Wednesday 22 August 2012

Ek Tha Laxman...!

"O paalan haare, Nirgun aur nyaare,
Tumhre bin hamraa kauno naahi,
Hamri uljhan, Suljhao 'Laxman'
Tumhre bin hamraa kauno naahi..."

More often than not, Indian dressing room and the Test-cricket-lover would be praying this song in the critical phases of a match when he came to bat. One of the important rangers of the Fantastic-Fours, he is V.V.S. Laxman. It is said that God always gives something special to everyone, we need to identify it. To Laxman, he gave the very very special skill of playing a savior role and long innings. Whenever required, he identified and used it to the great effect for India, by playing classical patient innings. Real character of a Test player is seen prominently in the third or the fourth innings, Laxman showed that character in most of his matches. One more special factor about Laxman’s innings was - the effectiveness ratio. Whenever he scored runs, India either won or salvaged a draw.

Against any top team, Laxman always excelled where others failed. After the descent start against S. Africa in 1996, his career took a big leap in the year 1999 against Australia in Sydney, when he scored 160-odd runs in the third innings. Australian media that time ignored Laxman’s innings by saying, 'The match was already surrendered by India and Steve Waugh had placed attacking field leaving plenty of vacant spaces to score the runs'. Laxman didn’t mind it and played the XXL innings in 2001 Kolkata test that demolished Steve Waugh's dream of winning in India. From there on, his bat spoke (with loudspeaker) most of the time against Australia, which forced Australian media to take note of his contribution. After that innings, they didn’t even try to use the M.D. theory on him during the tour.

Fluency in playing the shots was highlight of Laxman's batting. Crispy in flicks, back-foot cover drive and square drive. He was even used to square-drive the deliveries short just outside the off-stump.

Flicking off the pads through the mid-wicket and driving through the covers off the back-foot was as delicious as the Hyderabadi Biryani. Shane Warne, Stuart Macgill tried their best to trap him in the mid-wicket and cover areas, by bowling round-the-wicket; but could not succeed. In fact, it offered Laxman to score freely. Very few players use their feet to play the spinners, Laxman was one of them.

Playing for India in Test cricket is always a position full of thorns. Laxman sustained these thorns for sixteen years accommodating himself at various positions from opening to number7. Despite playing match-winning/saving innings, his place in the team was always under scrutiny with two to three failures (perfect words in Marathi - “nehmi Gas var hota”). Our half-knowledge media criticized him for his poor footwork against fast bowlers, inconsistent performance, laziness in running between the wicket. But his supporters (I was one of them) and his faith in himself stood strong saying,

“Woh toh hai albela... Hazaaron mein akela,
Sadaa tumne aib dekha, Hunar ko na dekha...”

I had seen the below picture on Facebook which is self-explanatory for the greatness of Laxman. No very very special words or elaboration is required to give him the tribute...



Ritesh R. Kadam
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