They did not play him in too many One-Day Internationals. They had the gall to say that he was not fit for the shorter version of the game. On the contrary, many of his team-mates and contemporaries, including Shastri, vouched that he was an ideal one-day batsman, given his positive, selfless approach.
Why Vishy did not play more Tests and One-Day Internationals than he did and why he was never recalled to don the national colours again continues to remain an unsolved mystery of Indian cricket.
E-mail this Page | Post a comment
When he was in the wilderness, hoping against hope to receive at least one chance to prove his worth again, batsmen not fit to tie his shoelaces were seen playing for India in longer as well as shorter versions of the game. Doubtless, it was an ironical, farcical phase in Indian cricket.
Vishy, who heralded his entry into first-class cricket with a double hundred and Test cricket with a century, called it a day in 1988, leaving behind the legacy of his masterpieces and acts of sportsmanship which will remain itched in memory as long as cricket is played.
'If some destructive process were to eliminate cricket, only (Tom) Graveney surviving, we could reconstruct from him, from his way of batting and from the man himself, every outline of the game, every essential character and flavour which have contributed to cricket, the form of it and its soul, and its power to inspire a wide and sometimes a great literature,' wrote Cardus about the star English batsman of the 1950s and 1960s.
Cardus then asked a rhetorical question: 'Of how many Test match cricketers could you say as much as this?' Well, Sir Neville, certainly about Vishy, if not about any other. In fact, Cardus himself would have been the first to admit this if the great man had seen Vishy on song. No question there.
Advertisement
