Mr. Gavaskar, We too have little islands in India

Last month while pronouncing his judgment on the CEAT player of the week, Indian’s legendary batsman Sunil Gavaskar stirred the hornet’s nest with his remarks that Mahela Jayawardene is a world class batsman who gets little credit because he comes from the little island of Sri Lanka. If he had been an Australian or English batsman then he’d have been talked about as being another Bradman.

Gavaskar while sympathizing with Mahela conveniently forgot that it was happening in his own country too. The burning example is Rahul Dravid who completed 11000 runs in 135 tests while Tendulkar took 139 tests. Both have same test averages. Dravid has won countless tests for India with his innings which can’t be said about Tendulkar. But despite this Dravid’s place in the team comes for debate while Tendulkar is a super star and icon. Dravid despite having performed well with bat in Sri Lanka and the Champions trophy was not considered for a series against Australia on the pretext of his advancing age though he is younger to Tendulkar. When we talk about the best cricketer country has produced I think no body has better credentials than Kumble who with his 600 wickets has won more tests for India than any other player, but his name rarely figures.
Likewise no body other than Sehwag deserves to be rated as the super batting Star because of his his super heroics with bat.

Question is -are we fair and pragmatic while evaluating our own icons? Most of the times our experts go overboard and are seen swaying with media hype. We conveniently ignore Ponting who is running neck to neck with Tendulkar with better average and strike rate not to forget he achieved this while shouldering the additional burden of captaincy. We have the gumption of bracketing Tendulkar with Bradman whose test average of 99.9 is almost double that of Tendulkar. Look at our audaciousness we ignore greats like Sir Garfield Sobers who scored 8300 runs in 93 test matches at an average of 58.5, when minnows like Bangle Desh and Zimbabwe were not around. One should not forget that Sobers always batted lower in the batting order and it makes a big difference when it comes to accumulating runs. Top four batsmen are always at advantage. Those who have seen Sobers batting will vouch that when it comes to grace, courage, elegance, style and above all the ability to stand in crises very few could match him. I still remember his last appearance in Mumbai’s Bra brome stadium in 1967 series. Great and enigmatic Chandra had run through the top batting order and the Indian fans had started sniffing their first win against mighty West Indies but the way he hit out the spinners and took West Indies to victory spoke of his capabilities. This is the hall mark of the genius and this factor is much above the aggregate of runs or wickets. How Kapil with 434 in 131 tests could be rated higher of Sir Richard Hadlee with 432 in 86 tests.

It is important that logic and pragmatism and not the emotions cloud our judgment when we evaluate our icons. I liked the way Border evaluated Tendulkar-“We had Viv Richards and Greg Cheppel, then we had Tendulkar and Lara and now we have Ponting. Selecting one will mean being unfair to others.”

Mr. Gavaskar, Origin has little significance if it is a special talent. Sobers, Viv Richards, Akram, Imran Murli, Hadlee, Malcom Marshal and even you are admired, respected and awed universally though none is from from Australia and England. Likewise, players like Adam Gilchrist, Ponting, Macgrath and shane warne are revered universally because of their special talent and not owing to their Australian origin.