V.V.S. Laxman pulls to the boundary on his way to a record 281 during the Second Test match against Australia played at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata in March 2001
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

Cricketers, like all athletes, have defining performances. The one that above all others reveals the essential style, the uniqueness, the essential person. These are often made in adverse conditions, against the run of play. Often they cause a captain to tell his dressing room, as Don Bradman did during an innings by Stan McCabe: “Come and watch this, you’ll never see the likes of it again.”

You can imagine skipper Sourav Ganguly saying something similar while V.V.S. Laxman was compiling 281 in Kolkata as India beat Australia after following on.

Not all defining innings led to victories. Sunil Gavaskar’s 221 at the Oval left the match drawn, while Sachin Tendulkar’s 136 in Chennai against Pakistan couldn’t prevent defeat. Was that Tendulkar’s best innings, or should that title go to his 143 against Australia in Sharjah, the so-called Desert storm in a One-Day International? Perhaps it was the 114 he made on a bouncy Perth track as a 19-year-old?

Not all such innings are centuries either. Gundappa Vishwanath’s unbeaten 97 in the Chennai Test against the West Indies was more Vishy-like than even his double century against England.

It is not always remembered that India won Laxman’s Test thanks as much to Harbhajan Singh’s 13 wickets including India’s first hat-trick. That must rate as the off-spinner’s defining performance — just as Anil Kumble’s 10 for 74 in Delhi in the second innings against Pakistan will remain his.

Defining performance

Although Kapil Dev once took nine wickets in a Test innings, his defining performance may be the unbeaten 175 he made against Zimbabwe in the 1983 World Cup? My favourite, however, was his 129 in Port Elizabeth on India’s first tour of South Africa where he seemed to be playing at a different level from everybody else. The next highest score was 17.

The Kolkata Test also saw the quintessential Rahul Dravid — calm, supportive, classical — as he made 180 in a partnership with Laxman. Dependable, as a current commercial featuring him has it. There was a brief ‘Indiranagar ka goonda’ in one of his early Tests, at the Wanderers where he made 148 after showing fast bowler Allan Donald who was boss!

The statistician Anantha Narayanan wrote in a study recently that he calculates Ravichandran Ashwin will finish with 656 Test wickets, more than any other Indian. Ashwin reinvents himself regularly, and his defining performance will probably come closer to the end when he has mastered all his variations and worked out his tricks.

I once wrote — my only excuse being I was young and raw — that Sunil Gavaskar’s batting, like history, repeats itself. It was a silly thing to say, and I was taken to task by the sports editor. No two innings by any batter is exactly alike, and part of a reporter’s job is to train himself to notice the differences.

Variety and surprise are keys to mastery

If Gavaskar hit a straight drive off every ball that was pitched up to him, or Virat Kohli played that unique on-drive suggestive of a tennis player’s cross-court shot, cricket would be so much poorer. Variety and surprise are keys to mastery.

Every player is capable of one moment of greatness in a career, but the best players have many of them, and closer together.

After he had made 192 in Auckland where he dominated the New Zealand bowlers, Mohammad Azharuddin was asked which was his favourite stroke. “The one that goes exactly where I want it to,” he answered. Virender Sehwag would agree.

His 195 at Melbourne where he perished attempting the six that would get him to his double, was probably that batter’s defining innings. He shook the bowling by the scruff of the neck, hit 25 fours and five sixes and was out hitting a full toss to long on. He was a stranger to caution.

In his first Test as captain, Virat Kohli made two centuries, the second of which nearly took India to victory. In the end they fell short by 48 runs, but Kohli’s aggressive approach as batter and captain captured the cricket world’s imagination. Especially since it all began with a knock on the helmet from a Mitchell Johnson express.

Will someone else have the same list? Unlikely. And that’s part of the joy of sport.

File picture of England bowler James Anderson celebrating a wicket at Lord’s Cricket Ground
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

When coach Brendon McCullum flew over from New Zealand to tell Jimmy Anderson, England’s most successful Test bowler, that his time was up, it was a tribute to both parties. That Anderson had the intensity to keep going and needed a tap on the shoulder spoke for his competitive spirit.

That McCullum flew nearly 18,000 kilometres to speak to the player told us of the kind of coach he is and suggested one of the reasons for England’s success under the great communicator.

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Contrast this with how the Indian administration has sometimes handled such issues. When the team was returning from the 1979 tour of England, the pilot on the flight announced that skipper Venkatraghavan had just been sacked. This was the first Venkatraghavan was hearing of it.

Fantastic figures

Anderson, who will be 42 in July, is likely to play his 188th and final Test against West Indies at Lord’s the same month. Only Sachin Tendulkar (200) has played more. And only Mutthiah Muralitharan (800) and Shane Warne (708) have taken more wickets than Anderson’s 700. That he claimed 220 of them after the age of 35 and at a better average is indication that he got better with age. That, of course didn’t mean he would realise his full potential at 50!

For some years after his debut, Anderson carried two burdens. One, that he was effective only in home conditions where the ball swung, and two, that while he was capable of the magic ball any time, he seemed more enamoured by the dot ball. Yet, when England won a series in India after 28 years in 2012-13, skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni said the difference between the teams was Jimmy Anderson.

Anderson said he had learnt the art of the reverse swing from Zaheer Khan, and in an interview once admitted that his famous wobble ball was a bit of a lottery since it was impossible to control. Few players have spoken with such honesty about their craft.

Yet, for all its dignity and humanism, it seemed incongruous that it needed a coach’s nudge before that obvious decision was made. Perhaps Anderson himself was relieved it had been taken out of his hands. Most sportsmen have an instinct for recognising when the time comes. But great ones sometimes don’t, because they have often come out of slumps in the past and think they can again.

Anderson’s five wickets in four matches in the Ashes series at 85.4 was a hint he refused to acknowledge. He struggled in India (except for a magical spell in Visakhapatnam), but kept repeating a variation of “I am as fit as I have been; I am at my best now”, statements he had made in the past.

Yet, even if he got his timing slightly wrong, it didn’t detract from his stature as one of the greats of the game. It would have to be between him and Glenn McGrath for the title of the finest bowler of their type in modern times.

McGrath hit his groove early, and finished with nearly the same average bowling at home or away. Yet it was Anderson who might win the argument as a player who asked more questions more consistently of batters who were conscious of the fact that the near-unplayable ball was just around the corner — and he could bend it as few could.

Reinventing

Anderson played for longer and reinvented himself periodically, cutting pace for accuracy and bowling with a grace and seeming lack of effort which is one of the game’s great sights. He was experimenting with a new run-up at 41. “His ability to keep wanting to improve has been extraordinary,” wrote his former captain and friend Alastair Cook.

Anderson has played 70% of all the Tests England have since his debut. That, for a fast bowler is an incredible record, testimony to his skill, fitness, hunger, success, consistency and ability to improve.

Should players be allowed the time and place for the final goodbye? It can be a tribute to long years of service (Anderson made his debut in 2003) as well as a profitable marketing ploy. Anderson’s time had come. He was allowed to choose the place. It is a happy compromise.

Kuldeep Yadav celebrates a wicket during the third Test match between India and England at Rajkot
| Photo Credit: VIJAY SONEJI

He might look like an accountant accidentally woken up by an alarm beeping too early, hair dishevelled and on the point of complaining. But the smile is never far from Kuldeep Yadav’s eyes, suggesting he enjoys a laugh against himself. “I have become mature,” he told the media at the end of the series against England where he took 19 wickets and brought left-arm wrist spin to the forefront of cricket conversations.

The craft appeals to the romantics. The wrist spinner is capable of looking like a genius one day and a novice the next, adding to the glorious uncertainties.

Since making his debut seven years ago, Kuldeep has played just 12 Tests while missing 56 that India played in that period. You need a sense of humour to survive such vicissitudes. And to retain both fitness and passion while spending so much time on the sidelines. He went back to the drawing board, worked on his run up and his pace as well as his batting and has become the bowler he wanted to be.

May soon be spearhead

India’s discovery of new stars (Dhruv Jurel, Sarfaraz Khan, Akash Deep) and ratification of the potential of a recent one (Yashasvi Jaiswal) have been touted as the gains of the series, which they are. But equally important has been the confirmation of the quality and class of their third spinner who might soon be the spearhead of the spin attack.

Kuldeep, 29, made his mark over a decade ago and now, as he says, he has begun to understand his bowling. It is a difficult art, one of the toughest in the game. Most left-arm spinners, from Wilfred Rhodes to Bishan Bedi experimented with wrist spin early on, and then decided that orthodox finger spin, where the ball spins away from the bat is the better option. Garry Sobers bowled in both styles, but there is no record of how many of his 235 Test wickets were earned by wrist spin.

Wrist spinners tend to be, by the nature of their craft, expensive and inconsistent. It takes a captain who understands this to handle Kuldeep, and Rohit Sharma showed he understood both the bowler and the bowling well. He didn’t hesitate from berating Kuldeep when he fell short nor did he ignore the arm-around-the-shoulder treatment that paid such dividends.

When Kuldeep started his career, the ball bowled that went the other way was referred to as the ‘chinaman’, a term now thankfully erased from the game. This was ostensibly because a West Indies player of Chinese origin, Ellis Achong was believed to have been the first to use it. An English batter stumped off such a delivery walked away cursing. It may be an apocryphal story, though. In any case, he was insulting the bowler rather than christening a new delivery.

Two Yorkshiremen, Roy Kilner and Maurice Leyland might have bowled that delivery a decade earlier, the name suggestive of either eastern magic or the conviction that it could only dismiss a batter who hadn’t played cricket. Kilner was a man of charm who contracted typhoid while coaching in India and died at 37. Over a lakh turned up for his funeral in his hometown. Leyland was better known as a feisty batter who averaged over 50 against Australia. Leyland claimed he was the one to name the delivery because it was ‘foreign’ and couldn’t be called anything else.

Kuldeep may not be aware of the anecdotal history behind the delivery he bowls so well . He may not know that he figures in a novel by John Le Carre who wrote the following in his Agent Running in the Field: “I discuss with the parents of our future daughter-in-law such issues as Britain’s post-Brexit trade relations and the tortuous bowling action of India’s spin bowler Kuldeep Yadav…”

Not that it matters. He is capable of bowling the near-unplayable ball, and that should suffice. The ball that got a set Zak Crawley began its journey as if intending to spin across the face of the bat but then seemed to change its mind and crash into the stumps. This was one of the best of the series.

“It wasn’t always easy,” Kuldeep tweeted a couple of years ago, “but it has been worth it.” Cricket lovers agree.

India’s Ravichandran Ashwin prepares to bowl during the 3rd Test between India and England at Rajkot, Gujarat
| Photo Credit: VIJAY SONEJI

There is something magical about the figure ‘100’ in cricket. In Dharamshala this week, R. Ashwin and Jonny Bairstow play their one hundredth Test match, while in Christchurch it is the turn of Kane Williamson and Tim Southee to do so, each accompanied by loyal colleagues, supportive families, enthralled media and figure-hugging statisticians.

When Colin Cowdrey became the first to the mark in 1968, it had taken him 14 years. There was little fanfare. He was cheered to the crease by the Edgbaston crowd, later played with an injury and with Geoff Boycott as his runner, remaining unbeaten on 95 at the end of the day’s play.

“Cowdrey, in spite of a hampering injury, played one of the most accomplished and felicitous innings of his career…,” wrote John Arlott.

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“It is not easy to play 100 Test matches,” Rahul Dravid, who has played 164, once said. “Test cricket is not easy. To be able to play one is great, to be able to play 100 is a fantastic achievement.”

A player with 100 Tests behind him has an impressive CV when it comes to being selected for an all-time team to represent his country. Would Ashwin find a place in an all-time India team?

Such selections cannot be based on figures alone, although Ashwin would walk in as India’s most successful off-spinner. They are not based on averages either (although Ashwin has the best among Indian spinners with over 100 wickets) or strike rates (ditto). There is also the conviction that contemporary bowlers have more tricks up their sleeve than those of an earlier vintage, thus giving them an advantage. After all, contemporary engineers know more than those of the 19th century, and most undergraduates in philosophy are better trained than Plato was.

By definition, therefore, Ashwin brings to his craft a wider range, a greater understanding (thanks to analytics) and even the necessary experimentation than, for example, Billy Bates, the 19th century offie who was the first Englishman to take a Test hat-trick and one of few to claim 14 wickets in a Test. Knowledge is one thing, and modern bowlers are being constantly fed the data, but the skill to act on the knowledge is another matter. That requires both something inherent and cricket intelligence, both nature and nurture. Ashwin has this by the bucketful.

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Joe Root put his finger on ‘Ashwinness’ recently in a podcast saying Ashwin always tries to take wickets, not merely wear down the batter. This positive approach is special in the age of the T20.

It does not, of course, follow that a later generation automatically has the better players. This is no case for asserting that Bairstow is superior to Len Hutton because he came later and can play the reverse-sweep! Each is capable of doing something the other cannot. But Bairstow has more access to information, has played more formats and is likely to borrow from one to succeed in another.

Among the finest Indian off-spinners, from Ghulam Ahmed to Erapalli Prasanna and Srinivas Venkatraghavan to Harbhajan Singh, Prasanna had this combination of cricket intelligence and natural skill. Roughly half his 189 wickets were claimed abroad; Ashwin has played only 40 of his 99 Tests abroad as India often played only one spinner in those matches. Ravindra Jadeja bats left-handed and is a brilliant fielder and was thus preferred.

Ashwin, who has played all 59 home Tests since making his debut, has missed 24 away Tests.

In many ways, Ashwin stands alone. He is constantly experimenting, constantly pushing himself, and always fighting two battles every time he steps onto the field.

The first, to achieve victory for his team, and the second to push the limits of his craft. Others have bowled a version of his carrom ball flicked off the middle finger, but few have been as keen on surprising himself and discovering greater depths. Only Muthiah Muralitharan has claimed 500 wickets in fewer Test than Ashwin.

All this talk of statistics is a bit off-key; it is as if Ashwin does not exist beyond his numbers, as if his achievements have to be constantly buttressed by figures, with his away record making everybody uncomfortable.

The fact is, Ashwin ought to be a certainty in an all-time India squad. Let us applaud a modern master of the craft.

File picture of India’s Dhruv Jurel and Akash Deep during net practice. The pair were instrumental in India’s win over England in the 4th Test at Ranchi
| Photo Credit: Vijay Soneji

One is a war veteran’s son who threatened to run away from home if his father didn’t buy him a kit and allow him to play cricket; another, in effect, did run away and started out in another city. A third sold pani puri off a cart, a fourth spoke delicately about how “things weren’t financially strong at home.” They are, respectively, Dhruv Jurel, Akash Deep, Yashasvi Jaiswal, and Sarfaraz Khan who played key roles in India’s victory against England.

There’s more. Aged five, Jurel had an accident that required plastic surgery. A decade later, his mother had to sell off her gold ornament to get him a kit bag. Deep lost his father and a brother in a span of six months and left home because he “didn’t have anything to lose.”

What is sport without stories of valour and spirit, heroism and gallantry? What is a turning pitch or a wrong leg before decision when compared to the days and months of despondency guided by nothing more than hope and a belief in ultimate redemption? What are the odds of finally making it in a country of over a billion people? How many Jaiswals and Jurels have fallen by the wayside because they lacked the guidance or the single-mindedness of these two, and their ability to hold on to their dreams?

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There are too stories of the kindness of relatives and coaches, and of the good fortune of having talent spotted and worked on by those willing to back their judgement. Above all, there is the discipline, the hard work and unwillingness to give up by the Generation Next of Indian cricket.

Elements fitting together

So many elements have to fit together snugly like Lego pieces, before success, inevitable and consistent, is achieved. Some little thing going wrong somewhere at an early stage can have a disastrous final effect. When things work out, it is nothing short of a miracle; the butterfly effect can ruin dreams.

Not so long ago our best players came from the cities and traditional centres: Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Delhi, Chennai. For a little over a generation now, they have emerged from the old backwaters. This continues. Jurel is from Agra, Jaiswal was born in Bhadohi, UP, Akash Deep in Sasaram in Bihar, where, he says, “playing cricket was a crime.”

In recent years, cricketers have emerged from Roorkee (Rishabh Pant), Unnao (Kuldeep Yadav), Chinnampatti (T. Natarajan), Kakarkhund (Mukesh Kumar). Economic migration has seen the sons of brick kiln workers, auto drivers, taxi drivers, weavers and craftsmen change the family fortunes. If English cricket is identified with Bazball, a style of play and a philosophy, Indian cricket today is best represented by Jaisball, after the poster boy of the new generation.

Reminiscent of Tendulkar

Jaiswal’s two double centuries, his compact defence and his confidence is reminiscent of the young Sachin Tendulkar. Jurel’s ability to read a match situation and change gears has something of Virat Kohli about it. When the future existed in the past, there is comfort in the continuity.

Shubhman Gill, already a captain-in-waiting, batted himself out of a slump, with a vital half-century in the chase. Like a comedian who makes you cry in a serious role or vice versa, Gill played against his grain to see India through. The number three slot seems to be his for the foreseeable future.

If the successful transfer of T20 techniques into Test cricket has shown one thing, it is that sometimes a big heart is more important than a perfect forward defence. It is easy to pick holes in the techniques of some of the young batters; old timers will cavil at the manner in which the front leg is sometimes moved away from the line of the ball rather than towards it, but it has worked. The short-pitched ball might be an issue, but here too the heart can triumph over the head.

There are two tests that Indian players have to pass before they can be accepted into the company of the best. The first, and easier one is their record at home. Then there is the record in countries represented by the acronym SANE: South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and England, on pitches where pace, bounce, swing and seam rule.

India tour Australia at the end of the year, and some reputations will be consolidated then. But whatever happens, the initial hurdle-clearing will always remain an inspiration.

England’s Jos Buttler walks off the field as Indian players celebrate his wicket during the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 match between India and England in Lucknow on October 29, 2023
| Photo Credit: PTI

Sometimes an early defeat in a World Cup can be a blessing. It rids the team of complacency, it focuses attention on weaknesses that might have been covered up by victory, it re-motivates the players, it shines a light on team selection since non-performers have no place to hide. Australia, who began with two defeats at this World Cup now look like one of the favourites.

It can go the other way too. Champions England are at the bottom of the table two-thirds of the way down the league. This puts their qualification for the 2025 Champions Trophy in jeopardy. Only the first seven teams will make the grade — the criterion was one of the best-kept secrets when the World Cup began. Perhaps nothing succeeds like failure.

India have won all their matches convincingly at this stage, making them strong candidates to join Australia (2003 and 2007) as the teams to go through undefeated in this century. Perhaps television is right: there is only one team in this World Cup. For some, however, that team might be Afghanistan who have now beaten three former champions convincingly.

Before India won the World Cup in 1983, they lost to Australia and the West Indies. In 2011, another year of triumph, India lost to South Africa before getting it together.

Discovering alternatives

Successful teams learn from defeat and disappointment lessons that are not readily available in victory and contentment. The injury to Hardik Pandya threw India for a bit, but in playing Mohammed Shami and Suryakumar Yadav, they have discovered alternatives they might not have otherwise. When Pandya returns, both these players are likely to remain. Pandya will probably replace a batsman, something which might not have been the obvious move earlier.

If England is a shining example for its approach to Test cricket, their One-Day International approach is a warning. The lack of flexibility, the reluctance to drop heroes of four years earlier, the inability to stick to a plan have all played their role in this.

Skipper Jason Buttler looks like he wants to wear an invisibility cloak at the mandatory post-match interviews. You almost feel sorry for the team — Australia’s captain seemed to be hiding his disappointment at England’s plight behind a brave smile!

Similar predicament

If India win the World Cup, they will face the same problems England are facing now, four years after their triumph. The temptation to hang on to a once-victorious team now four years older and giving the impression that turning up to play is all that matters is likely to affect India in 2027 if they don’t learn from England’s problems.

Till recently, the mantra of a defeated captain was: “Let’s forget this bad performance and move on.” Defeated captains at this World Cup don’t want to forget. “This hurts,” said Buttler after the defeat against Afghanistan, adding “I think you’ve got to let these defeats hurt. There’s no point in just trying to move on very quickly. Let it hurt for a bit, let’s reflect….”

It was a sentiment echoed by Temba Bavuma who said after his side lost to the Netherlands that South Africa should “feel the emotion of today.” He clarified: “You’ve got to let the emotion seep in. Don’t think there is any point in trying to forget what’s happened. It is going to hurt, it should hurt.”

Objectively speaking, it was necessary for England to have performed this badly to ensure things change. India had the same issue in 2007 when they lost to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and bowed out in tears. Four years later, under a new captain and without many of their seniors (Sachin Tendulkar was an exception), they won the tournament.

Even the best team in the world needs only one off-day in the knockout to ruin their plans. For India in 2003, that day was in the final. In the last two tournaments in 2015 and 2019, that day was in the semifinals. Teams can peak too early, but sometimes they can get caught up in the hype about momentum too. There is no such thing as momentum in sport. Every match is a fresh start.

There are lessons in defeat and victory, but you have to learn the right ones.

Indian cricket fans watch the match between India and Pakistan in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023, at Narendra Modi Stadium, in Ahmedabad on October 14, 2023.
| Photo Credit: ANI

India’s cricket in the World Cup so far has been excellent. Things are falling into place with a rapidity that must worry the other teams, although one hopes that New Zealand get a fair tilt. They were denied in 2019 when they lost the final to England through a combination of bad luck, bad rules and bad umpiring.

However, in denying visas for fans from Pakistan, India have displayed a churlishness that sits badly on a nation of its size and influence. The Board of Control for Cricket in India has been acting like an arm of the government since the Home Minister’s son took over as its secretary. In India, sport is politics.

The most telling comment after the much-hyped but ultimately one-sided India-Pakistan encounter came from Pakistan’s team director Mickey Arthur. “It didn’t seem like an International Cricket Council (ICC) event; it seemed like a (domestic) BCCI event,” he said referring to the lack of Pakistan supporters in the vast Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad.

The website ESPNcricinfo calculated there were just four American-Pakistanis to cheer the team. Only a handful of journalists got visas. In 2011, about 6,500 visas were issued for fans from Pakistan for the semifinal in Mohali where India and Pakistan met.

Sport can divide peoples just as easily as it can bring them together if that is what the government of the day wants.

Pakistan has been painted as India’s ‘other’, the enemy who encourages terrorism. As a political entity, Pakistan have lived up to this image often enough, with the attacks in Mumbai in 2008 and the wars fought between the two countries a matter of historical record.

The worst insult a politician (and the trolling fraternity) can deliver to a dissenting citizen is: “Go live in Pakistan!” Nuance is not a quality either possesses. You can, however, cheer for an India win while bemoaning that fans of the other side were not allowed into the country. Once it was decided that the cricket team was welcome, visas for fans should have followed.

That the visas for the team were delayed, as was the visa for the Pakistan-born Australian opener Usman Khwaja when that country toured earlier points to a pattern.

Sporting competition is not just about two teams facing each other. If that were the case, we wouldn’t need big stadiums. Supporters play a role too, cheering and living vicariously through the feats of those actually performing.

Whenever Indian and Pakistani fans have got together to watch their teams, they have been grateful for the chance. Many wear outfits with half the colours of one team and half the other’s. Some carry flags stitched together to emphasise oneness. Each group has supported its own team. Some sections from both groups have tended to overdo things, but that is not unusual.

Player-taunting

Pakistani players were taunted with religious chants in Ahmedabad. This is in keeping with the attitude of the visa-denying authorities. Pakistani fans have taunted Indian players too in the past. In fact, player-taunting is a traditional sport in stadiums around the world. There are rules in place to handle racism in the chants, but none that deal with religion or gender identity.

It is ironical that for all their animosity towards Pakistan, the authorities love an India-Pakistan cricket match. It is a huge money-spinner, it gives politicians an opportunity to be seen by millions on television (the Home Minister was seen waving the victory sign once it became clear India were winning), and there is the feel-good factor which distracts from political, social and economic issues. It is the same in Pakistan too.

The fond hope now is that the two clash in the final at the same venue. It will be interesting to see politicians appear or disappear depending on how their team is faring. There is a chance that the teams might meet earlier, in the semifinal; if they do, then obviously only one will play the final.

Now with India hoping to bid for the 2036 Olympics, they will have to work on ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ (the world is one family), the theme that was given yet another airing at the G20 meeting recently. The International Olympic Committee may not take kindly to selective hosting.