Big names, small gains
Rajeev Pai
Why did India fail to make any impression in South Africa, a tour fans had been looking forward to ever since the sensational win over Australia earlier this year? Why do Indian players always flatter to
deceive on tours abroad?
Quite simply, the players are not up to it. What's more, many of them
couldn't care less.
Yet, they will continue to adorn the team. They will come back, beat the
stuffing out of the second-string England side (presumably? hopefully?),
run up some more records against their name, and strut around as 'great'
players of this era.
Yet, the truth, as Geoffrey Boycott put it so bluntly and well, is that
this team is not good enough. JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
Never mind what the late Sir Donald felt, Sachin Tendulkar is NOT
Bradman. The potential may be there, but unless it is realised, it
remains just potential. Rahul Dravid is NOT a great player. Not yet. V V
S Laxman is NOT a world-beater. And Sourav Ganguly, though combative, is
NOT Pataudi or Kapil Dev. None of them deserves to be placed any higher
than other contemporary players, whether a Stephen Fleming or a Carl
Hooper or a Heath Streak. They are not even in the same class as a
Sanath Jayasuriya or an Andrew Flower, never mind a Bradman or a Sobers.
No doubt Tendulkar has 26 Test centuries, 31 one-day centuries, and
sundry other records to his name. No doubt if he plays another 10 years
he may amass 40,000 international runs. But if at the end of it he is
going to retire without away Test series victories over Australia, South
Africa, England and the West Indies, he is going to be no more valuable
than, say, Dilip Vengsarkar or Mohinder Amarnath. This is not to
belittle these giants of Indian cricket, but only to point out that for
all his genius Tendulkar will not have achieved anything more, apart
from the sheer volume of runs. But runs and wickets are only means to an
end, not the end in themselves.
As for Dravid, Laxman and Ganguly, will anyone even remember them 10 or
15 years from now? I dare say more fans will remember Roger Binny,
Krishnamachari Srikkanth, Madan Lal and other members of Kapil's Devils
of 1983 than will remember these three 'Titans'.
None of them is going to match Tendulkar's record-breaking frenzy, so
there's very little chance of them being more than mere mentions here
and there in the record books. Like Laxman's 281, which already seems
like so many moons ago. Or Harbhajan Singh's 32 wickets in that series.
Dravid and Laxman, Ganguly and Harbhajan, Kumble and Srinath, they must
all realise that they will make their marks in history if, and only if,
they combine to form a team of world-beaters with Tendulkar as the hub,
much like The Indomitables of the late 1940s with Bradman, the great
West Indian team of the late 1970s-early 1980s, or the current
Australian team led by Steve Waugh.
Though the Big Four are already in their late 20s, time is not lost yet.
In fact, they are just at the age when players and teams mature and
start to attain their peaks. But if they fail in this quest, they will
forever rank lower than the Steve Waughs and Ricky Pontings. Sadly.
Ultimately, cricket is not just about scoring runs and taking wickets.
The purpose of those actions has to be to win. You may score a hundred
thousand runs and take a thousand wickets. But if you can't beat your
opponents, you will remain an also-ran.
Of course, our guys have any number of excuses -- the team wasn't at
full strength, someone or the other was not in form, somebody got
injured, rain destroyed our preparation, Denness spoilt our mood, and
what-not. But in the end these are all mere excuses. A year from now,
let alone 20, no one is going to remember them. All they will remember
is that a team comprising some of the biggest names to emerge from India
still lost. Yet again.
Mail Rajeev Pai
