A Fortress to Storm!

Fifteen years have gone but as with nightmares in general this one seems like it happened yesterday: Curtly - yes, Ambrose - and company blew India away on the final day as a  batting line up, with Azhar and Tendulkar in their prime and Ganguly, Laxman and Dravid on their way up, collapsed for 81 pursuing 120 at the Kensington Oval, Barbados. Sunil Gavaskar had reportedly looked at the pitch the night before the final day and wondered if the target was even attainable on it, let alone easily, against the Caribean pace attack which was still formidable if not invincible. The former Indian opener, who had been prolific against the likes of Holding, Garner, and Marshall, did not express his misgivings but they came true all right. It was the only test in the 1997 five-test series that did not have rains or a pointless surfeit of runs. West Indies took the series one-love and there was no love lost between the sides. It was Brian Charles Lara's first test as captain, as Walsh sat out due to injury. The Prince of Trinidad's initial taste of captaincy was as sweet as his initial taste of batting in international cricket had been. 

Five years on, the teams arrived again at Barbados in 2002. The Indians were, for once, one-nil up in an away series after some tight bowling had given them victory as light faded on the last day of the second test at Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. If the Indians had been buoyed by the scoreline, it did not show. In an irony of sorts, bitter for Indians it need not be said, the Indians were bowled out for 102 in the first innings - the zero and two transposing places compared to the score they had been set to win five years ago, also in the third test of that series. Half-centuries from Laxman and Ganguly in the second innings did only enough to make the WIndies bat for a second time but Mervyn Dillon, who picked up eight wickets in the match, had sealed its fate a minute into it when he bowled Shiva Sundar Das for a first-ball duck. After a drawn fourth test, which went on forever as tests do in Antigua, during which Laxman and Dravid opened their wickets' account and Ridley Jacobs, Chanderpaul and Hooper scored hundreds for the West Indies in the only innings they batted, the Indians flopped again in the fifth test at Kingston, Jamaica. The test is remembered for an open-ended sentence that had sadly become a refrain about Indian batting line-ups which always looked majestic on paper and were often crumpled like paper on the field by half-decent bowling attacks: if only India had batted for fifteen minutes... (for then the skies opened up and it seems it rained for a couple of days after that in Jamaica).

The 2006 series, which was decided 1-0 in favour of India in the final test at Kingston by Dravid's fine twin half-centuries and Kumble's grit with bat and ball, did not feature a test in Barbados.

Tomorrow, the Indians would once again set foot on Barbados to bury the ghosts of the past and try to beat West Indies on a ground that had been their fortress for many years. Even in home conditions, every team has something that is its backyard, a ground that visiting teams are in awe of having been called there as if to be summarily thumped: Barbados is West Indies' version of Perth (Australia), Durban (South Africa), Headingley (England) or Wellington (New Zealand). The home team would know that and even though they are weak they would want to exploit any remnant of a historical advantage there is.

 However, the Indians will be inspired both by their number one status, as opposed to the West Indies team's lowly number 8 ranking, as well as the home team's recent record at the ground. Since drubbing India, the West Indians have won only two of their eight games at the ground, drawn one and, more importantly, have lost to the better sides - England, Australia and South Africa. Besides, their bowling attack can be sharp on its day but is not one that will make a batsman lose sleep: considering that Fidel Edwards, their only genuine quick bowler, is coming of an injury, the task for the Indian batsmen would be a lot easier. Gayle's absence will also continue to emasculate the hosts and keep the visitors interested.

However, the Indians cannot afford to be complacent. A senior statesman like Rahul Dravid who has been there and done that would know that Indian cricket has seen many false dawns and do well to impress that upon his younger colleagues. Admittedly, the Indian teams of the last three or four years have been enormously consistent, so the alarm is, if anything, a cautionary note at best. And with a cool but no-nonsense man like M. S. Dhoni leading the team, the tyros would know that they cannot take anything for granted. That is just as well because the next five days represents India's best chance to win their first test at Barbados.

Three years ago, a resurgent Indian team stormed Perth after Sydneygate had laid them low, yet again snapping a winning streak the Australians sought to extend.  Back then, they had a gladiatorial man like Anil Kumble who led by example. Going into tomorrow, the Indians would look to a gentleman who loves the struggle, an artiste who would love to showcase some of his silk to fans in the Caribean before he signs off for one last time from the islands Columbus touched and a stoical captain who will tell them "to of course just go and enjoy the game." But winning it is not beyond Team India either.

A quirky batting mortal!

There are purists and there are those who believe that cricket is ultimately about how effective you are when it comes to scoring runs and grabbing wickets – the main business of the sport. Legendary Australian skipper Steve Waugh not only belonged to the latter category, even as his brother Mark was elegance personified who considered ugly runs as blots on his ego, but also spoke as much in a chapter in his autobiography where he says what matters is “not how but how many” which finds its renditions pervasively across the work: the best players make some use of bad days too and can grind out ugly but crucial runs when the going is difficult. One modern day player fits that bill more than most.

Fragile almost frangible in constitution with a stance - colloquially mocked at with the expression "extruding/jutting back" - that may confer the term “open-chested” for batsmen too, a technique that is not  savage but simply non-existent and an extravagant shuffle that will interest every LBW-monger, the batsman in question can give Jimmy Adams a run for his money when it comes to the absolutely unspectacular nature of stroke play, beat Graeme Smith for lack of the minutest relic of artistry to be seen in batting and may, if you are indulgent and/or sarcastic enough, captain a side comprising the most ungainly-looking cricketers. Yet despite his supposed shortcomings, which naturally predate(d) his international career, the prolific run-machine from Guyana has come a long way in West Indies cricket from being an unconventionally talented boy to one who has become the mainstay of West Indies batting in a decade during which West Indies’ win-lose ratio has plummeted to below one for the first time in forty years, Brian Lara’s brilliance ebbed and flowed like his capricious moods before his ultimate retirement and cricket administration in the West Indies has gone from inexplicably poor to utterly incompetent and the pipeline of talent – batting and bowling alike – into international cricket has virtually run dry. I refer to Shivnarine Chanderpaul.

While the recently drawn test match between the Proteas and the West Indies in St. Kitts joined the ceaselessly boring succession of drawn test matches – in Windies in particular and on pitches absolutely unresponsive to bowlers elsewhere in the world in general – Chanderpaul’s twenty-second century, a marathon 166 (unbelievably slow in its last yards that it might have put a snail to sleep!) served to prove two things: Chanderpaul’s ability to score big runs and his status as the country’s second best batsman of the Lara era and their best since sun set on the Trinidadian left-hander’s epoch-making career. A comparison with two of his better contemporaries sets him apart quite clearly at least in the game’s oldest and most treasured format: both skipper Chris Gayle and Sarwan average in the early forties as opposed to Chanderpaul who averages forty-eight and half.

Even a historical perspective speaks volumes about Chanderpaul’s longevity as a cricketer and his performances which have led to his sustaining his place in the team in the first place: he has now played the same number of test matches Sunil Gavaskar played (125), has just two hundreds less than the great Sir Vivian Richards – and averages just 1.5 runs below him –which is more than the number of hundreds scored by Sourav Ganguly, Michael Atherton, Desmond Haynes, Gordon Greenidge and Alec Stewart, has had precious few extended blips in form and been more or less consistent against all teams. For a player regarded as stodgy, Chanderpaul’s one-day record too – with a highest score of 150, average of close to forty-two and strike rate of under seventy-two – is enviable and his last ball six of Chaminda Vaas to finish a match few years ago, though freakish, speaks a lot about the Guyanese left-hander’s ability to adapt to the short form and remain composed under pressure.

Even if pure statistics do not give a compelling picture considering that Chandepaul has played in an increasingly batsmen-friendly era, it would be purblind to forget the fact that he has still had to contend with the likes of a trio of great spinners and a battery of fine fast bowlers from Glenn McGrath – and fellow Aussies – in his prime to Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis in the last part of their careers to others. That he has himself not had to face Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh (apart from in domestic cricket) is therefore as academic a point as a lot of one-day games these days. Further, the contributions from guys like Chanderpaul should be assessed in comparison with that of their peers and in the context of their country’s cricket during their time at large. Going by those yardsticks, the sheer limpet-like resilience Chanderpaul has displayed over the years has ensured that while he is out there a war of attrition was still on and that Windies could still salvage something out of a bad match.

Chanderpaul made his debut as a nineteen year old in 1994 and at thirty-five may have a couple of seasons in him. But when he calls time, he would probably look at his career with a grain of salt like Brian Lara might have. Even if Chanderpaul becomes only the second West Indian to cross the coveted 9000 run landmark in tests, which he should unless he retires by the end of the series against South Africa, in the process transcending Sir Viv Richard’s and Sir Garfield Sobers’ run aggregates, that he has not seen more West Indies victories during his time would probably weigh him down. Keeping yourself motivated when reasons beyond transience and the playing field deter a team’s progress can be the most demoralising challenge posed by modern team sport. But Chanderpaul, I believe, has done that to the best of his ability. Consequently, there shall be no detracting from his success which embodies the triumph of mind over matter and will over everything else.

Towards the end of an era of West Indian dominance and batting flamboyance, a workmanlike run-collector has kept Caribean batting line-ups from imploding catastrophically. In the process, he has put his name below the likes of Lara, Richards, Sobers and Greenidge. Many who start playing test cricket would take it gladly if you told them that by the time they hang up their boots they would be right behind some of the greats to have graced the game from their country. Chanderpaul’s contributions, may, however, be reckoned as just as invaluable as some of his predecessors’, given that his stellar acts have come more often than not from a sinking shop. And not many would confute the thesis that a soldier who survives and takes his men through dire straits is as deserving of greatness as any other.  

‘King’ston special: an excerpt

A couple of months ago I helped a friend with a write up on my favourite cricketer - Rahul Dravid. I was rereading it today ti see if it will put me to sleep when I chanced upon this. And I thought I should post it here!

Time: The 2006  Series against (and in) the West Indies

The 4-1 loss in the one-day series hurt and what hurt more was the close margins in a couple of games. So as India took on the West Indies in the test series in June, the Windies held the upper head and the psychological edge. The Calypso music and beers were out and so was the sun. India had squandered two wonderful chances during their last two trips. Although, Lara was still around the West Indies team was much weaker than even the one India had visited in 2002. The bowling was piecemeal and Ramnaresh Sarwan, Chris Gayle and Chanderpaul still did not contribute enough to the West Indian batting cause. However, Indians too were without Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar and Ganguly having been deposited in the wilderness, Dravid and Laxman held the key. It was a war of attrition fought on flat pitches in the peak of summer between two teams, one on the way up and the other trying its desperate best to recapture some earlier magic.

The first three tests ended in draws though the Indian pace attack bowled its heart out with good assistance from Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble. With a 146 at Gros Islet and other half centuries in the series, the skipper Dravid was in good form when the teams arrived in the Jamaican capital for the final test at the Sabina Park. On a pitch which Lara sarcastically applauded midway through his first innings – as it suited the Indian spinners more – Dravid contributed two masterful half-centuries. And despite Dinesh Ramdin’s late second innings flourish of 68, Kumble’s six-for gave Indians the game and with it a series win. Four tests and one result: India 1-0. If ever you wanted to watch a captain’s innings again, Dravid’s 81 and 68 would be top of the draw. On a pitch where sixteen wickets fell before his, “Dravid stood like a giant among pygmies,” wrote Siddhartha Vaidyanathan.

Another excerpt from Siddhartha Vaidyanathan’s report to cricinfo during the test sums Dravid’s efforts on a pitch with “landmines buried underneath” and Jerome Taylor steaming in – straight and fast: “The ball was dead straight and kept a bit low as well. Dhoni couldn't get down in time and was bowled.Two overs later, Dravid got a similar delivery, waited till the last moment, watched the ball all through and brought his bat down confidently. Taylor might as well have been bowling to the concrete structure behind Dravid; considering the effort he was putting in, he might have just been able to find a gap through it.” Beat that for technique, focus and resilience!

Along the way, Dravid joined an elite club of batsmen to get to 9000 runs. He was the Man of the Match and Man of the Series and nobody could grudge him that as he was streets ahead of the next best batsman in either team. The irony could not have been starker: it is crises which help distinguish men from boys. And the Indian captain was the tallest man standing at the end of the Jamaica test as India ended a 35 year series victory drought in the West Indies. From Adelaide to Headingley to Rawalpindi to Jamaica four of India’s five great wins abroad in the last three years all had Dravid’s name imprinted in bold. From a second fiddle to the chief artiste at the orchestra, Dravid had transformed himself from a good batsman to a great batsman to a captain leading from the front and with the undeniable force of on-field performance. And if at that point Dravid had thought the sky was the limit you would not have thought twice before nodding.