In the glorious annals of Test cricket, which will ring in its 150th anniversary next year, some numbers have acquired permanence over time.

Sir Don Bradman’s otherworldly Test average of 99.94 will forever be iconic. Sunil Gavaskar’s 10,122 runs, on account of the Indian being the first in the world to cross 10K, is epochal. The mild-mannered Sri Lankan off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan’s 800 scalps, snared with a ferocious snap of his right arm, is another monumental figure.

The magic figure

More broadly, in sync with the sport’s tendency to set benchmarks through statistics, a career average of 50 has long been the magic figure for batters in white flannels. Operating in another stratosphere without doubt was Bradman, whose average over 52 Tests from 1928 to 1948 is an insurmountable peak of the kind unlikely to be witnessed again in all of sport.

Moreover, Bradman’s influence extended beyond the field, with his runs acting as a balm to hordes of Australians suffering the grim consequences of the Great Depression.

For the rest, who cannot reach such dizzy heights, averaging half as much as the pre-eminent Australian over a reasonably lengthy career is a measure of bona fide greatness. To do so, a batter must be able to straddle different worlds, ranging from the fast and bouncy surfaces of Australia and South Africa in the southern hemisphere to the dusty, spin-friendly decks of the subcontinent.

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But in a landscape where so much of the Test game is undergoing transformation, there is perhaps a change unfolding here as well.

Among those with a minimum of 2000 runs starting January 1, 2020, only three have achieved the gold standard of 50 — the recently retired Kane Williamson of New Zealand and a pair of Englishmen in Joe Root and Harry Brook. The corresponding data for preceding decades point to a perceptible shift: 11 batters had a 50-plus average from 2010 to 2019, and as many as 19 from 2000 to 2009.

A multitude of factors

It isn’t by happenstance that the beginning of this shift coincides with the introduction of the World Test Championship (WTC) in 2019. Ever since teams have been incentivised to pursue silverware at the end of every two-year cycle, they have prioritised optimising home advantage by looking to win as many games as possible in familiar climes.

The chance to bag 12 points for a victory in the WTC, as opposed to four for a draw, encourages the pushing of the envelope. Result-oriented surfaces, where ball dominates bat, have thus become common.

The venues in Australia offer a striking example. In years gone by, most pitches Down Under had sharp pace and steep bounce, but they were also eminently favourable to batters who relished the cut and pull. Once the new Kookaburra ball lost its lustre, the willow-wielders were in prime position to make hay under the baking sun.

Now, the balance has swayed significantly in favour of the pacers. So much so that three of the last seven Tests have finished inside two days, with the fast men reaping the rewards. Even the Sydney Cricket Ground, traditionally conducive to guile and flight, has turned into a fast-bowling paradise.

“Probably averaging 35 with the bat is the same as averaging 45 a decade ago. I think the wickets have changed that much,” Aussie quick Josh Hazlewood told the media recently.

Changed thinking

In the view of former India opener Wasim Jaffer, a patient accumulator of runs during his playing days, a rise in result-oriented strips shouldn’t be an alibi for batters’ shortcomings. He contends that the prevailing mindset of run-makers, given their routine exposure to white-ball cricket, seldom lends itself to digging in and grinding out a meaningful score.

Increasingly, to paraphrase Jaffer, finding batters in the mould of Rahul Dravid or Cheteshwar Pujara is going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

“As soon as the ball seams, swings or spins, and conditions are a little in favour of the bowlers, the batters want to attack their way out of trouble,” Jaffer told The Hindu. “You’re not going to find somebody like Dravid or Pujara who will play out a session or a spell and cash in a little later. We are generally living in a time where patience is non-existent.”

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Jaffer concurred with the broad sentiment that many of the pitches of late haven’t been straightforward for batting. However, he cited the example of Headingley 2002, one of India’s famous overseas wins in which Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly peeled off centuries, to assert that such challenges have been conquered.

“The mindset is not there to survive. As a result, even balanced pitches become talked about because the batters don’t stay for long. They make it look tougher at times,” he argued, before recollecting, “I was part of the Indian team in Leeds in 2002. The conditions were very difficult. Still, the Test went into the fifth day. We had batters like Sachin, Sourav and Rahul. They survived the tough phases, and then it became easier.”

More than one reason

When it comes to defensive technique too, there has probably been a downturn. A case in point is the waning ability of Indian batters against spin on tracks assisting turn.

While the presence of the Decision Review System (DRS) has added another degree of difficulty, for batters are far more prone to being adjudged leg-before, very few appear adept at using the depth of the crease to move fully forward or back. Over the past two home seasons, India has borne the brunt, against New Zealand left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner and South African offie Simon Harmer.

The bowlers, often condemned to anonymity in the shorter formats, deserve their share of the credit. The widespread use of the wobble-seam delivery, a type of release where the seam isn’t perfectly upright on purpose, is an illustration of the ingenuity of fast bowlers coming to the fore.

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Though the delivery isn’t exactly new, there seems to be greater awareness among a wider pool of quicks about the benefits of the seam wobbling on its way to the batter. For the men facing up, in comparison to dealing with swing through the air, there are no obvious clues to lean on when the ball deviates off the surface after pitching.

“It’s an additional weapon in the armoury of fast bowlers. The wobble seam sometimes confuses you as a batter. If it lands in the right spot and darts back in, it creates problems,” Jaffer observed.

It brings us interestingly to Virat Kohli, Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane. Formidable occupants of India’s middle-order until three years ago, they have all retired from Test cricket over the past 15 months.

At the time of their exits, the fact that none of them finished with an average above 50 was perceived to be a blot on their careers. It may not be so in the years to come.

X-factor: Gavaskar wants India to be patient with Sooryavanshi.
| Photo Credit: FILE PHOTO

Imran Khan.
| Photo Credit: File photo

The legacy a celebrated, high-profile achiever leaves behind isn’t defined merely by awards and accomplishments, no matter how staggeringly impressive they might be, but equally — if not more — by how many people they have touched, how many lives they have impacted, how much joy they have provided.

The unchecked outpouring of grief at his passing, followed almost immediately by tales of his kindness and generosity, are testament to the standing Sir Garfield Sobers enjoys in the cricketing ecosystem, of which he was the unquestioned emperor for the longest of times, and beyond. Sobers was ‘the greatest’ long before hyperbole took root and even the commonplace was labelled ‘great’. He was cricket’s Muhammad Ali. Scratch that. Ali was boxing’s Sobers, if that makes sense, given that the Sobers aura had pervaded the sporting world long before Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali, and floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee.

In the three days since Sobers shuffled off the Shakespearan mortal coil, the tributes have come thick and fast, from those who played with and against him, from those who were fortunate enough to be the recipients of his wisdom and goodness, and from those who have heard of his exploits from others and have had to reconcile to watching his genius on YouTube. That he was universally adored was obvious long before he left us for what is certain to be a better world merely because he is inhabiting it. His demise has rekindled old memories and enveloped his peers and juniors in a sea of nostalgia, which remains the overwhelming theme that has accompanied any mention of Sir Garry since Friday night (IST).

Sobers’ international career spanned 20 years, his first-class stint 22; he didn’t play competitively after July 1974. But even 52 years on, the stirring deeds are spoken about with awe and reverence. In his final representative outing, for his beloved Nottinghamshire against Worcestershire, he unleashed 84 in an 18-run loss at Worcester in the quarterfinals of the Gillette Cup 60-over domestic tournament in England.

It was his 95th List-A match, of which only one, against England in September 1973, was an international fixture. The legend was dismissed without scoring, caught behind off by Chris Old, as West Indies went down by one wicket in a low-scoring thriller.

Imagine that – Garry Sobers, Test average 57.78, 8,032 runs, 26 centuries and a highest of 365 not out, averages 0 in ODIs. Oh, the wicked humour of the one above us. On the face of it, given his exceptional versatility and the multiple skillsets that allowed him to dominate the longer version as a bowler alone or as a batter alone – not to mention his terrific fielding or his sensational catching which netted him 109 grabs in 93 Tests, mostly close in – Sobers ought to have been a natural fit in limited-overs cricket.

He didn’t reproduce his lofty First Class deeds in the shorter format (there was obviously no 20-over games in his playing days) but no one is really complaining because his one-day career ended nearly a year before the first of three Prudential World Cup (60 overs a side) was staged in England in the summer of 1975.

Sobers and India had a strong bond shaped by mutual respect and love and respect. Farokh Engineer, that maverick wicketkeeper-batter, and Bishan Bedi, the late former skipper, were among the earliest to be blessed by the charm of Sobers, given that both were regulars in the English county circuit and often encountered Sobers’ genius from close quarters with admiration but also, one senses, a tinge of trepidation. But among his greatest ‘fans’, if one might use that word, are the two little masters who were the combined backbone of the Indian batting for nearly a dozen years, each bringing his own unique style and together producing the kind of magic that mesmerised the best, Sobers included.

Sunil Gavaskar first played internationally 55 years back, as a 21-year-old, making his debut in the Caribbean in March 1971. By then, G.R. Vishwanath had already announced himself on the international stage, with a hundred in his first Test, against Australia in Kanpur a year and a half previously. Like his future brother-in-law, ‘Vishy’ was also on his first overseas tour when Ajit Wadekar led his troops out to the Caribbean islands in 1971, little aware that the Indians were walking into history.

Almost from their first meeting, Sobers and the other great West Indian batter of that time, Rohan Kanhai, took a shine to the technician from Bombay and the magician from Bangalore. With the charismatic M.L. Jaisimha helping break the ice in his inimitable fashion – the debonair Hyderabadi and the proud Barbadian shared a wonderful bond – the two young men benefitted from the voluntary advice even during Test matches of Sobers and Kanhai. At least one of them has spoken of a gentle ‘warning’ from the slip cordon after a false stroke. ‘Don’t throw it away, you have done all the hard work. Focus. Concentrate.’ Can you imagine that? A superstar of the game, the opposition captain, no less, looking out for you in an unequal battle of two versus 11. How could they not become Sobers converts? How could they not indeed?

In his 2022 autobiography Wrist Assured, Vishwanath writes, “Sir Garry is easily the greatest cricketer I have played with and against, no two ways about it. At various stages during that tour, I had to pinch myself as a reminder that I wasn’t actually dreaming of being on the same ground as him.”

That tour in 1971 was a seminal one in Indian cricket history. India didn’t have the greatest overseas record at the time. But fuelled by the brilliance of Gavaskar, whose debut series fetched him a massive 774 runs in four Tests, the dependability of Dilip Sardesai as well as the three-pronged spin attack of Bedi, E.A.S. Prasanna and S. Venkataraghavan, superbly complemented by that affable maverick Salim Durrani, India registered a 1-0 triumph, their first series victory in the Caribbean. That was the catalyst for a similar scoreline in England a few months later when the mystery-propelled leg-spin of B.S. Chandrasekhar sparked a grand victory at The Oval.

In the West Indies, India had the temerity to enforce the follow-on for the first time against their hosts in the first Test in Kingston, where Sobers had conjured an unbeaten 365, the highest individual score in Test cricket for 36 years, in 1958. The first day’s play was washed out, and after India bowled West Indies out for 217 in response to their 387 around tea on day four, Wadekar darted over to the West Indian dressing room to inform Sobers that they would have to bat again.

“I hope you are only joking,” Sobers laughed, only to be met by a neutral, “No, not joking,” from the Indian skipper, who explained that since it was now a four-day Test, a lead of 150 was enough to stick the opposition back in. “All right maan, so we will bat again.” “Ajit had fired an unexpected salvo,” Vishwanath recalls in the book. “We feared retaliation of some sort and sure enough, Rohan and Sir Garry, did not disappoint. Almost as if they were slighted at being asked to bat again, the two virtuosos put on an exhibition on the last day.

Vantage position

“Later in that series, at the Kensington Oval in Barbados where the square boundaries aren’t too long, I was stationed at deep square-leg for the sweep with Pras bowling to him. From my vantage position, I had a fantastic, uninterrupted view of Sir Garry. He shaped to come forward. saw the trajectory was short, and quickly rocked on to the back foot. He didn’t play the pull, more a whip with the blade more vertical than horizontal. Oh, the horror… The ball crashed into the wall and ricocheted halfway back into the ground. It was a ferocious stroke played all along the ground, the control immaculate. I quickly did my mathematics; he was 34, had played international cricket for 16 years. I couldn’t start to imagine what he would have been like at his peak.”

Sobers had a kind word and a smile not just for his fellow cricketers, he also loved interacting with kids. On the rest day (yes, it was a thing once upon a time) of the Pongal Test in Madras in January 1967, despite being unbeaten on 95 at the end of the third day, Sobers was gracious enough to interact with several kids, some of whom had made the trip from Bangalore with their parents to watch the match, and fine-tune their games to the extent that it can be done in one short stint. He wasn’t expected to do anything of that sort, it was not an obligation or a social media gimmick or a sponsor commitment. It’s just something that came naturally to him, and while he might not have thought a great deal about it, it left the teenaged lads with memories for a lifetime. In the long list of people that he has touched, these kids too figure, prominently. Sobers never went out of his way to win friends and influence people; he didn’t have to, you see.

Endearing video

There is an endearing video of Anura Tennekoon, the former Sri Lankan captain who is now a young 79, interacting with the 15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi during the triangular ‘A’ series in Sri Lanka last month. Tennekoon made the 161-kilometre drive from Colombo to Dambulla merely to offer the young man words of advice and encouragement.

Sobers was like that too, turning up mainly at Bridgetown to catch up with young batters who fired his imagination, batters like Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid and Virat Kohli. He was a giver in the truest sense. He gave the bowlers great grief though he did so with such class and elegance that they almost didn’t seem to mind. He gave his teammates, the connoisseurs and the fans the ultimate joy. He gave West Indian cricket, at the time divided by regional considerations, a sense of pride and identity. The Big Man upstairs broke the mould after he made Sir Garfield Sobers, the original Champion of Champions.

Rajasthan Royals batsman Donovan Ferreira during IPL T20 Match against Punjab Kings at the New Chandigarh Stadium in Punjab on April 28, 2026.
| Photo Credit: R.V. Moorthy

Virat Kohli in action during his splendid knock in the third and final ODI in Indore on January 18, 2026
| Photo Credit: PTI

Former cricketer Sunil Gavaskar poses with his statue during the inauguration of the MCA Sharad Pawar Cricket Museum at Wankhede Stadium, in Mumbai on August 23, 2025
| Photo Credit: PTI

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England suffered a disappointing 3-0 ODI series sweep at the hands of India on Wednesday. The side failed to challenge the Rohit Sharma-led side in any of the games and its batters looked clueless against the Indian spinners. While talking about the struggle of England batters, former India player Ravi Shastri pointed out that the players have had just one training session during the entire ODI series. Ex-England player Kevin Pietersen also slammed the players of his nation for taking ‘disrespecting Indian conditions’.

“From what I’ve heard, England have had just one net session this entire trip, if not any. If you’re not prepared to do the hard yards, you’re not going to improve,” said Shastri during commentary in third ODI.

Meanwhile, England great Pietersen said, “The 2-hour flight from Dubai across here. He (Tom Banton) was on the golf course yesterday. He wasn’t batting, and where have the issues come? The start, 1 for 60, 2 for 80. And then, what happens? None of them can play spin. And how do you improve playing spin?”

After the game, Pietersen revealed that he read an article where a journalist claimed that the England players could not have sufficient training due to injury concerns and the little gap after the T20I series that preceded the ODIs.

Notably, the India vs England T20I series concluded on February 2, while the ODI matches took place on February 6, 9 and 12.

“Just got sent an article where a leading UK journo has said that Shastri & I got it wrong last night when discussing England not training,” said Pietersen in a post on X.

“Reason – injuries and quick turnaround between games…!

“Do me a f*****g favour! Stop writing about cricket if you’re going to write such rubbish.

“Injuries are part of sport and this schedule is like every bilateral series almost ever played.

“Injuries are NOT stopping batters from batting against net bowlers and learning the art of playing spin. And that’s where they should have been to IMPROVE! Trust me on this one as it saved my career against spin!

“It seems the journos are in cahoots with what we’re trying to be brainwashed into believing! You won’t fool the fan with such!”

Just got sent an article where a leading UK journo has said that Shastri & I got it wrong last night when discussing England not training.

Reason – injuries and quick turnaround between games…!

Do me a f*****g favour! Stop writing about cricket if you’re going to write…

— Kevin Pietersen(@KP24) February 13, 2025

Both India and England now head up to the Champions Trophy that is set to kick off on February 19.