An Adamantine Odyssey!!

An Adamantine Odyssey!!

A lazy Sunday meanders away in the dying moments of a Test Match. Two super-powers are rambling to the end of an encounter that has petered out to a dead end, as the audience begins drifting towards more worthwhile pursuits...Before a news-flash makes us stop dead in the tracks!

It was the same old story! Seemingly, the nonchalant batsman thrust his left leg forward, only to be rapped on the pads by the straighter one. Only this time, it wasn’t one bloke with a bat in hand whose professional endeavours were being thwarted.

There was to be no further addition to the tally of 956. Instead thousands, millions, billions had been caught napping. Before the magnitude of the loss had sunken in, a hero was revelling in his last hurrah. The 38 year old grabbed the spotlight, while his colleagues toasted him. As the opponents conveyed their regards and the cricketing fraternity rose to pay tribute, tears welled up in the eyes of his adoring fans. The Grand Old Man of Indian Cricket had had enough!

The Nascent Stages...

The convoluted journey commenced when a bespectacled 19 yr old engineering student first donned national colours in the dust-bowls of the middle-east.

An award winning performance in his third outing augured well, but he emphatically made headlines only in 1992 by condemning the international cricket comebacks to slow torture in a bowling analysis of 44-22-53-6 on their home turf.

It was the don of a new era!

His overwhelming impact was evident in the Indians gathering the epithet of “Tigers at home.” The dried, dusty, grimy, broken, cracked pitches on the sub-continent were the best avenues to showcase his art. The lackadaisical Poms’ of 1993 were brought down by deliveries that unrelentingly pitched on unplayable lengths and then bounced, spun, skidded on, or zipped through. Thereafter, throughout the 1990s, every touring party returned empty-handed, after having Krumbled to a mixed bag of top-spinners, leg-breaks, googlies or straighter-ones.

Equally potent was his bag of tricks in One-Day-Internationals, as the metronomic accuracy compelled the opposition to strain every nerve & sinew in eking out more than 40 runs of his quota. In an age which saw crash-bang-hammer & tongs batsmen of the 1996 World Cup fame create waves, the Jumbo came to be acknowledged as a miserly operator of his unique brand of slow bowling. The erstwhile world-beaters, with the Calypso brand of cricket, too had to bite the bust as he ravaged through their middle order picking up 6/12 in front of a jubilant assembly of 50,000 at Eden Gardens.

Problems....Galore...

Elsewhere, across the Trans-Tasmanian Oceans, as a beefy blond was acquiring Hollywood-star status, comparisons became inevitable. The “ball of the century” put the  unpretentious straighter one in the shade, as did the ostentatious lifestyle and the penchant for news making sound-bites. That the traditional rival, the Barmy Army was dismantled, disgraced and debased many times over, accentuated the burgeoning reputation to that of a cult hero, leaving the engineer to figure out the dynamics of spinning the sphere.

The increasingly pervasive impact of the cricketing media appeared to have claimed a major victim, as the year 1998 saw poor returns for the spinner who didn’t spin the ball, while he dabbled around with his technique to emulate his more celebrated counterpart.

However, it was back to the tried and tested when neighbours and arch-rivals landed for a historic, not to mention, acrimonious & politically volatile two test series. The Ferozshah Kotla in Delhi was to enter the legions of cricketing folklore on the afternoon of 7 February 1999 when all but no.11 succumbed to his guiles sending the nation into an absolute frenzy.

Just as things take a turn for the better, calamity strikes and portends to all but terminate a flourishing career that had reaped 270+ wickets in both formats of the game. A shoulder surgery, arm in a sling and 21 months later a comeback in the blue pyjamas isn’t quite reminiscent of the Jumbo of old.

After all, a lot of water had flown under the bridge. The world champions had been humbled, and the lead spinner’s spot wasn’t quite his own by right anymore, not least due to a captain who rooted for youthful experience over grey hairs even if touring sides continued to be snared away on home pitches. Aging legs, and an innate lack of athleticism warranted being benched on ODI tours, most notably for 8 out of 11 World Cup games. Aggravating the opprobrium, was the skipper’s rather perfunctory, or insolent attitude towards the country’s most prominent bowler. Incidents like the name being cancelled from the team sheet minutes before the toss following a consensual agreement over selection, prompted the otherwise stoic character to make comments such as “Who will identify with a man who is down?”

Such events provide an interesting perspective while analysing one of the most courageous acts to be witnessed on a cricket pitch, one described by a touring journalist as “worthy of the Padma Shree.” What could have prompted him to bowl jaw-strapped under scathing heat on a dead track against the world’s greatest batsman?

In the midst of this mid-career crisis, the Border-Gavaskar series of 2003-04 marked a watershed moment, for both the individual and the team. The previous edition of the series had yielded five wickets @90 and being benched yet again for the first Test could not have done wonders to the confidence, nor could have the first day returns of the second Test (29-0-116-1).

The Emperor Strikes Back...

What doesn’t kill you, only makes you stronger! By perseverance, the snal reached the ark! When the going gets tough, the tough get going. To me these would have remained proverbial jargon suited just to make impressive talk, had i not observed the relentless practitioner at work.

Fast-forward four years to January 2008! The dogged fringe player is now shepherding the troops down-under while commanding respect from team-mates and opposition alike. The beefy blonde, now a cricketing media expert, desires that his country's up and coming emulate the Indian, after a 5w-haul on the first day of the first Test.

The cricketing fraternity comes to a standstill when he puts his foot down, with the words, "Only 1 team played in the spirit of the game". Boisterous and boorish behaviour from unscrupulous oppositions is presented in stark contrast to the tough-as-nails but dignified demeanour of the third man to scale 600 wickets. And if the 24 wickets of 2003-04 were a hurdle in the path of the all conquering world champions, the 20 wickets of 2007-08, allied with some obstinate batting and astute captaincy signalled the beginning of the end, and the establishment of a new world order!

The stupendous achievements of the intervening period (246 wickets, 15 five-wicket hauls in 47 Tests, epoch-making wins in every country of note, a test century and the Captaincy to boot) had catapulted him to the legions of stardom. The perpetual toil and tenacious efforts driven by an overwhelming desire to excel, had come to fruition. Several new tricks were on display - variations in pace, the disguised googly, the flight & loop etc. That some marginal decisions favoured the bowler, and the batsmen provided larger scores to defend must not count against him

Adios..

Mid-2008 was a ‘dusky’ period for some of the country’s cricketing stalwarts. One added the 10000th brick to the Great Wall of India, another completed a 100 Very Very Special appearances while the Little Master mastered hitherto uncharted territories.

While they geared up for the slow ride into the sunset, the country’s most successful captain courted some controversy before resolving to call it quits.

None of these however, caused a furore comparable to the one surrounding the crumbling of the team’s rock of Gibraltar! A protracted dip in form, some ruthless media scrutiny, back-stabbing from some erstwhile loyalists and a brutish finger injury led to the spontaneous call from a man whose contributions were always taken to be much of  given. The go-to man for the best part of two decades, could have no more. The person key to most Indian victory laps took his own final lap of honour. As some former captains would testify,  - “When I looked around the field with the opposition at 250/1, there would only be one pair of eyes looking straight back!” , “He just doesn’t know what ‘give-up’ means!” - his significance was to be felt only upon his departure.

The Jumbo had landed, but in what style! One of the final acts in Test cricket constituted scampering back 30 yards to catch the ball with nine stitches in the fingers and proceeding to shatter the stumps. It is the stuff legends are made of. The incessant criticisms about ability, agility, spin, nerdy appearance all sound so hollow. That a relatively  innocuous left-arm spinner was chosen ahead of him in the ICC World Test 11 (2005) now seems daft. His place in the pantheon is assured. Any further peaks scaled, be it in the IPL, as a commentator, software programmer or freelance photographer, are only incidental.