Some great Indian knocksbefore Laxman

V.V.S. LAXMAN'S 281 at Eden Gardens has found widespread acceptance in the cricket world as a seminal innings that changed the course of Indian batting. It inspired the other Indian batsmen into believing in their own potential and living up to it. It changed the very attitude of the Indian team into something positive and dynamic from being plagued by self-doubt.

On the strength of its far reaching impact as much as its technical perfection, mental strength and aesthetic grace, it is tempting to believe that Laxman's was the best innings ever by an Indian batsman. Perhaps, it was, but there have been a few gems over the years that may be well worth remembering now.

It was Indian cricket's hour of infamy. Four captains led the team in five Tests played at home against the West Indians under F C M Alexander. The first four Tests were won without much ado by the visitors. For the final Test at Delhi, the selectors brought in a new skipper in Hemu Adhikari and included Dattu Gaekwad to strengthen the batting. Not only did both new inclusions make substantial contributions, the captain rallied the team together to defy the might of Alexander and his men. It was a stupendous turnaround even if India only managed to draw the Test, for the opposition included the hugely talented batsmen Sobers and Kanhai, and the frighteningly quick bowlers Gilchrist and Hall, among a galaxy of stars. A young batsman who had been promising bigger things throughout the series, now found his best form and made 109 and 96, often taking the battle into the enemy camp, not afraid to hook and pull. Towards the closing stages of the match, he was last man out, hooking for four but trampling the stumps, thus missing a century in each innings by a whisker. Chandu Borde had arrived!

The selectors rewarded Adhikari by not including him in the team that toured England months later. Under Dattu Gaekwad, the Indians fared miserably in the Test series losing five-nil. The only silver lining in the cloud was provided by dashing Oxford Blue Abbas Ali Baig who was drafted into the squad on the strength of his sterling displays in the county championship. Making an unexpected Test debut in the Leeds Test, Baig made a brilliant 112, an innings studded with thrilling strokes all round the wicket that left his senior partner Polly Umrigar, the other century maker of the innings, stunned. Baig's effort was unfortunately not good enough to save the match.

Vijay Manjrekar's farewell 100, he had learnt during the match that he had been dropped for the next Test against New Zealand at Madras a few years earlier had been a masterpiece that delighted the spectators, who had been inclined to boo the veteran, now ponderous on the field. That innings would however pale in comparison before the many courageous knocks of his career, including a masterly 185 against England.

A contemporary of Vijay Manjrekar was Polly Umrigar, a man who had been cruelly ridiculed for running away from the fast bowlers.

India's highest scorer in Test cricket until Sunil Gavaskar went past him, the Palm Tree Hitter silenced his detractors with finality with his majestic batting in the West Indies in the 1961-62 tour in which Nari Contractor was almost fatally injured. With 172 and 60 in the Port of Spain Test of that series, he signed off in great style.

The Nawab of Pataudi junior played the first of many innings that would steal the hearts of spectators around India at the Corporation Stadium, Madras, in the 1961-1962 series against the England team. His hundred in that match was to unfurl an exciting new phenomenon in Indian cricket. With the possible exception of Mushtaq Ali, no Indian batsman had repeatedly gone over the top, the way Pataudi did during that match winning innings in the company of skipper Nari Contractor. Tiger Pataudi played some more memorable innings at Madras, including his 128 against Australia in 1964, and 73 against England in 1973. In the same Test, Hanumant Singh played some delightful shots against the pace of McKenzie and Co. to make a fighting 94 in the second innings.

Pataudi's exploits in England during the 1967 tour and in Australia in 1968 were stuff of which legends are made, full of character and aggression in the face of adversity. Blind in one eye after a car accident, Pataudi was additionally handicapped by a groin injury during his defiant knocks in Australia.

A tiny little dynamo exploded into the Test scene in the 1969 series against the touring Australians. Gundappa Visvanath had made a most inauspicious debut at Kanpur when he was dismissed without scoring in the first innings. Imagine the feelings of the 20-year old when he put on the pads for the second time in the match. Fighting nerves, he must have decided to play his natural game nevertheless, encouraged by his captain and seniors. For the pure innocence of carefree stroke production that marked it, he probably never equalled in subsequent Tests the knock he played in that second innings. 25 boundaries flowed from the young master's bat in a score of 137!

This was an epochal innings, because it had shown the way world class pacemen could be handled with technique and courage. For the first time since Vijay Manjrekar, a tiny Indian was standing tall and driving, cutting and hooking the fast men.

Like Pataudi, Visvanath too seemed to reserve his best for Chennai. He must be the Chepauk crowds favourite batsman before the advent of Sachin Tendulkar. His 97 not out against Clive Lloyd's West Indies has rarely been bettered for spectator appeal, especially his fierce, yet artistic, onslaught against the fiery Andy Roberts. Visvanath himself rated his 139 at Calcutta in the same series higher, as at Chepauk, he was batting mostly in the company of tailenders and really had nothing to lose by going for his shots while at Eden Gardens, his innings had come at a crucial stage when the outcome of the Test was in the balance and eventually proved match-winning. Unforgettable, too, had been his 124 and 31 against Kallicharran's West Indies in 1978 on a Chepauk wicket of uneven bounce. Bruised all over from the knocks he took on his body from the quickies Clarke, Phillips and Holder, Vishy demonstrated masterly technique in dealing with short-pitched bowling on a fast wicket.

And what of Sunil Gavaskar's magnificent achievements in India and abroad? Can anyone ever forget the excitement and pride we all felt when he made those 774 runs in the West Indies when barely out of college? In the entire history of Indian cricket, no single batsman could have captured the imagination the way he did during that tour, simply because it was the first instance of an Indian opening batsman challenging the might of world class fast bowlers consistently in innings after innings. No less praiseworthy was Dilip Sardesai's batting on that tour, but few doubted that the little opener would go on to become the Little Master, taking that title away from Pakistan's Hanif Mohammad.

Followed a superlative career, in which Gavaskar broke numerous records, went past Bradman's tally of Test hundreds and became the world's highest scorer of Test runs up until then. His double centuries at the Oval and Chennai, his three century-in-each- innings efforts, his fabulous hundred not to mention equally gallant efforts by Visvanath, Amarnath and Patel in India's world record run chase to win the Port of Spain Test in 1976, have all been written about many times. Yet one innings in which he missed a hundred narrowly, stands tall among all his great knocks, his last Test innings on an explosive turner at Bangalore against Pakistan's Iqbal Qasim and Tauseef Ahmed, an innings that should be included in every coaching manual on how to bat on such a surface against quality bowling.

Dilip Vengsarkar's three hundreds at Lord's were paeans to the best Indian batting traditions. He well and truly lived up to his nickname Colonel with his erect stance at the crease, and the majesty of his thunderous drives even as he wrote himself into the record books. Mohinder Amarnath's bravery in West Indies and Pakistan have to be uppermost in the minds of anyone who followed his extraordinary saga, but they cannot eclipse the many fine innings he played in Australia in 1977-1978, when Keith Miller compared his batting to that of South African genius Barry Richards. Several innings of wristy elegance highlighted Mohammed Azharuddin's Test career in which a couple of swashbuckling hundreds against South Africa and altogether more controlled ones against England were outstanding, but the fine rapture of his three centuries in a row in his first three Tests was never equalled.

Other superb batting efforts come readily to mind - Sandip Patil, Ravi Shastri, Navjot Sidhu, Sanjay Manjrekar, K Srikkanth, Pravin Amre, and Laxman have played some fine innings abroad, in England, West Indies, Pakistan, Australia and South Africa, but the ones to make a huge impression in recent years came from the blades of Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid in England. A significant achievement was Dravid's century in each innings in New Zealand, something only Gavaskar and Hazare among Indian batsmen had done before him.

To single out any one innings of Sachin Tendulkar is probably the toughest task of all. His maiden Test hundred at Old Trafford, England? His first century on Australian soil at Perth? His two hundreds against Australia at Chepauk, especially the one that was marked by the sheer audacity of his demolition of a dangerous-looking Shane Warne? His outstanding innings that took India frustratingly close to victory against Pakistan, again at Chepauk? His magnificent effort in South Africa? His gem of an innings in New Zealand that was cut short when he was on the verge of becoming the youngest century-maker in Test cricket? His superb effort in both innings in the Mumbai Test against Australia, which was cut short by a miraculous catch?

The magnificent exploits of India's batting heroes of a pre- 1950s vintage cannot be overlooked - Merchant, Mushtaq Ali, Mankad, Hazare, and Modi left their indelible imprint on Indian cricket, with several displays of great skill and temperament. Nor can we forget the cameos that every now and then served to convince the Indian selectors of individual players potential with far-reaching consequences. One such knock was Ajit Wadekar's thrilling 67 in the second innings of the 1967 Madras Test against West Indies. After a string of failures, it was practically his last chance, and once he was selected to tour England based on his do-or- die Madras performance, he never looked back.

Several delightful innings were played by Kapil Dev Nikhanj, who probably brought more joy to spectators than any specialist batsman has ever done. Topping the list of his effortless essays must be his hundred in Chepauk's Tied Test. The sheer abandon with which the all rounder waded into bowling of the highest quality gave his batting a dimension of unalloyed entertainment, rarely matched in cricket. Who can forget his four consecutive sixes off English off spinner Eddie Hemmings to ensure India avoided the follow-on?

V. RAMNARAYAN

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