Not many would have been following the
Ranji Trophy, Group C: Chhattisgarh v Hyderabad –match at Valsad !
.. Many Pakistanis also may not remember Ijaz Faqih who played 5 Tests
and 27 One dayers – but is part of history !!
According
to Warren Buffet, principles of life and investing often parallel each
other. He says ‘you only have to do a
very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things
wrong”. One should feel sorry for today’s children – for often they are
pressurised into doing or becoming whatever their parents wanted to achieve
[but never achieved perhaps] in life. From the times when children were
desperate in capturing the attention of elders, the present day parents try to
have the child’s attention all the times.
Matching the parental expectation becomes the single most arduous task
for the child. In the city, you find so many Sports training / coaching camps – cricket camps have
mushroomed in every open area. The coaches talk of nurturing the cricketer from
their childhood, making them mentally tough, making them hungry for
accomplishment and more..
Their
eyes glisten in seeing their kid in cricketing flannel – a dream of becoming
Sachin Tendulkar. There is a story that everyday tens of villagers get down at
Chennai Central or Egmore railway station dreaming to become a star in cinema
……. How many of them live to realise their dream is too well known. So, what is accomplishment in Sports ? The
first ever ODI was played in 1971; India played theirs in 1974 and only in 1983
– the first century by an Indian was registered – Kapil Dev’s magnificent 175
n.o at Trentbridgewells. Sachin did not
make a ton in his first 80 ODI matches but today he has more than 50. Before
the advent of IPL & T20, cricketers rose from domestic tournaments –
premier amongst them being the Ranji Trophy & Duleep Trophy – Deodhar
later.
The
run to top started with Charles Bannerman who with 239 topped the list for a
while; then naturally he was taken over by others which included Billy Murdoch,
Joe Darling, Clem Hill, Jack Hobbs, Wally Hammond, Colin Cowdrey, and then
Garfield Sobers with 8032 runs. At that
point of time, scoring 8000 runs in Test Cricket was considered Himalayan
achievement. Geoff Boycott broke that
and in that Test went on to play Golf without caring to be with the team.
29 years ago, the little Master’s nudge
took him past 10000 runs which was remarkable achievement those days; he ended
up with 10122 and was overtaken by Allan Border, then Brian Lara – now Sachin
is at the pinnacle of glory with 15921 runs. It was on 7th March 1987, Sunil Gavaskar nudged
through the slips off Ijaz Faqih moving on to 58 runs at Motera – Sardar Patel Stadium which sent the
crowd erupting. It was the first
time ever a batsman had scored 10,000 runs in Test Cricket. Indian Wicket Keeper Kiran More was the
non-striker and he was reported as saying that Gavaskar celebrated it as he
never did earlier – Sprinting, waving the bat and enjoying the moment. Gavaskar raised his bat in triumph even as he
was mid way completing the run. To the millions watching the TV, that was a
feat which nobody else can ever acquire…. Records are meant to be broken, first
by Alan Border and happily we have Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar perched on top.
Gavaskar
was a supreme accumulator of runs and would wait patiently when things were not
easy – he scored 63 in that match. He
was certainly one Indian batsmen who redefined the art of run scoring and
accumulating runs, putting a value tag to the wicket. Now in that 10000 Test runs club, we have
Sachin, Ponting, Kallis, Dravid, Sangakkara, Lara, Chanderpaul, Jayawardene,
Alan Border, Steve Waugh, A Cook and Sunil Gavaskar.
There is another man with appetite ~ but never as
successful – a run-hungry S Badrinath has been the mainstay of the Tamil Nadu
batting since the mid-2000s, and has also captained them. Badrinath stands tall
at the crease, and plays with a correct technique. He was pitchforked into the
national consciousness in 2005-06 when he nearly topped the batting charts,
scoring 636 runs from seven matches at almost 80, missing pole position by 36
runs to Amol Muzumdar, who played one match more. At Valsad, with his 32nd first-class century, Subramaniam Badrinath
went past 10,000 runs in first-class cricket. Leading Hyderabad in the ongoing
Ranji Trophy season, the batsman scored 134 against Chhattisgarh in the seventh
round of the tournament to reach the milestone.
With this Badri became the 47th Indian to complete 10000 runs in first
class Cricketer.
Read it again – it is first class
Cricket and not Ranji Trophy !!! Badri
made his Test debut against SA in Feb 2010 scored 56 in his first outing, then
had another 2 innings to play ! He
batted in another 6 ODI innings too. In
Ranji, at the top is Wasim Jaffer with 10143; then Amol Mazumdar, D Bundela,
Mithun Manhas, H Kanitkar, Amarjit Kaypee, Pankaj Dharmani, SH Kotak, RR Parida
and Badri with 7516 runs.
What
does it take to succeed in life – Playing for India would ever remain the
highest priority for any cricketer. With
such prolific scoring and abundant talent, Amol Mazumdar was never selected to
play for the Nation despite a first class average of 50+ Heart-broken he considered quitting the game
in 2002 but somehow continues to play in the Ranji format. Amol overtook the other great scorer Amarjit
Kaypee – who again never played for India in a Test of an One dayer. There are some others in that list, who
nevert were close to playing for the Nation.
Incidentally, the highest wicket taker in Ranji, Rajinder Goel with 637
wickets never played for India.
So
what is success, is it good performance, reaching higher echelons, abundant talent or easy recognition…… one can have enormous talent but still might
go unrecognised is what the lives of Amol Mazumdar, Kaypee, Dharmani, Goels –
all represent …….. there are many many more who never got their due credit or
never attained the heights they deserved in life… do we call them unsuccessful
!!
Anbe Vaa, the movie starring M. G. Ramachandran and Saroja Devi
released in 1966 had the Q ‘Test match puriyuma ?’ ~
do you understand Test match, which at that time was considered to be
understood only by elites.
With
regards – S. Sampathkumar
22nd
Nov 2016.
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