The Rediff On The NeT Cricket Special: The Myth & the Man

Once, I was chatting with Romulus Whittaker, the Englishman who, three decades ago, made a home for himself in Chennai and founded (and still maintains) a snake park and a crocodile bank in the southern metrop.

When I met him, he was playing with a black king cobra -- the only one of its kind in captivity in India at the time, Rom told me. His arms and legs were as spotted with fang marks as a junkie's is with needle-bites, which led me to ask him how come he was still alive.

'The funny thing about snakebite,' Rom said then, 'is that more people die of sheer shock than of the actual venom.' Snakes rarely if ever inject a fatal dose into the human system, Rom maintained -- and since he appeared to have no qualms about letting his son, then five, play happily with some of the most venomous members of the species, I guess he knows what he is talking about.

Could the same be true for Shane Warne as well? Could it be that more batsmen 'die' of apprehension than as a result of the actual venom of his deliveries?

No Oppn Tests Batsmen Dismissed for Scores of Wickets

Zero 01 to 09 10 to 19 20 to 29 30 to 39 40 to 49 50 to 59 60 to 69 70 to 79 80 to 89 90 to 100 101 to 150 150 plus

01 IND 04 - 02 - 01 - - 02 - - - - - 01 06

02 SL 05 02 06 03 01 01 - 01 - - - - 01 - 15

03 WI 12 06 14 09 07 - 03 01 01 04 - - 02 - 47

04 NZ 09 10 18 06 05 01 04 07 01 01 - - 01 - 54

05 ENG 17 15 18 13 11 04 05 03 03 04 - 03 01 - 85

06 SA 12 07 24 10 04 03 03 03 02 07 01 - - - 64

07 PAK 06 06 17 04 - 07 01 - - - - - 02 - 37

Total 65 46 99 45 29 16 16 19 07 15 05 - 09 02 308

The data in this table would appear to permit some such interpretation. Check this out -- 46 of his 308 victims fall before they have scored; a further 99 before they have reached double figures, and 45 more before they have got a healthy 20 runs against their names. In other words, 190 out of his total of 308 victims have fallen before they are well set -- and his strike graph dips dramatically as the batsmen progress beyond the 20s.

You can almost picture the batsman, a bundle of nerves wearing pads and gloves, walking out to face Warne. Taking guard, his eyes on the still figure of the orotund beach blond at the top of his mark. His apprehension growing at an exponential rate as Warne flicks back from his forehead that little lick of hair, and walks into his delivery stride, to let the ball go with every ounce of his overly muscled frame.

He stands there, that batsman, rather in the manner of a rabbit confronting a snake...

If he survives... if he gets the odd delivery in the middle of the bat... if he gets some runs against the board, and with it the corresponding confidence in himself... if his feet begin moving better with every passing ball... then, as the table given here indicates, we are talking a whole new ball game!

Stats: H R Gopalakrishna

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