Sport - Cricket

It’s all coming back: Balaji

— Photo: Ch. Vijaya Bhaskar

L. Balaji.

CHENNAI: The rarest gift bestowed on an athlete is the ability to spark out of nothing something that’s all-determining: the ability to believe — as the great Australian fast-bowler Fred ‘The Demon’ Spofforth famously said — “we can do this thing”, and then go out and do it.

Lakshmipathy Balaji has been blessed with this gift. Any lingering doubt about whether he can still make things happen will have disappeared after the game-breaking performance in the Ranji Trophy quarterfinal against Bengal, when in two startling spells of medium-fast seamers on a mild-mannered track, he reversed the contest’s course.

But swinging a game when Tamil Nadu needed it most — and when it seemed extremely unlikely — isn’t the limit of the achievement. When Balaji went under the knife two years ago to mend a damaged back, he wasn’t sure if he’d bowl again. It was the sort of thing that breaks lesser men.

Fast bowling is a tricky business, requiring the management of several moving parts. Injury and surgery wreak havoc with this vulnerable craft, retarding the practitioner’s body; more sinister still are the games they play with the mind.

For Balaji to retain the ability to get it done after a period when his skill and belief were under constant interrogation says everything about the man.

“With him, it’s very straightforward — he takes enormous responsibility,” says State coach W.V. Raman, who has worked tirelessly with the 27-year-old to restructure the run-up and straighten the action. “For him, this game is played to prevail over the opponent, it doesn’t matter what he is up against,” adds Raman.

“Not just the quarterfinal, even at other times during this season, whenever we’ve needed a key wicket, he’ll say, ‘I’ll do it,’ and then do it. It’s not his pride or ego coming through, just the awareness of what needs to be done and the belief he can do it.”

The numbers confirm the success of Balaji’s comeback: 31 wickets at 16.64 from six Ranji Trophy matches, with a wicket every 37 balls, and this on strips that have offered little.

He has also shouldered a striker’s workload, cranking out 191.3 overs this season. Most heartening of all is the scope for further progress — Balaji has bowled within himself, guarding against his tendency to push himself.

“Even though he’s not anywhere close to where he once was, he’s still head and shoulders above the rest,” says Raman.

“Even if he’s doing two out of ten things right, you can still make out he’s a different breed, with the bounce he extracts on placid surfaces, his movement, his accuracy.”

The statistics vindicate the work put in by bowler and coach in consultation with physios, bio-mechanists, and surgeons.

“It was a tightrope walk — he had to bowl just enough to change his muscle memory but not at the risk of straining himself, which would set the process back,” says Raman.

“It was like building a sandcastle 500 metres from the sea — you never now when something’s going to hit you. But at the end of the day, it’s very easy for me to say things. For him to wipe the old methods from his muscle memory, incorporate the new action and replicate it consistently isn’t easy.

“I’ve always believed the body is a slave of the mind, and Balaji has achieved a phenomenal shift of the mind to get where he is.”

Balaji is typically modest about his accomplishment, but a throwaway line reveals how much the prolonged absence from the game had taken out of him.

“From the beginning of my career there has never been a time when I’ve not touched a ball,” he says.

“To not be able to bowl all of a sudden was very difficult. I had to accept that it would take time. When I started bowling competitively I had to recollect what I had done in the past. I had even forgotten when to appeal for a lbw! But it’s coming back.”

The semifinal against Uttar Pradesh is another opportunity for Balaji to assess where he’s at, but the key question is when he’ll be ready for international cricket.

“I definitely see him getting back to where he was for the simple reason that he has progressed well over the last six months,” says Raman.

“It takes a lot of character to accomplish what he has already. Very few could have come back from where he was, mustering the patience and temperament needed. So with match practice, it will be very interesting to see where he’s at in March-April.”

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu