Those Wisden greats I saw

A ROUND-100 rating by The Wisdenpanel of 100 predictably affirms Sir Donald Bradman as `The Greatest Cricketer of the Century'. Indeed, the seven letters of `century', what are they if not the seven letters of Bradman! What is remarkable here is that no fewer than 37 of Sir Donald Bradman's 117 first-class centuries are multiple tons. Plus do note that, of those 37 multiple tons, as many as 7 knocks saw The Don top the 300 mark. (This without counting Bradman's remaining 299 not out in the 1931-32 Adelaide Test vs South Africa!)

Alongside, there is the fact that Bradman's career-topper of 452 not out (for New South Wales vs Queensland at Sydney in January 1930) endured for nearly 30 years as the yardstick by which to determine batting dominance in the world. `Records' thus represent only another seven letters by which to spell out Bradman. Mind you, 2 of Bradman's 6 triple tons were in Tests. The world could but watch in amaze as, in the July 1930 Headingley Test, The Don plundered 309 runs (in near six hours during a single day) off the England attack in the course of his highest ever for Australia - 334. Yet it is not true that even Bradman, in that 309 not out in one day (out of 334), scored a century in each one of the three two-hour sessions of the 1930 Leeds Test! This is something like the misty myth attributed to C.K. Nayudu - that a six struck by this Man of Ebony smashed the wall-clock, forming the commentary-box, at the Brabourne Stadium in Bombay! In the years I did the commentary, like clockwork, with Merchant from that box, Vijay's sole point of batting reference used to be Don Bradman.

As Chairman of Selectors, it was in this legendary light that Vijay Merchant came to assess Sunil Gavaskar. Sunny craftily escaped further `impossible' bracketing with thoroughbred Bradman by pinpointing the difference between them in these pertinent words: ``Surely The Don is the greatest - not until someone scores 4997 runs from 79 innings in 51 Tests could you argue against that.'' Sunil (as No. 12 now among Wisden'sFirst 50), in so distancing himself then from The Don, was underpinning the 4996 runs from 80 innings in 52 Tests that gives Bradman the incredible average of 99.94. If Bradman's first-class career average is marginally lower at 95.14, Vijay Merchant of India here ranks to this day, remember, second only to The Don at 71.64. Any wonder Merchant would look up to none save Bradman?

`Wisdon of The Century' is what The Don thus is, as he canters away, from this ultra-classy field, to finish first - even Gary Sobers being a good 10 notches behind at No. 2. As Vivian Richards figures at No. 5, you wonder at the turn of Wisdenevents by which no quicksilver fast bowler from the West Indies makes it even to the First 25. But my idea here is not to sit in value judgment on Wisden's50 all-time greats. Any such effort is bound to prove purely subjective even in the face of the fact that end- 2000 A.D. is going to find me completing a full 50 years as a cricket writer. It was on Friday, November 2, 1951 - after having watched (for seven years, don't ask how!) cricket from the press- box at the Brabourne Stadium - that I went on the regular beat with England's first Test (under Nigel Howard) vs Vijay Hazare's India at Ferozeshah Kotla, Delhi. That equips me, I humbly feel, to speak with authenticity about at least 30 from among Wisden's50. That I briefly glimpsed Don Bradman (when I was a 15- year-old) in the hold of a ship is one of my treasured memories. That I saw in action as many as 30 of these 50 greats (including Ray Lindwall and Richie Benaud) during my cricketing life and times, I count as a rare blessing.

Having viewed so many of them in rousing combat, I just cannot comprehend how Gary Sobers (at No. 2) gets to rate 71 points higher than Frank Worrell (at No. 6). No doubt Sobers ultimately had the edge here, but did not Sir Frank do everything Sir Gary did with matching distinction? Worrell had the same grace and poise as a right-handed batsman as Sobers did as a southpaw. Worrell bowled at lively left-arm medium pace like Sobers did. Next, Worrell was no less skilled as a left-arm finger spinner than Sobers was as a left-arm wrist spinner. In the field, too, there was not all that much to choose between the two. Maybe it is the fact that I saw Frank Worrell first that influences my appraisal, but I maintain that the gap between Sobers' bat and Worrell's pad is not as wide as it is here made out to be.

Denis Compton I viewed extensively in India and England, in cricket and in football too. What greater tribute could I pay to India's super stylist than to identify Denis Compton as the English G.R. Visvanath! Compton, like Visvanath, had style - and substance. Yet Denis Compton lived for the day, Len Hutton for the morrow. And it was as I watched Len Hutton accumulate 150 in the Lord's Test and 104 in the Old Trafford Test (vs Vijay Hazare's India in mid-1952) that I began to entertain certain genuine misgivings about whether Vijay Merchant was the most correct grammarian I ever saw performing in the middle. Hutton's defence was something as much to marvel at as Compton's offence.

Along with Len Hutton, I saw Alec Bedser - and, in my eyes, the `Big Fella' remains the finest medium-pacer produced by the game. The Don himself ranked Alec Bedser to be the most difficult English bowler he ever encountered. There are those scribes who argue that Alec Bedser is not in the same Fleet Street as `King Kiwi' Richard Hadlee. Here, once again, perhaps the fact that I saw Alec Bedser first is what tilts my sense of balance, vitally, in the Englishman's favour.Dennis Lillee I espied but briefly - and that, too, in a `friendly' at the Wankhede Stadium. But Lillee never gave anything less than 100 per cent to any contest, so that I felt I was watching `Dennis The Menace' in full flow here. Michael Holding, playing in the same `friendly', felt spurred enough - by the spectacle of Dennis Lillee's tearing away for all he was worth - to revert, momentarily, to his original `Whispering Death' run. Thus did I witness (at the visually no less rhythmic end opposite Lillee's) the Rolls-Royce of Fast Bowlers in swooping swarthy action.

Then there is, in Wisden's50, the calibre of cricketer I saw and yet never saw. I certainly saw, even spoke to, Wally Hammond in the Lord's press-box. There I heard Hammond use language unprintable in the paper for which he was by then writing, as an English journalist chivvied Wally about whether or not Don Bradman was out (caught by Jack Ikin at gully) in the end-1947 Brisbane Test that saw the resumption of Ashes hostilities (after World War II) between England and Australia. Hammond, as the topnotch England batsman and captain, informed us pressmen about how, as Bradman refused to `walk' when on 28 (The Don went on to make 187),Wally told the Australian skipper in no uncertain terms: ``A fine bloody way to start a series!'' I also saw in action `The Black Bradman', George Headley, though this Caribbean was clearly past his prime as he came to tour India, in 1948-49, with John Goddard's West Indies team. In a subtle way, I could still feel the magic of Headley's blade, though, in a couple of fours he unsheathed.

But this was no true insight into the art and craft of George Headley - just as we could not claim that we saw yet another titan in Wisden's50, South Africa's Graeme Pollock, in original action, when we were vintage witness to this virtuoso's left- handed wizardry in the March 1995 World Masters at the Brabourne Stadium. In this sense, I did `see' another in Wisden's50, Wilfred Rhodes (inside the Sheffield pressbox), as the touring Indians played Yorkshire. Wilfred Rhodes was blind by then, yet such was his passion for the game that he sat and `watched on', as someone by his side retailed the proceedings to him! Thus I saw Wilfred Rhodes only in a manner of speaking, but I certainly watched certain others in Wisden's50, like Freddie Trueman and Godfrey Evans, in memorable action.

Trueman scared the wits out of Indian batsmen as he made his Test debut in the infamous June 1952 `0-for-4' Headingley Test. I felt I had not seen any human hurl the red missile faster - until I got to envision Frank Tyson operate for just one over (before close of play), representing Freddie Brown's Northamptonshire vs Indians. Trueman looked set to emerge as the `The Terrible Tyke' as he thus unfolded himself to my view, but Godfrey Evans, by then, was the finished product (standing up to Alec Bedser operating with the new ball), as I studied this total artist, in whiplash action, behind the sticks.

Yet my most poignant memory (from Wisden's50) is of A.P. `Tich' Freeman. As Berry Sarbadhikari and I were inspecting the pitch at England's loveliest cricketing venue, Canterbury, as we Indians prepared to play Kent, up walked a guy who looked down-and-out enough to pass for a tramp. ``You know, my lad,'' said that unkempt-looking oldie to me, ``I regularly bagged over 200 wickets in a season, playing for Kent, the bulk of them on this wicket you chaps are examining!'' Whereupon Berry shouted to me from five yards away: ``Who's that man, drive him away, what's he doing on the playing square!''

Imagine our chagrin when that tramp turned out to be `Tich' Freeman! (The `Tich' part of his name referred to Freeman's skill at bowling the leg-break, the top-spinner and the googly - all rolled into one). This was the man who had captured a record 304 wickets (at 18.05 runs each) in the 1928 English summer - and Berry, unwittingly, had wanted me to shoo off Freeman! His county, Kent, evidently had not cared for `Tich' Freeman in his years of penury. It is therefore touchingly rewarding to find this ace wrist spinner's name featured in Wisden's50 now - far, far behind Shane Warne, true, but alongside, if no one else, fellow Englishman B.J.T. Bosanquet - inventor of the googly that the Aussies came to dread as the `Bosie'.

RAJU BHARATAN

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Sport
Previous : Cricket's hour of shame
Next     : Fiction spun out of facts