty overs, there was hardly anything left of the match.

Rohan Gavaskar, crestfallen, but steadfast, uttered an eulogy of the ephemeral innings thus far reserved for Bradman’s 36 at Lords’ in 1930, earmarked for praise by Sir Neville Cardus. Anandabazar Patrika was mercifully spared the ignomy of reporting a 139-24 rout in a Sachin-Sourav game – an absurd contest of their own invention – by the Bijaya Dashami holiday of the newspaper offices.

Star Ananda channel however likened the Dashami immersion ceremony with Sourav’s symbolic immersion of his career. In doing so, they dwelt as long on Sourav’s 30 ball 24 as they did on Sachin’s 100 ball 139. Dhoni’s 59 ball 79, Dravid’s 63 ball 62, Pathan’s 55 ball 54 and two wickets, Harbhajan’s 4 for 10 – none of them merited a mention.

It was a good battle, some scintillating display of batsmanship by some of the modern day greats, some gritty fight shown by a player who has ceased to be consistent or even steady for over six years … a determined effort to rejuvenate the talent that has not been honestly stirred for more than half a decadent decade. However, the battle, lost or won, did not take away the fact that it made for thrilling cricket, the 266 run margin of victory notwithstanding.

However, all this was marred and will be marred even more in the future by the consistency of the Bengali media, their penchant for making heroes out of their own, and sticking to them even as the world passes them by. Rohan Gavaskar, the latest in the long line of ‘experts’ from Bengal, a Marathi who has picked up the nuances of the state he plays for, and has mastered the art and craft of yellow journalism the Bengali way.