Off-spin tormentors

GOING through some rubbish at home, I came across the inside pages of a Delhi newspaper dated Sunday, February 18, 2001. "Will India defeat the Australians?", asked the headline in black-and- white. No, answered the paper's sports correspondent, for the visitors are superior in all departments of the game, and mentally stronger as well. Yes, said the guest columnist - a police officer named Nikhil Kumar - for history tells us that the Australians have always been weak against high-quality off-spin bowling.

"Success has many fathers," remarked John F. Kennedy once, adding, "but failure is an orphan." After our extraordinary victory against the Australians, millions of Indians are claiming that they urged that V. V. S. Laxman be sent in at number three and - more crucially - that Harbhajan be brought out of cottonwool to lead the home attack. Of all these knowing chaps only one Delhi policeman will be able to provide solid proof of his precociousness.

From the photo printed alongside his piece, it appears that Mr. Nikhil Kumar is old enough - just - to recall the annihilation of the 1956 Australians by that laconic ex-Yorkshireman, J. C. Laker. Laker ambled six steps to the crease to bowl with a classically side-on action, his off breaks curving out in the air but spinning back sharply after pitching, attracting the interest of the three short legs in attendance. The summer was wet, and the wickets were not covered back then. When Laker played for his county against the Australians, he took all 10 wickets in an innings. When he played for his country he claimed 46 wickets in five Tests, 19 coming in a single match at Old Trafford.

At the time, commentators wrote that the most remarkable thing about that haul was not that Laker got 19 wickets, but that Tony Lock got only one. Lock bowled a low and mean slow left arm, and the conditions (in theory) suited him just as well. Watching snatches of tape 40 years later, what seems remarkable to me is how each wicket was greeted. Or rather, not greeted. The ball would take the edge and go to leg slip, or spin past a backfoot defensive prod to catch the batsman in front, or evade bat and pad altogether to uproot middle stump. Whichever way it fell, each wicket had a most matter-of-fact aftermath: no yells and shouts, no frantic hugging of team-mates, just the ball being tossed from fielder to wicket-keeper and back to Laker. When the last Australian wicket fell, the bowler claimed his sweater from the umpire and walked unfussedly off the field. To judge from how Laker and his team-mates behaved this was not the making of cricket history; merely another day at the office.

Three years later the Australians came to visit India. They won the first Test at Delhi comprehensively, by an innings and 127 runs. For the next match at Kanpur the Indian chairman of selectors, Lala Amarnath, commandeered the services of an obscure off-spinner named Jasu Patel. Patel was 35 and in semi- retirement, and in any case had done little of consequence in his four previous Test matches. But the wily Lala knew that Kanpur had a new turf wicket (all previous Tests here had been played on matting). It was soft and shallow and thus peculiarly well suited to Patel's fast off-breaks. Jasu bowled plenty of these in the match, the variation coming in the shape of a finger-spun leg- break. He took nine for 69 in the first innings and five for 55 in the second, taking India to its first-ever Test victory over Australia. His work was suitably celebrated by the Maharajkumar of Vizianagaram, president of the Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association, commentator on All India Radio, lousy ex-player and generous patron, the general dogsbody of Indian cricket. Patel, said Vizzy, was "another from the region of Gujarat who humbled the pride of a foreign power without a weapon. If the Mahatma did it with his spinning wheel, Jasu did it with his off-spin".

I never saw Laker or Jasu, but I did catch a late glimpse of another off-spinner known to have tormented the Australians. His name was Lancelot Reginald Gibbs, and as a patriotic Indian I shall always hold him in the highest respect. In March 1962 he took eight for 38 against us in the second innings of the Bridgetown Test (this off a remarkable 53.3 overs, 37 of which were maidens). Twelve-and-a half years later he starred in a match I saw, at New Delhi, taking six second innings wickets on a wet track. Both times his side won by an innings.

Gibbs was a gentle Guyanese with a high-stepping run and a higher tossed off-break, a smiling master of curve and flight and the return catch. When the West Indies toured Australia in 1960-61 it was the experienced Ramadhin who partnered his old pal Valentine in the spin department. But for the third Test Gibbs was called in to replace Ram. The Sydney track, as ever, was spin-friendly, and Gibbs claimed eight wickets to help take his side to victory. In the next match, at Adelaide, he took another five in the first innings, including a hat-trick. That match was drawn, courtesy a brave, battling last-wicket stand between Mackay and Grout, and the Australians won the decider at Melbourne. But four years later lanky Lancelot bowled his side to another famous win over the Australians, in a match played at his home ground, the Bourda Oval in Georgetown. He took three for 51 in the first innings, while in the second he had the fine figures of 22.2-9-29-6. And he could have done with eight less fielders, too. For two of his victims were bowled, two caught by his friend G. S. Sobers in the leg-trap, two others accounted for by the wicket-keeper, Jackie Hendricks.

This then is the backdrop against which one must view the recent work with the ball of Harbhajan Singh. One suspects, and hopes too, that the young Sikh will be a Laker or Gibbs rather than a Jasu Patel, a long-playing record as distinct to a single, stirring hit number. But surely no future success will equal this one, brought about so emphatically against a team on a roll, a team chockful of supremely gifted batsmen. It used to be said that when Keith Miller dies the name of Jim Laker would be found engraved on his heart. With only a little hyperbole, we might now say the same of Ricky Ponting and Harbhajan Singh.

RAMACHANDRA GUHA

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