I successfully resisted the temptation of making cricket, the topic of my first post on the blog. Well, can’t resist it anymore! At the outset, let me distance myself from the typical Indian cricket fan. I like to think of myself as a serious cricket watcher (my wife knows what that means) who loves test cricket more than the instant varieties and who is not a fair weather Indian cricket fan. I should add here that in the interest of a better family life, I am trying these days to be a smart cricket watcher. One of my later posts will be on techniques that can be used to be a “Smart Cricket Watcher”.
I always prided myself on recognizing a cricket star when I saw one. But stars are created in an instant. This is the story of those men who never had that one match in the spotlight that would have made them stars. We don’t realize how that one day separates today’s stars from those who could have been. Yuvraj Singh’s Natwest trophy innings, Harbhajan’s Calcutta afternoon against the Aussies, Laxman’s innings in the same test and the unforgettable assault of Abdul Qadir by Tendulkar in Pakistan are instances of one day propelling someone into stardom. I am not saying that these stars never had it in them to be what they are today. But, there were others who never got that one performance in. This is not about men, who didn’t make it because they never had it in them or never worked hard enough. To differentiate my few good men from those, here are the one’s who didn’t deserve to make it- Madan Lal, Chetan Sharma, Arun Lal, Kirti Azad, Sunil Joshi, Sujith Somasundar, Vikram Rathour, Paras Mhambrey, Doda Ganesh, Devang Gandhi, Vijay Bharadwaj etc. This is about men, who I thought, had it in them to be stars but never made it big. I might not do too well, in putting up a case for these players but I am sure I would at least remind readers who have followed Indian cricket in the last 15-20 years of some names we missed out seeing more of.
At the risk of sounding like Englishmen who see Ian Botham in every guy who could bat, bowl ,smoke grass , drink and make a fool out of himself, let me introduce Subroto Banerjee, who to me was India’s best all-round prospect after Kapil Dev and before Irfan Pathan. He would never have been India’s bowling spearhead but an ideal first change pacer, bowling his outswingers at 130 KMPH. Imagine an Indian attack in England with Srinath, Prasad and Banerji in the mid-90’s. Again, he would never have been the test # 6 like Pathan can be (and will be) or Kapil was, but would surely have batted higher than some of the wicket keepers we had during his time. Just to put his career in perspective, he played in one test against Australia in Sydney, bowled only in the first innings and had figures of 18-4-47-3. His victims were 3 of the top four Aussie batsmen- Taylor, Marsh and Mark Waugh. His “opportunities” came in the ODI’s- 6 in 1 year and 13 days, where he was not an unqualified success with the ball, but averaged 24 with the bat with a strike rate of 116. He played a memorable innings in a loosing cause against England in the 92 World cup. There was another interesting “Fast Bowler” who played in Banerjee’s last ODI- Chetan Sharma whose international career was spread over 10 years. We all know what Mr. Sharma’s claim to fame is. The other “all rounder” who comes to mind is the epitome of Indian optimism- Ajith Agarkar!
Sadagopan Ramesh’s two last test innings were 55 and 46 against Srilanka in Colombo in 2001. At the end of his career as an India opener, his average was 37.97. Only Sehwag has a better average than him in the recent past and we all know where Sehwag is today. Ramesh showed tremendous temperament against pace and spin. He was acknowledged as one of the few guys who could read Saqlains doosra at his peak. To me, he should have been India’s regular opener even today. The cynics pointed to his faulty footwork and technique but Ramesh would have made runs anywhere in the world if only he was backed a little more, like Sehwag is, today.
Abey Kuruvilla, was acknowledged as one of India’s best medium pace prospects ever, who played test cricket at least 5 years later than he should have. He made his first class debut in 1990-91 and claimed 35 wickets in his first season. The tragedy of his story would be highlighted if I list out some of the names of fast bowlers, who played for India when Abey was at his peak for Mumbai- Dodda Ganesh, David Johnson, Prasanth Vaidya, Robin Singh Junior, Paras Mhambrey and Harvinder Singh. If Abey had played in the South African tour of 1991-92, India would have had 4 top notch medium fast bowlers between 1991 and 1997- Javagal Srinath, Venkatesh Prasad, Subroto Banerjee and Abey Kuruvilla.
Vijay Yadav, a typical Indian wicket keepers story. Yadav was very safe behind the stumps, was known to be a man capable of the big hits down the order and possessed excellent temperament as seen in his innings of 34 against South Africa, which almost was the day, he became a star. He could have been India’s Moin Khan, a man I greatly admire for his ability to quickly turn a match around and those sweeps for sixes of medium pacers. Yadav played 19 ODI’s over 2 years(talk about a fair run!), batted 12 times only, was not out on 2 occasions and scored at a career strike rate of 101. He was out for a zero in his last ODI, didn’t get to bat in the previous one and was not in the XI for the previous two. I didn’t bother checking back further. If Yadav was successful, the man he would have kept out of the ODI team would have been Nayan Mongia. Would the match fixing saga have been different then? I cannot conclude this piece on Yadav without mentioning another wicket keeper and namesake Vijay Dahiya, who was one of 5 wicketkeepers tried by India in a 16 month period in 2000-2001. His last ODI innings was a not out 15 in 15 balls against an Aussie attack lead by McGrath and Warne. He did not bat in the next 3 before he was dropped. How do you drop a guy like that?
There are other names that come to mind- Amay Khurasia, Saba Karim and Ashish Nehra . I have heard that Sandeep Patil was someone who could have been a super star and I have to add the name of Ravi Shastri who would have been India’s best captain ever. It would be a grave injustice if I don’t mention the name of Robin Singh. But injustice is something that Robin is very used to. Like Abey, if he was in the team at his peak, he would have been what Andrew Symonds is to Australia today- # 5 batsman, best fielder on the park and safe to bowl his full quota of medium pace.
Among the current crop, I will hazard a prediction of people who could feature in such a list in the future- Munaf Patel, Dinesh Karthik, Mohamad Kaif, Gautham Gambhir and last but the biggest name of all- Virender Sehwag. But fortunately, they will not be in a list of people who didnt make it because of lack of opportunity.
