Michael Atherton is regarded as the greatest English opening batter of his generation, almost a natural successor to that other wonderfully accomplished technician who also hailed from the north of the country and who will rank among the top openers of all time, Sir Geoffrey Boycott.

Earmarked for the English captaincy from very early in his career – remember the famous FEC (Future England Captain)? – the Lancastrian was a grand mixture of technical expertise and remarkable concentration. He was a pleasing stroke-maker, without a doubt, but stroke-making won’t be the first thought when one hears the name Michael Atherton.

At a time when English batting was desperate for solidity at the top of the order, Atherton loomed as the panacea, his unflappability instilling a sense of calmness and confidence within the batting groups. In a career spanning 115 Tests, the currently 53-year-old articulate and understated commentator and analyst produced numerous fantastic essays, as is to be expected. It is his highest Test score, however, that is still spoken of with awe and reverence, not just by those privileged to watch it first-hand or those who saluted his commitment on television, but even by those of succeeding generations who might not have seen him negotiate even a single ball during his long stint at the crease.

The epic unfolded at the Bullring that the New Wanderers in Johannesburg goes by. And make no mistake, it truly is an amphitheatre. Even without a single bum on the seats beyond the boundary buntings, Wanderers can be an intimidating stage. Standing in the middle, with neither bat nor ball in attendance, you can feel the stands closing in, the heat rising to your face, hands suddenly clammy and the heart beating at the rate of knots. One can only imagine what it must be like to take guard, gladiator-like, with Allan Donald and Meyrick Pringle and Brian McMillan and a very young Shaun Pollock chomping at the bit, desperate to have a go.

The first Test of the five-match series in 1995-96, in Centurion, had ended in a tame draw with not a ball bowled on the last three days. Pollock, on debut, had provided glimpses of his extraordinary talent with three for 98 from 29 overs while Atherton, the captain, ground out a five-and-a-half-hour 78 in England’s 381 for nine declared.

South Africa called the shots in Johannesburg, Pollock’s three for 44 earning them a 132-run lead which they increased to 478 at which point Hansie Cronje decided he had enough runs, and time, to force a 1-0 advantage. England had to bat out the better part of two days to secure a draw – a tilt at a record target was out of the equation – and the odds heavily favoured the hosts, but no one had told Atherton that.

He wasn’t just obdurate defence. By his own admission, for the first time in his Test career, which was into its seventh year at the time, he felt he was in ‘the zone’, that elusive and intangible state that sportspersons strive for with limited success. He played the hook and the pull – horror, horror – and one ball after being dropped on 99 by Gary Kirsten off ‘White Lightning’ Donald, it was the hook that took him to three-figures. Atherton wasn’t done; the skipper was unconquered and unbowed at the end, unbeaten on 185 — in nearly 11 hours (643 minutes) – after negotiating 492 deliveries in the first of several grand tussles with Donald to shepherd his team to an honourable draw.

This would remain the defining innings of Atherton’s career, one that catapulted him to English folklore. And yet — we say this with no disrespect — Atherton finished his career with no more than a middling average of 37.69. And 16 hundreds from 212 innings.

Perceptions vary

It’s amazing how perceptions vary depending on so many different factors, not least recency bias which might cloud a forensic audit of Ajinkya Rahane’s international career in general, and his Test record specifically. Like Atherton, Rahane – who led India six times in Tests, almost entirely by default – also finished with an average of less than 40 (38.46, superior by more than half a run per innings to Atherton) but where the Englishman is hailed and eulogised, the stylish Mumbaikar leaves behind a feeling of what-if. What if he had converted even a quarter of his (26) half-centuries into hundreds? What if he had sometimes been a little more selfish? What if he had been a little less flamboyant? What if he didn’t have to perform in the towering presence of Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli? What if…?

But like the great stylist from Hyderabad who took the steel in the Indian batting and fused it with style, Rahane will always be more than his borderline-modest numbers. No, one isn’t falling into the trap of comparing Rahane with V.V.S. Laxman. Not by a long way. For starters, Laxman had far superior numbers – an average of 45.97 – and played numerous more match-altering knocks than Rahane. But like Rahane, Laxman had to operate in the giant shadows of Rahul Dravid and the peerless Sachin Tendulkar and, from midway through his career, the effervescent genius of Virender Sehwag. That Very Very Special managed to carve a niche for himself and more than hold his own in this illustrious company is credit to his magic, of course, but also to a single-mindedness that he doesn’t get enough credit for.

In Laxman’s example was a tack for Rahane to emulate, and a contemporariness that should have been his greatest motivation. But let’s leave that for another day. In his own way, Rahane contributed to India taking not a lot of time in tiding over a tricky transition phase which saw Dravid and Laxman play their last Tests in Adelaide in January 2012 (though no one knew it at the time), Sehwag slowly fall out of favour and Tendulkar walk away into the sunset in November 2013.

Dashing picture

When the mood seized him, which wasn’t too often but not rare as hen’s teeth either, Rahane cut a dashing picture at the crease, powerful off the backfoot and felicitous off the front. Lord’s and the MCG seemed to bring the best out of him, whether because he is a strong student of history and knows the prestige attached with performing optimally there or simply because he liked the pace with which the ball came on to his bat. Strangely for an Indian batter hailed as a very good player of the turning ball, Rahane enjoyed greater success overseas – only four of his 12 tons came in India – which perhaps obliquely explains his average.

In another era, Rahane might have been a longer-term captain, but because of the overlap with first Mahendra Singh Dhoni and then Kohli, he ended up leading the Test side just six times, all in an interim capacity when Kohli was either injured, rested or was away on paternity leave. India won four and lost none of those six Tests, a terrific achievement what with four of those outings against the Aussies, and three in Australia. His captaincy debut, in Dharamshala in March 2017, was sensational; with the series tied 1-1, Rahane heeded head coach Anil Kumble’s advice and unleashed left-arm wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav, who rode on tips from Shane Warne to pull the rug from under the feet of the great man’s colleagues. Rahane himself counter-punched as India pursued a tricky target of 106 on a still-spicy deck against a fired-up duo of Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, taking his team home from 46 for two with a racy unbeaten 27-ball 38.

But his greatest hour as leader came in Australia, on the Covid-adjacent tour in 2020-21 when Kohli left for the birth of his first child after the first Test. India looked out for the count after an eight-wicket drubbing in the Adelaide day-nighter, courtesy their lowest Test tally of 36 all out in the second innings. Alongside Kohli, pace ace Mohammed Shami was also ruled out of the series, with a broken forearm.

A 4-0 whitewash was the predicted outcome at that stage but somehow, Rahane masterminded an extraordinary fightback. By the final Test in Brisbane — how India still managed to keep the scoreline at 1-1 remains a great mystery — Rahane had to make do without the services of Ravindra Jadeja, R. Ashwin, Hanuma Vihari and the irreplaceable Jasprit Bumrah. But India weren’t going away, were they? Rahane’s fabulous 112 was the catalyst for an instant backlash in Melbourne and once the skipper had shown the way, how could Pujara and Rishabh Pant and Vihari and Ashwin — who defied a hamstring strain and a back injury respectively to bat out more than three hours and secure a magnificent draw in Sydney in the third Test — not follow suit?

Need of the hour

Australia in 2020-21 was Rahane’s brightest hour, a shining beacon of not just his batting chops but also his tactical awareness, his man-management skills, the uncanny ability to think on his feet and his innate calmness that was more the need of the hour than Kohli’s unquestionable fire. To see his teammates respond to the urgings of their captain was heart-warming; India had a bowling ‘attack’ of little pedigree going into the Gabba decider, but Mohammed Siraj, Navdeep Saini, Shardul Thakur and debutants T. Natarajan and Washington Sundar — this group combined had played fewer than 10 Tests at the time — delivered at the most Australian of venues to set up a spectacular coup taken to its denouement by the steadfastness of Pujara and the enterprise and incandescence of Pant. The Gabbatoir was conquered for the first time in more than three decades, with the leadership group of Rahane and head coach Ravi Shastri at the heart of one of the most extraordinary fairytales in the five-day game.

It’s a shame that Rahane led just once more in Tests, and by the time Kohli decided to call time on his career in South Africa in early 2022, his form had nosedived enough – just three 50-plus scores and no century in his preceding 28 Test innings – for Rohit Sharma to take over as all-format leader. After South Africa, Rahane played a mere three more Tests over the next 18 months before being put out to pasture – some three years before he officially called time on his stirring journey. Cruelly, perhaps, but there is little place for sentiment in competitive sport.

Rahane, though, will remain a sentimental favourite. The eternal crisis-man but not a fair-weather fill-the-boot types. Maybe that’s something he should have been better at. Thanks for the entertainment, Jinks. And the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, of course.

On song: Vrinda’s Hubli Tigers is now in a good position to qualify for Sunday’s final.
| Photo Credit: FILE PHOTO: K. MURALI KUMAR

It was 25 years ago that Mark Butcher scored a monumental 173 not out in England’s successful chase against Australia in the Headingley Test. He scored seven other Test hundreds, some of them against the most fearsome attacks. He is now a popular commentator and sharp analyst of the game. Excerpts from Butcher’s exclusive interview with The Hindu at Lord’s:

Your comparison of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi with Garry Sobers earlier this year got a lot of attention. It was fascinating, how you proved, through the help of visuals, the similarities in the bat swing, hand speed…

I watched him make that 175 [off 80 balls] in the Under-19 World Cup final [against England at Harare]. I was struck by that incredible, long, high backlift, the huge follow-through, the complete circle almost where the bat finishes around, tapping him on the spine. You know, Sobers used to hit a lot of shots with his feet together. He would play full balls almost off the back foot. And Sooryavanshi can hit them like that too.

Even if his career ends up not reaching the expectations that other people have, which I think is very unlikely, he has still in the IPL done something that all of the greatest players up until now have never, ever done: none of them have managed to score at a strike-rate of 230, hit that many sixes, be that consistent in the entirety of the IPL. It is still one of the most remarkable things I have ever seen.

Today’s youngsters are exposed to T20 from the beginning, whereas when I was very young, it was Test matches. They grow up thinking about batting very much in a hyper aggressive mode. These younger guys can do things at their age that we wouldn’t have dreamt of at ours.

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Yes, even Sachin Tendulkar didn’t hit as many sixes, for all his genius. Sooryavanshi is a product of the T20 era of cricket.

Correct. So he will have to learn the game the other way around. He will have to learn how to bat time, to defend. In our generation, it was the opposite. We would have to spend a lot of time learning how to hit the ball.

How do you recall your masterpiece — 173 not out in 2001?

My main memory is about that summer, really. I wasn’t expecting to play Test cricket again. I got an opportunity and I played 42 Tests in a row. I had completely changed my game.

Your father helped, didn’t he?

That is right. The biggest thing I remember is the relationship I had with my dad in the winter of 2001. I called him and said, ‘Dad, I am hating playing cricket.’ Something that I had always loved. Now I was hating it. And I said to him — ‘Treat me as though I have never played the game before.’ So we went right back to the beginning. He really taught me how to hold the bat, how to stand, the whole thing. We changed my grip. We changed my stance. We changed my backlift. Everything. We went back to zero. Like I was five years old. And we worked like that for about three months. And then I luckily got back into the team. I had made a few runs playing for Surrey. A few injuries in the England camp before the Ashes started, and I got in.

How much does that knock, which came against Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie, mean to you?

Ah, it was huge. You wouldn’t be talking to me if it hadn’t been for that. And I wouldn’t be working in TV either. So that innings changed everything. It was the greatest day.

And how was the coach’s reaction?

I know my dad was in tears when [BBC] Test Match Special called him up.

The players you like to watch these days?

I actually love watching K.L. Rahul. I think he is a sensational player. Really classy. Harry Brook is fabulous to watch when he is in. Joe Root, too. And Travis Head — you can’t take your eyes off the screen when he is batting.

You have played against some of the greatest bowlers in history. Who were the most challenging among them?

Blimey! Curtly Ambrose. Him and Courtney Walsh. And then you had, obviously, Shane Warne. Glenn McGrath. Murali [Muttiah Muralitharan].

Among the Indians?

Harbhajan [Singh] and [Anil] Kumble, on those tracks.

And the batters you admired?

[Brian] Lara was sort of the king around about those times. Fellow left-hander, so I greatly admired him. Then the guys like [Ricky] Ponting, Sachin [Tendulkar], obviously. I remember applauding Ricky from second slip at the WACA, much to the annoyance of Nasser Hussain, who was standing next to me at slip. He glared at me. I was just standing there going, ‘Oh man, that’s good’. There were a lot of great players around, like the South Africans, Jacques Kallis and Graeme Smith.

Is there cause for concern about the future of Test cricket?

Yeah, of course, there is. What you would like is to have eight to ten teams who are competing on a level playing field. If only England, Australia and India are playing each other, the game is starting to eat itself, you know.

Eventually, one of the great things about all of the series that go around is that you are anticipating and you are excited about the idea about playing this team at this venue. But if it is the same three teams the whole time, it is not that exciting.

What has happened in the modern era is that the gap between the countries that have plenty of finances and the rest has got wider. The competition has perhaps thinned out a little bit in recent times. And that is a huge shame, that finances have meant that a lot of countries, the West Indies, being the most obvious example simply because of their dominance [in the past], have suffered.

South Africa are kind of hanging in there. They are still producing a lot of players and they still manage just about to keep enough of their most talented players to play Tests. But in places like Sri Lanka and the West Indies, they find it very difficult to keep their best players who disappear off to earn more money playing T20. And that is a problem for the world game.

The First Class game and the structures that produce Test Match cricketers are strong in some places and not very strong at all in others.

Your thoughts on Bazball?

I have been critical of it at times. In the game of cricket, the Test match is the game. And they tried to do something that was going to take the game to a different place. But Test match cricket kind of fought against it a little bit. Because when it came down to it, in the big games against the likes of India and Australia, it didn’t work. And so, Test match cricket is kind of greater than any idea that people might have around how you play it.

And Test cricket is the greatest form of sport.

It is. The sport itself dictates to you what is necessary. And if you push too hard, the game will bite you back. And that is what happened. There is as much pleasure to be taken from a really hard-fought draw sometimes as there is from smashing it all over the park.

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The women got to play a Test at Lord’s, finally.

This has come about because the world has decided, well, you know, this is a great game of cricket, right? Why would we want to stop 50% of the world’s population from enjoying and playing the sport that we think is a great sport? And so that opportunity is now there and what you are seeing is a product of that.

Players in the women’s game that you enjoy watching?

I like Smriti Mandhana’s batting. She is just an incredibly graceful player. So easy on the eye. Very, very lovely to watch. She plays pace and spin equally well. She reminds me of David Gower, in fact. Harmanpreet Kaur is very good to watch, too. And Jemimah Rodrigues is a fine technician.

Besides cricket, music is your other passion. And you had the opportunity of performing with Sarah Brightman, one of the greatest voices of our time.

It was good fun, singing some of Sarah’s favourite songs on live television. It was kind of nerve-racking, but it was good.