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.

ALSO READ | Is Tilak Varma ready for a tryst with Tests?

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.”

ALSO READ | In the post-Bazball era, can Brook go from reckless to ruthless?

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.

ALSO READ | Ishan Kishan 2.0 — a sensational reinvention

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.

When he fell on Wednesday afternoon, caught and bowled by off-spinner Kounain Quraishi one agonising run short of his ninth First Class century, it was the first time in nearly two months and six competitive innings that Tilak Varma was dismissed.

Since making 53 in the final Twenty20 International against England in Southampton on July 11, the tall left-hander’s scores, all unbeaten, read 6, 60 and 11 (in the T20Is in Harare), and match-winning efforts of 116 and 51 in the Duleep Trophy which helped South Zone make it to the final that they lost on the first innings lead to East Zone at Chepauk on Thursday.

Tilak’s 99, controlled but not with the flair and panache that characterises his batting, was dictated by circumstances. Ishan Kishan, his opposite number, had sealed the destination of the title clash over the first two days. Making the most of his luck at the toss, the little left-hander smacked 270, his highest first-class score, to muscle his team to 708. All South could hope for was to muster some respectability in reply, because that humongous tally was always going to be well beyond them. Tilak therefore put the scoreboard out of his mind, took everything else out of the equation and concentrated on batting time.

Having spent most of the 163 overs – the length of the East first innings – on the field trying to devise ways and means of curbing Kishan and Kumar Kushagra, as well as the lower-order comprising Anukul Roy, Quraishi and Mohammed Shami, Tilak must have been fried mentally. But showing no signs of the fatigue that could have been his biggest stumbling block, the 23-year-old ground out an innings of great character, spanning more than five hours during which he negotiated 210 deliveries with care, assurance and defensive authority until he finally succumbed with a deserved three-figure milestone tantalisingly within grasp.

Vocal and unabashed in his desire to play red-ball cricket for the country, this near-century was further proof that the Hyderabadi wasn’t merely paying lip service while professing his love for Test cricket. Indeed, immediately after the semifinal victory over North Zone in Bengaluru last week, Tilak went public by saying he wanted to play the final before travelling to Delhi for the T20I series against Afghanistan starting on Sunday. The end result wasn’t what he had in mind, but by putting mind over matter and knuckling down to bed in despite the impossibility of the task ahead of him, Tilak once again showcased his immense maturity and added to the already firm reputation he has established as a man of his word.

By his own admission, the endearing young man thought he’d play red-ball cricket for India before being picked for the white-ball outfits. But that’s it they say about the best laid plans of men and mice? Tilak’s maiden international outing came more than three years back, in a T20I against West Indies in Tarouba in August 2023; a month and a half later, he debuted in ODIs, against Bangladesh in the Asia Cup in Colombo. He has only played four further 50-over games, but is an established T20I hand with 59 appearances, averaging 44.45 at a strike-rate of 145.18. Just how highly he is rated by the powers that be is evidenced from the fact that when India chose to move on from the Suryakumar Yadav era despite the Mumbaikar leading the team to the World Cup crown in March, Tilak was named Shreyas Iyer’s deputy.

At some stage in the near future, Tilak will don the captain’s hat in potentially an interim capacity, before he ascends the hot-seat in his own right in due course. Tilak, the captain, is still a work in progress. That much was evident in the triangular ‘A’ series in Dambulla in June, where he led the 50-over side to the title. Tilak got into needless confrontations, which didn’t make for great viewing, but clearly, he didn’t transgress any forbidden lines. He will learn and grow and become more controlled with his aggression. He will become tactically smarter and more astute, he will become better with experience as anyone does in any field. It is clear that the selectors see in him a long-term leader, hence the vice-captaincy of the T20I team, the leadership role with the South Zone outfit and an investment that they hope will bear fruit going forward.

Tilak has done his chances of earning a Test call-up no harm at all. Despite sporadic appearances in domestic First Class cricket because of a packed calendar suffused with T20Is, meaningful and otherwise, the Duleep final is just his 25th appearance for state, zone and India-A since he first turned out for Hyderabad as a 16-year-old against Andhra in December 2018 – nearly eight years have gone by since. He has had his fair share of illnesses and injuries, as much a part and parcel of a professional sportsperson as their kitbag, but he has found a way to bounce back each time.

How committed he is to the longer version is apparent from an impressive average in excess of 55 and a stellar conversion rate – he boasts eight centuries and seven fifties from 38 innings. For someone who is a willing and able risk-taker in T20Is, whether it is at No. 3 where he has brought up both his hundreds or lower down the order, where he was shunted down midway through the World Cup, he is a picture of patience, concentration and correctness when he dons the white flannels and slips effortlessly into a diametrically opposite role.

How India are able to fit Tilak into their red-ball scheme of things will be crucial in the months ahead. In Kishan, he has a worthy rival in the quest for a spot in the Test squad. Sai Sudharsan and Washington Sundar, the former as a top-order batter and the latter as an all-rounder with off-spin as an additional string to his bow, loom as further left-handed competitors in an already left-heavy line-up punctuated by Yashasvi Jaiswal, Devdutt Padikkal, Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja. There was a time when India struggled to find more than one settled left-hander to break up the tedium of right-handers and offer a different challenge to bowlers of all ilk. Now, there is a distinct slant in the other direction in one of those inexplicables because it isn’t as if left-handers are suddenly being factory-manufactured.

But we digress. How do India’s selectors, captain Shubman Gill and head coach Gautam Gambhir fit Tilak into this logjam? Equally importantly, do they want to do so immediately? For the last year and more, they have invested heavily in Sai Sudharsan, but the Tamil Nadu left-hander will be the first to acknowledge that he hasn’t lived up to expectations. In his injury-enforced absence in Sri Lanka last month, Padikkal made a compelling case to continue at No. 3 with centuries in successive Tests on his comeback after 21 months on the sidelines. There is Dhruv Jurel who has done little wrong at No. 6. Where there is a will, there is a way, of course, but is the will there currently to find a place for Tilak?

India play two Tests in New Zealand, where of late their batting has come a cropper – of late being a bit of a stretch because India’s last Tests in the land of the Kiwi were in early 2020, just before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In modern-day cricket, no other country perhaps examines a batter’s technique, character and strength of mind in the five-day game more than New Zealand, with its propensity for seaming tracks exploited admirably by a set of honest, hard-working but also highly skilled fast-bowling group. As if that challenge wasn’t bad enough, India are desperately searching for the full complement of 24 points that will keep their World Test Championship qualification prospects alive. Given that India’s last Test win in that country came in 2009 and they have gone winless in their last six matches, that is a tall order.

But that’s the nature of competitive sport, where nothing comes easy. Where several others might be secretly hoping to be overlooked for a challenge of this magnitude, Tilak will be desperate to get an opportunity to showcase his chops, because that’s how he is wired. He has steadfastly refrained from taking the easy route in his short but already illustrious career, and he is not going to start doing so now.

It’s easy to forget, given how permanent a fixture he is in the T20I setup with the vice-captaincy as an added bonus, that Tilak is still only 23, with an entire lifetime, so to say, ahead of him. The breezy advent of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi might make even 23 look ancient but let’s face it, the 15-year-old is a freak and not the yardstick against which others must be viewed and judged. Tilak’s volume of work in just three years at the highest level is impressive even if almost all his success has come in the high-risk 20-over game. But there is minimal to zero evidence that he won’t be at home in the longer formats, especially in Test cricket where, alongside Gill and Jaiswal, he will be one of the bulwarks of the Indian batting for a long time to come.

With someone else, it might feel prudent to point out the pitfalls of getting carried away and allowing success to go to one’s head. But from whatever little one has seen of, and interacted with, him, Tilak comes across as a grounded, humble, earthy young man driven but not consumed by an inner fire that doesn’t come to everyone. There is a short but dazzling line of fantastic batters to have come out of Hyderabad – the charismatic M.L. Jaisimha, the sinewy Mohammed Azharuddin and the exceptional V.V.S. Laxman, in some ways Azhar’s successor and in many ways not. Tilak doesn’t possess the same wristy elegance as his illustrious right-handed predecessors from the same city, but that doesn’t make him any less of a batter. And just to set the record straight, one is not comparing him with the aforementioned trio of luminaries because, hey, how can you even, at this early stage? Or any stage?

For Tilak, the future is pregnant with exciting possibilities. He needs opportunities, sure, but also quality of opportunity. How soon that comes his way remains to be seen.

Every generation asks the question: Will Test cricket survive? The game has been an anachronism in every age, and that is its beauty. When motor cars or passenger trains or aircraft arrived in the 19th and 20th centuries, there was talk of the increased pace of life and how the long-format game was doomed. The elegiac air has been ever present.

When society itself is changing at a rapid pace, why would cricket, which reflects it, not change? The question then is not if the five-day game should be sustained but whether it can be, given in particular television’s allergy to the so-called ‘lesser’ matches. The establishment of the World Test Championship has given the format some relevance and the teams something to aspire for. But it is a club within a club, with only nine of the 12 teams in the fray, and a system susceptible to manipulation.

India have the numbers to keep Test cricket alive; Australia the results and England the tradition, but is that enough? These teams have won World Cups in both white ball formats, suggesting they have the system and the variety of players. And they are blurring focus on Tests at a slower pace.

Two great teams of the past, the West Indies and Pakistan seem to be in terminal decline, their focus firmly on franchise T20, the format most likely to bring them success. Is that a precursor to the end of Test cricket itself?

Transition

Teams going through transition is natural; but now the sport itself seems to be in transition. Many believe we might be closer to the shortest format taking over than we have ever been.

South Africa, the official World Test champions haven’t played a Test since November last, and a white ball champion Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is the most exciting name in the sport, filling stadiums even for first class matches. You don’t need to be a reader of entrails or tea leaves to see the future of the game. It’s already here. Or maybe not.

The West Indies and Pakistan, both of whom have also won both white ball titles, have similar issues, starting from poor administration to lack of public interest in a team that doesn’t win often enough. In Pakistan’s case players didn’t emerge so much from their system as through some form of spontaneous evolution.

A Javed Miandad sees a teenage left arm bowler in the nets and picks him for the national team to set Wasim Akram on track. An Imran Khan picks a youngster against the wishes of the selectors and he, Inzamam-ul Haq, becomes an international star.

Inconsistency has been the hallmark of Pakistan’s cricket. They have been a team as capable of thrashing the best as losing to the worst. Yet, when former skipper Azhar Ali, a 97-Test veteran, says in an interview, “We don’t even do inconsistency any more,” the humour cannot hide the pathos. “We’ve become totally consistent,” he says, “in the most negative way.”

Not so long ago, all cricket aspired to Test cricket; now Test cricket is seen by some as a stepping stone to the more important T20. In any case, Tests, even between near-equal teams, are getting shorter, often finishing in under 200 overs.

Still, some of recent results have been exciting because of their sheer unexpectedness. So long as a sport can surprise, upsetting the set patterns and hierarchies, there is hope. Bangladesh won a Test in Australia while both South Africa and New Zealand comfortably won series in India, a fortress that seemed impregnable at one time. England’s Bazball sparkled briefly, bringing to Test cricket the mentality and strokes of T20, but carrying with it the seeds of its own destruction.

Remaining distinct

Test cricket’s salvation lies in remaining distinct. With greater leisure thanks to technology, we might welcome the sport’s intensity and artificiality to pass those extra hours fully engaged. The industrial revolution did that for football by creating such leisure; the AI revolution might do so for cricket.

Perhaps the administrators need to continue what it has been doing. Which is, nothing.

Test cricket is a great survivor, written off periodically but outlasting horse buggies, trams, radios, and fax machines. Obituaries may be premature.

Published – September 09, 2026 12:30 am IST

Even before November 1999, a host of exceptional wicketkeeper-batters had graced the international scene, not least India’s own Farokh Engineer and the wonderful Andy Flower from Zimbabwe. But from the time a left-hander from Western Australia stormed the Test firmament at the Gabba in Brisbane nearly 27 years back with a bruising 81 on debut, against a shell-shocked Pakistani outfit, wicketkeeper-batters have been looked at in an entirely different vein.

Adam Gilchrist rewrote the dynamics of Test batsmanship. He was a destructive opener in limited-overs cricket long before he played his first Test, and reeled off numerous wondrous knocks, including in the final of the 50-over 2007 World Cup when, with a squash ball for company, he bludgeoned his way to 149 against Mahela Jaywardene’s Sri Lanka in a decisive effort that took Australia to a hat-trick of titles. But it was in the red-ball game that Gilchrist set stall as a pioneer, providing not just meaningful heft to the Australian batting but scoring runs at such a furious clip that opponents were often ducking, unsuccessfully, for cover.

For the most part of his glittering career that encompassed 96 Tests, the left-hander had the luxury of batting behind a grand top six that used different methodologies to subjugate bowling attacks in all parts of the world. The sight of Gilchrist, the destroyer supreme, striding in purposefully at No. 7, was dispiriting or exhilarating, depending on which side of the fence one was. Gilchrist seldom disappointed; when he scored his runs, he did so with not just panache and chutzpah but also with a violent streak that damaged bowling figures as well as egos. How could anyone bat with such unchecked aggression at No. 7? How could someone fuse a no-holds-barred approach with such consistency (as an average of 47.60 at a strike-rate of 81.95 will unequivocally testify to)?

Gold standard

Gilchrist will remain the gold standard among wicketkeeper-batters, the platform from which the likes of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, more than anyone else, launched himself into the stratosphere. Gilchrist’s towering presence kept an entire generation – or more – of Aussie stumper-batters out of international reckoning. India, however, found a judicious balance; while Dhoni’s aggression in front of the stumps and his brilliance behind it precluded a dynamic new force breaking through, India were compelled to find a place, if only as a specialist batter, for Dinesh Karthik, the ebullient little right-hander from Chennai who was more than good enough to hold his own as a batter.

Karthik wasn’t the first Indian gloveman to play as a specialist batter. Nearly four decades before him, Budhi Kunderan donned that role, even opening the batting in England in 1967 alongside designated wicketkeeper Engineer. A couple of decades on, Chandrakant Pandit played as a middle-order bat with Kiran More slotting in as the wicketkeeper. Such was Karthik’s great natural ability – which he didn’t maximise, he will acknowledge – that in the Dhoni era, India fielded him as a full-fledged opener overseas, and with no little success. Alongside Wasim Jaffer, Karthik formed an excellent opening combine in Bangladesh and England in 2007, bringing up his only Test ton across the border and bettering that effort by emerging as India’s highest scorer in England, when they last won a Test series there by a slender 1-0 margin.

Karthik played his last eight Tests down the order, sometimes when Dhoni wasn’t available (including through retirement) and he donned the big gloves, and at others when he played alongside the Jharkhandi as a pure batter. Just one half-century in his last 14 Test innings meant he played the last of his 26 Tests in August 2018; his Test average of 25 was decidedly underwhelming, given his supreme gift as a batter, but that can happen when one is overeager and anxious to not just justify their selection but also state their case for a longer rope.

India now have a profusion of excellent wicketkeeper-batters across formats – Rishabh Pant, of course, tops that chart, especially when it comes to the red-ball variant, but there are a host of others that can’t be ignored. Among them are Sanju Samson and Ishan Kishan, exclusive when it comes to the white-ball version. And Dhruv Jurel, the 25-year-old from Agra whose first Test cap came as a wicketkeeper against England in Rajkot in February 2024 when Pant was out after his horrific road accident of 14 months previously and KS Bharat had played himself out of the XI with poor efforts in the first two Tests in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam respectively.

The generational talent that Pant is, he kept almost exclusively from the time he made his Test debut in Nottingham in August 2018 and made a stunning 114 in his third appearance at the Oval till his single-car accident in December 2022 when India were suddenly forced to scramble for a replacement. Bharat, from Andhra, won the early nod for the home Tests against Australia in February 2023 and donned the big gloves in the final of the World Test Championship against the same opponents that June. KL Rahul was nominated the first-choice stumper for the two Tests in South Africa towards the end of the year, more to provide stability and class to the lower order in a line-up from which very few had played in South Africa previously. Bharat reclaimed his spot behind the sticks against England at home and played himself out of the XI following scores of 41, 28, 17 and 6 which meant that in seven Tests and 12 innings, he only averaged 20.09, a definite no-no given that the wicketkeeper’s was no longer a single-discipline specialised slot.

Out went the call to Jurel for the third Test in Rajkot with the series finely poised at 1-1, and it was immediately apparent that India had hit upon a gold mine. The right-hander made a poised 46 on debut, and upped the ante in the next match with scores of 90 and 39 not out, the first ensuring that India didn’t end up conceding a massive lead and the second taking them home in a tense run-chase when he and Shubman Gill put on 72 for the unfinished sixth-wicket stand.

This was in February 2024, when one wasn’t sure when Pant would be available for selection though in a characteristic show of gumption and guts, the stocky left-hander was far ahead of the timelines the doctors had tentatively outlined for a possible comeback to competitive cricket. Pant was ready for international cricket in September that year, making a remarkable recovery from a series of potentially life-threatening injuries to smash 109 on his comeback Test in Chennai against Bangladesh. Suddenly, Jurel faced an uncertain future. Despite an impressive start to his Test career, he had to bow before the irrepressible force that Pant was, though it was always on the cards that he could slot in alongside Pant, if not necessarily ahead of him.

In six of his last nine Tests, Jurel has occupied a specialist batter’s position between No. 4 and No. 8 (and that only because Akash Deep was employed as a nightwatchman at the Oval last August). On the three occasions when was the designated wicketkeeper, Pant was unavailable through injury after breaking his right foot in the Manchester Test against England in July last year. Despite the vast array of batting riches at India’s disposal, head coach Gautam Gambhir has identified in Jurel a dependable batting option, and the man from Uttar Pradesh has comprehensively justified that faith with two hundreds and a fifty in those nine Tests and 15 innings.

Jurel’s coming-of-age moment, if it can be called that, transpired in Ahmedabad last October with Pant still to recover from the broken foot. In India’s only innings against West Indies, he uncorked an excellent 125, then followed it up with 44 in the next Test in Delhi. With Pant returning to action against South Africa in November, Jurel continued on as a batter alone though like the rest of his colleagues, he had a series to forget with outings of 14, 13, 0 and 2 in a disastrous 0-2 result that has comprehensively dented India’s hopes of making a third WTC final in four cycles.

But instead of pressing the panic button and looking elsewhere, the decision-makers continued to invest their belief in him and Jurel has responded in style. Towards the end of June, he was a part of the India ‘A’ squad that travelled on the ‘shadow’ tour of Sri Lanka for two unofficial ‘Tests’, ostensibly at the insistence of Gambhir because of his felicity against the turning ball. Jurel warmed up nicely for the Test series to follow with scores of 141 not out, 14 and 53, and it was no surprise that he was picked for the first Test in Galle, when he weighed in with 51 and 7 in a winning cause.

In Colombo last week, Jurel went one better with an unbeaten 115 during which he brought his technical expertise and his mental fortitude into play. He also kept wickets for a while when Pant was recovering from a blow to his right shoulder sustained while batting, and when he went back to the outfield, took a terrific running catch from point to get rid of Lahiru Kumara in Sri Lanka’s first innings. At every stage in every role, he has looked the part, making his presence felt with total commitment and a never-say-die spirit without seeking recourse to the flashy and the flamboyant.

Jurel was chosen for Sri Lanka for his ability to play spin with finesse, and it is hard now to see him being overlooked during the November Test tour of New Zealand where the challenges for batters will be vastly different. At No. 6, behind Pant, he has the technique to tackle the second new ball if that is what he is confronted with. Ravindra Jadeja behind him in the batting order and the possible return of Washington Sundar from injury mean he is a right-handed option around a plethora of left-handers, and while that alone can’t be a qualification, he has shown that he can hold his own against bowling of any kind in any conditions.

India are fortunate that in Jurel, they have a three-in-one cricketer with his entire future ahead of him. As a batting average of 40.68 from 12 Tests proves, he is every bit deserving of the show of confidence. A place in the starting XI in Wellington in November is no more than he deserves; one can rest assured that Jurel will be short on neither preparation nor fire when ‘Play’ is called at the Basin Reserve.

Chaminda Vaas was never purely about raw pace or theatrical intimidation. He was about craft. A left-arm seamer with immaculate control, subtle movement and relentless accuracy, Vaas could make a new ball swing, seam or move sharply inward into a batsman before settling into the kind of pressure that eventually broke them.

Vaas took 355 wickets in 111 Tests and 400 in 322 ODIs, becoming Sri Lanka’s most prolific fast bowler in both formats. He could bat too, scoring more than 3,000 Test runs – which includes a century. But his defining quality was simple: he made precision feel dangerous, and that came to the fore at the 2003 World Cup, where he emerged as the leading wicket-taker with 23 wickets.

Now 52, and sporting a striking silver mane, Vaas remains closely involved with the game as a coach and mentor. He was recently in Hyderabad for a mentorship stint with the Palamuru Strikers in TG20. In an interview with The Hindu, he talks about the evolution of fast bowling, the demands of modern cricket, his coaching experiences around the world, and memories of Sri Lanka’s iconic 1996 World Cup triumph. Excerpts:

You have worked across the world with various franchises as a mentor and coach. How has that experience been?

With subcontinent players, their maturity takes some time to develop, and their game understanding can be a bit limited early on. But once they mature, they learn quickly. I always tell youngsters that discipline and fitness are the two things you cannot compromise on in this sport. If you’re committed to becoming a cricketer, you have to sacrifice a lot — but if you commit to yourself, I’m sure you can succeed. The way youngsters in India have stepped up and delivered for Indian cricket has been amazing.

You played over 100 Tests and 300 ODIs. Those are remarkable numbers for a fast bowler, given how brutal the game is on the body. With today’s focus on nutrition and fitness science, players still seem to break down more often. Is there anything about modern training or diet that makes you think, “We never needed that to play this much cricket”?

I’m not going to argue with the science. A lot of new methods and logic have come up. But one thing I do believe is that the amount of cricket today’s youngsters play can sometimes be too much. As I said earlier, fitness is the most important thing. If you’re physically strong enough to support your mindset, that matters most. You need to look after yourself, time things right, and stay focused, especially fast bowlers. If you want to play longer and perform well, fitness comes first, along with proper rehab and the right diet.

You were known for your late in-swingers, especially to right-handed batters. What are your thoughts on swing bowling in the current era?

After watching the last edition of the IPL, most bowlers don’t swing the ball much anymore. The game has become a batsman’s paradise. But I still believe bowlers who can swing the ball and hit the right areas can take wickets. The number of balls going for boundaries is higher than bowlers might expect, but I’m confident that bowlers who focus on swing can still take plenty of wickets.

Left-arm fast bowlers seem to carry a certain aura that right-arm bowlers don’t quite have…

Left-armers are unique; they are a special breed. When they start bowling and try to perform, they always focus and give their best. I’m not saying right-armers don’t, but left-armers bring something special, and they tend to do things the right way.

The game has become batsman-dominated, thanks in part to T20 cricket. If you were coaching an up-and-coming 18-year-old left-arm pace bowler today, would you tell him to focus purely on swing, or on developing variations? What’s the right balance?

As a bowler, you have to keep it simple. My philosophy as a coach – for bowlers or batters – is not to complicate the game. If you overcomplicate things, they won’t go your way; if you keep things simple, the game itself is simple. Especially in fast bowling, I always say: do the right things. The batter will come after you, but remember, you have six balls to his one chance. If you bowl good areas and good lines consistently, you’ll get your wickets and keep the batter under pressure.

You spoke about your relationship with Muralitharan. When you trained together, how many times did you face him, and did you ever figure him out by the end of your career?

It was always very difficult for me to read him. He’d bowl the off-spinner or the doosra, and I never quite got the better of him. Nor he of me! But yeah, he was very hard to face. I could see why he became such an important bowler. Every time he practised, he’d bowl right until the end of the session. That’s the kind of dedication and potential that made him the number one bowler in the world.

This year marked the 30th anniversary of the 1996 World Cup win. Did the team have a group chat to reminisce, or do friends and family bring it up with you on the anniversary?

We celebrated in Malaysia this year. One of the Sri Lankan community groups organised it there. We went as a team and had a really good time. Even though Sri Lanka is a small country, a group of us — three or four guys at least — meet up regularly and share memories. We had a great time in Malaysia, even played a game together.

It’s been 30 years, and you’ve spoken about that campaign a lot. But is there one behind-the-scenes story that not many people know?

Nothing specific comes to mind, but if I have to mention something, then I will say that we had a tough time in 1996. After touring Australia, we had a terrible tournament there, and then there was the Motera incident and a few other setbacks. We went into the 1996 World Cup as underdogs, but we played as one family. I remember our captain, Arjuna Ranatunga, telling us that it was a very important tournament. He told us not to show off, but to play well from game one. He always encouraged the youngsters, and that’s how we came together as a team and won the World Cup.

You’ve had a 30-year career across various franchises, and interest in the sport has only grown. Tell us about dressing-room life, something fans never really get to see or understand, especially with the national team.

It depends on the format. A Test match is totally different from a one-day game. In Tests, you get up every morning and come back to the dressing room, whether things are going well as a team or not, you have to face it together. There are ups and downs, but as a player, you deal with all of that in the dressing room.

In one-day cricket, it’s similar, we always support and encourage each other and try to give our best, whether we’re representing our country, playing county cricket in England, or playing franchise cricket. You need a good rapport with your teammates wherever you play.

On a lighter note, during your time with the Sri Lankan national team as a player or coach, who was the most fun or chaotic player to have around?

There are a few, like Akila Dananjaya and Lasith Malinga. They’re all so interesting, always asking questions. Even before going to bed, they ask about how to face a particular ball. I loved working with them, and I have a lot of experience with that group. It’s great to see them doing so well now.

You played in the Indian Premier League with Deccan Chargers. What’s your most striking memory from that time with the franchise?

There were so many exceptional cricketers in that dressing room – Adam Gilchrist, Herschelle Gibbs, Andrew Symonds, Shahid Afridi, Rohit Sharma (who’s gone on to do wonders for Indian cricket), VVS Laxman. Learning and sharing with them taught me so much. We won the IPL title in 2009 in South Africa, playing as a true team. Everyone gave their best when it mattered. Coming from different countries, we became like a family, sharing everything.

The end came swiftly. It took New Zealand only 51.2 overs to wrap up the England second innings at Trent Bridge.

Jamie Smith’s slog against Mitchell Santner ended in the hands of a diving Nathan Smith, running in from long-on. That was not just the end of the third Test. It was also the end of what was perhaps the most discussed, or debated, style of playing Test cricket since Bodyline.

Breaking point

New Zealand won by 160 runs, and also became the first team ever to win a three-match series in England after losing the opening Test. It was indeed a fabulous achievement by Tom Latham’s men.

For Latham’s English counterpart, Ben Stokes, it was his last international match. For the coach, Brendon McCullum, it was the last Test in charge of England.

Bazball thus came to its inevitable end. Ironically, it had begun with a series against New Zealand in an English summer, four years ago. And it had begun in magnificent fashion, with England winning four Tests, all chasing, all with guns blazing, in a row — three against New Zealand and one against India.

It was even more remarkable because the England Test team was going through a tough period at that time: it had won just one of 17 matches after the first Test against India at Chennai in early 2021. Coach Chris Silverwood lost his job, following the 0-4 drubbing in the 2021-22 Ashes in Australia, and after the defeat in the Caribbean in March 2022, Joe Root resigned.

So, it wasn’t the most ideal of situations when McCullum was appointed as England’s Test coach by Rob Key, managing director of England men’s cricket. And the Kiwi had no previous experience of coaching in red-ball cricket, though he had been in charge of franchise teams such as the Kolkata Knight Riders.

McCullum conceived, Stokes executed. They will be remembered as one of cricket’s most remarkable coach-captain duos.

Their approach to playing Test cricket was the kind that hadn’t been witnessed before. New Zealand and India weren’t prepared for the ultra-aggressive mode of cricket England played in the summer of 2022.

It was not just England’s style that was spectacular. The results were, too.

Against New Zealand, England’s scores in the second innings were 279 for five, 299 for five, and 296 for three. Against India, it was 378 for three. And those chases were completed at brisk strike-rates.

Chasing a big total has always been a daunting task in Test cricket. Safety first has nearly always been the mantra, and even that stunning chase by India against Australia at Brisbane in 2021 had begun on a cautious note. It took an extraordinary hook by Washington Sundar against Pat Cummins and an out-of-the-world counterattacking knock by Rishabh Pant to make India shift gears and aim for the ultimate glory.

Interestingly, Stokes once spoke of how the manner in which Pant played made him think about the possibilities of aggressive batting in Test cricket. And before Pant, there were Adam Gilchrist and Virender Sehwag, but what made the concept of Bazball different was that everyone wanted to bat as if there was no tomorrow. If a wicketkeeper as accomplished as Ben Foakes could not find a place in the eleven, it showed what McCullum and Stokes wanted.

Finding expression

What Bazball looked to do was to remove the fear of failing. So regardless of the situation, a player was allowed to play his strokes, or express himself, as England cricketers would explain in press conference after press conference. When England fielded, the bowlers were asked to always look for wickets; restricting the batters from making runs wasn’t the priority.

And England wanted to win. An exciting — though not successful — chase was found more appealing than a draw. One was never sure if that was quite right in competitive sport. And one of the charms of Test cricket — and also what someone new to cricket would not understand — is the sheer thrill of not getting a decisive result after playing for five days, more than 30 hours.

Such trivial matters, however, didn’t cross the minds of the English players, and their fans, for much of the early part of the Bazball era, as the team posted some astounding wins, like the one against Pakistan at Rawalpindi in 2022, when England scored 657 from just 101 overs. Two years later, the victory against India in the first Test at Hyderabad was even greater, as England had conceded a first-innings lead of 190.

The four Tests that followed, however, showed why Bazball can’t work all the time. India won all those matches. For all England’s aggressive intent, it is debatable whether a batter of Root’s quality needed to play a reverse scoop against a bowler of Jasprit Bumrah’s quality.

An identical scoreline (4-1) in the most recent Ashes in Australia meant that Bazball couldn’t click against stronger opposition. Bazball also worked more on flatter surfaces, while it had problems when the ball moved or turned.

Right from the beginning of Bazball, the big question was whether it was a sustainable model. As former England batter Mark Butcher told The Hindu recently, Test cricket is a format that dictates to you what is necessary. “If you push too hard, the game will bite you back,” he said.

McCullum and Stokes had indeed pushed too hard. When you go on to lose a Test match by two wickets after declaring on the opening day with two wickets remaining, questions are bound to be asked.

Questions were also asked about how some of the England players behaved off the field during the Bazball era. The pub-incident involving Stokes and Gus Atkinson this summer didn’t help, either.

The statistics may not say that England benefited much from Bazball. In 49 Tests, England scored 27 wins, but lost 20. That there were just two draws is of course hardly surprising.

A fair evaluation

But it would not be fair to evaluate Bazball’s legacy just based on numbers, even if they are impressive when it comes to run-rates, strike-rates and hundreds. It was an attempt to play Test cricket in a different way and entertain the paying public.

But for Bazball, we would not have been able to witness Jonny Bairstow metamorphosing into Viv Richards in 2022 or Ollie Pope turning the reverse sweep into the best form of defence during his monumental 196 in the Hyderabad Test. Bazball was fun while it lasted.

It could have lasted longer perhaps if England had been a little more conservative on occasion and realised that Test cricket’s charm lies in its infinite variety. There is more than one way to play what is the most demanding form of all sports.

There is joy in watching Harry Brook dance down the track. There is also joy in watching Shubman Gill play a perfect forward defensive push.

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.

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.

ALSO READ | Garry Sobers: cricket’s greatest — a legacy beyond numbers

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.

ALSO READ | Cricket World Cup – Will expansion lead to elevation?

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.

Since the start of the IPL, runs have been flowing from B. Sai Sudharsan’s bat. The Gujarat Titans opener had a great season, finishing as the third-highest run-getter (722 runs). He then seamlessly switched into the longer format, scoring 81 in the Test against Afghanistan before following it up with twin centuries for India-A in the two four-day games in Sri Lanka.

In this chat with The Hindu, the 24-year-old Tamil Nadu batter opens up about his “best IPL season” as well as his experience playing Test cricket over the last year. Excerpts:

How do you see this purple patch?

I am feeling really grateful for whatever I have done in the IPL. The way it started, the way it unfolded, the way it ended — it was very interesting.

I have always had good starts in every IPL. So this one was even more interesting because I didn’t score much in the first four to five games. Mentally, I won’t say it was challenging but more interesting, as belief, trust, and everything increased day by day rather than becoming doubtful. It was a very good IPL, and it was my best year.

Does it make it more special that you recovered from a tough start?

Yes, for sure, because when you are scoring, it is easy. When you keep playing, it is easier to believe and to be in a confident frame of mind. But when you don’t score, it’s even more important to feel the same way.

So, in that way, it was very interesting, and I learnt a lot in this IPL. When it is not converted into evidence, are you still trusting the process and your abilities? Mentally, when you enter the game, are you still thinking about not scoring in the previous match, or are you entering in an expressive frame of mind to make an impact for the team? So I think, in those ways, I learnt a lot — to not take the past into the game.

Was there a specific game that unlocked something for you?

Yes. I got a hundred against RCB. That was the game which actually changed quite a lot of things. We lost that match, yes, but that game gave us momentum. From there, the team also did well. The team faced a challenge: we were still doing well, but something was not going right. Then we won in Chennai, and from there, everybody’s game started going the way we wanted.

You came into the IPL after an injury lay-off due to a rib fracture. How difficult was the recovery?

Definitely, it was not easy because breathing was difficult. But sometimes, when you get a break, you have time to think about the game. You have time to really introspect about what you want to do. So I saw it as a blessing in disguise. At that time, I wanted to use it wisely and productively, so that I would still bat a lot mentally. I couldn’t do it physically, of course, but mentally I batted a lot and didn’t feel that I was away from the sport.

What did you specifically work on during those three to four months?

It’s more about the feel. The feeling of batting. All the small things I wanted to improve, all the small additions I wanted to make — I just did them in my head. I tried to visualise it more and sustain that feeling.

There’s a lot of talk around strike-rates. However, you and your opening partner, Shubman Gill, took a different approach, trying to bat long. How do you see it in the bigger picture when the demands of T20 cricket keep changing? Do you feel tempted to play at a higher tempo?

We’re not looking at it as ‘We have to play at this strike-rate to win’. We’re looking at it from a broader perspective — what is required for the game, rather than individual statistical points. We’re not looking at it as a stats-oriented approach. Yes, stats are very important for improving and getting better. But we’re not looking to predetermine how we’ll play. If we’re chasing 240, we have to play at a 200 strike-rate anyway. It’s situational, rather than saying we can only do well if we play at a particular strike-rate. As a team, as you rightly said, we’re trying to give ourselves the best chance of winning.

At the same time, don’t you feel it could affect your personal career?

It’s actually a great question because it’s actually a challenge as well. But I feel winning is the ultimate recipe, or the ultimate key, to whatever you want to do. You don’t have to think personally. For a team, winning is the ultimate recipe. If you make your team win, you will eventually get the call-up and recognition. Everything else is secondary. It is a by-product. The ultimate goal is to have the team’s intent to win. The way I’m looking at it is: Am I giving myself the best possible chance to contribute? I feel that if we put a constraint like that in place, we are holding ourselves back.

You have now scored more than 700 runs for the second consecutive season. How do you ensure you keep improving to stay ahead in a format that keeps changing?

Even during the tournament, the game is evolving. This year, there were two spectrums of games. Either they were very low-scoring or very high-scoring. At the start of the tournament, there were three or four situations in which it was still possible to hit the ball correctly. I learnt certain things from that. I got out to balls that weren’t really wicket-taking deliveries. They were short, into the body, down the side of the leg. So I felt there was still space for the right movements to happen, and then you score runs. I worked more on that. Similarly, there were many examples from last year and this year. At certain times, I wasn’t finishing games, so I wanted to finish games. I feel I’m aware of those things. I keep building on them so the batting works automatically.

How do you handle not being in India’s T20 plans despite two very good IPL seasons?

There is nothing to handle. No disappointment, no expectation. We have a job in our hands. As simple as that. I know it may sound contradictory to many people. Yes, everybody wants to play for the country, and I want it even more. But what’s important is understanding what is within our control and what we should be hungry for. In the IPL, the important job is to put the team where we want it to be and win the tournament.

That’s the biggest priority. Selection comes as a by-product. There are still many things I can improve. I can work on those, come back to the IPL, and make an even bigger impact. Those are the things I have in my control, and I will back myself to do that every year.

Your assessment of your first year as a Test cricketer?

It is interesting. Even a small weakness or flaw will be challenged. As a batter, you have to keep improving and evolving from all those small things. It changes every single day and every single session. To be versatile enough to understand that and be smart is very important. But the satisfaction you get from scoring runs in Tests is unparalleled. You toil for five days. The hard work on the fourth or fifth day, when you get those runs or that win, is just very satisfying.

What have been the biggest learnings from the first year?

We have to keep evolving as batters, and there isn’t much time to do so. You have to be smart enough to pick things up and evolve. I feel it is all about owning that place. I could have owned it a bit more. I could have been a bit freer. The more ownership I take, and the more courage I have to go out there and express myself, the more I feel I’ll be able to bring out the best version of myself. That’s probably the biggest learning for me.

A little bit of that happened during the Afghanistan series. It helped me express myself more rather than trying to be right.

But hats off to my team: because of the support staff, the communication, and the way they supported and backed me — I was very happy with that.

Even in the Kolkata Test (vs. South Africa), which I didn’t play, I was very comfortable because the communication was very clear. We were looking at an extra spinner to give us the best chance. The communication was very clear, and as a player, you need that freedom.

During the West Indies series, GG (Gautam Gambhir) sir was very communicative. He backed me really well. In the Delhi Test (vs. West Indies), I was actually happy because I understood my batting better. I needed that clarity at that time, so it was very helpful to me.

I feel my batting has also become a little more fine-tuned. Decision-making, footwork, and movement in the crease—these experiences have helped me further fine-tune my game.

After the South Africa tour, I had quite a lot of time to prepare, understand those things and fine-tune them.

You have been dismissed twice in the 80s. Do you regret not converting those starts?

I’d agree that it was a little disappointing not to convert them. But at the same time, I was really happy with the level of control I had and the intensity of my play. The feeling while batting was really good, and the control was good. So I’m looking forward to building on that. The big score will come when it’s supposed to come.

There has been some criticism surrounding your First Class average. Are you aware of that, and how do you handle it?

Honestly, I’m not even aware of my own statistics. I don’t know how many matches I’ve played, how many hundreds I’ve scored or what my average is. Even in the IPL, I don’t know how many games I’ve played or how many runs I’ve scored. The reason is simple — I don’t want to judge myself based on statistics. I believe more in the experience than the numbers.

One game might be on a raging turner. Another game could be on a seaming wicket. Every match presents a different challenge. So it’s very difficult for me to look at my average and tell myself, ‘I’m batting well because my average is good’ or, ‘I’m batting badly because my average isn’t good enough’. For me, it’s about being fully present in that particular situation and doing the best I possibly can.

How was your experience of playing those two four-day games in Sri Lanka?

It was a really valuable experience and a great opportunity for us to understand the conditions. There was more breeze, a little more bounce and a little more turn than what we’re generally used to. Even the bowling culture there is different.

The bowlers are extremely consistent and disciplined rather than relying on something extraordinary. As a batter, getting more game time in Test cricket is always the best opportunity to learn.

Luckily, we played at Galle, so we got an opportunity to understand how the wickets behaved and how they generally prepared the surfaces. Overall, it was a really good experience and a great opportunity for us to understand the conditions.

Can you elaborate on the impact of the breeze?

The strong breeze changes everything. Because of the wind, the ball’s line changes quite a lot. Experiencing that was really valuable. It’s actually very similar to England. In England, the fast bowlers get late movement. Here, because of the breeze, the spinners get late drift. So you can’t commit too early, and you can’t judge the length too early. You have to keep judging the ball as late as possible because it keeps changing its line.

What’s the next month looking like for you?

The next month will be a proper off-season with some long practice sessions. Overall, it’s a great window to work hard and build towards the coming season. There are two main areas. The first is from a physical perspective. I want to become stronger, leaner, and fitter, especially in my movement and recovery, so that I can recover better and faster.

The second is my batting. I want to continue fine-tuning my game against spin. We have a series against Sri Lanka, where the conditions are quite similar, and then a couple of Tests in New Zealand, which will obviously present a different challenge. So my focus is on improving my batting against spin, better understanding my footwork, and continuing to develop my game.

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.