Read this interesting piece of statistics – Indian
openers have made a solitary 100 opening stand while on tours of England, South
Africa, Australia & New Zealand
(between 2009 – 2018) [England 28 innings – high 63; SA 16 innings – high 137;
Australia 16 – 56 highest; New Zealand 10 – 73) – and we say – players succeed
in teams, in tandem with partners. Long
ago, there was the openers – Sunil Manohar Gavaskar and Chetan Chauhan !
The focus shifts to Saurashtra, a region located on
the Arabian Sea coast of Gujarat state. It consists of 7 districts of Gujarat,
including Rajkot District. It is a peninsula also called Kathiawar after the
Kathi Darbar who ruled part of the region once.
The place where the match is tobe played in a new ground is famous for its jewellery market, silk
embroidery and watch parts. The city hosts several small scale manufacturing
industries. The city is also home to one
of the largest CNC machine manufacturer in the country, Jyoti CNC Automation
Pvt. Ltd. That is Rajkot, the third
largest city in the state of Gujarat, after Ahmedabad and Surat. Rajkot was the
capital of the Saurashtra State from 15 April 1948 to 31 October 1956, before
its merger to Bombay State on 1 November 1956. Rajkot was reincorporated into
Gujarat State from May 1, 1960. It is
here the first test against the West Indies is to be played tomorrow and TOI
has this photo ! (at Chepauk, spectators would be treated like animals!)
Back in 1983, when WI visited immediately after their
loss in WC 1983 – it was unbeatable, fearsome team – a team that had : Clive
Lloyd (cap); Gordan Greenidge; Desmond Haynes; Viv Richards, Larry Gomes,
Richie Richardson, Gus Logie, Jeoff Dujon, Malcolm Marshall, Wayne Daniel, Andy
Roberts, Eldine Baptiste, Michael Holding, Winston Davis, Roger Harper and
Milton Pydanna (second WK_) – the manager was Wesley Hall.
The little master very strong in defence sunil
Gavaskar was threatening not to open, having had various partners including
Eknath Solkar, Farokh Engineer, Parthasarathi Sharma, Anshuman Gaekwad, Chetan
Chauhan, Pranab Roy, Krish Srikkanth,Arun Lal, Ghulam Parker – to name a
few. Indian selectors were seriously
searching for good openers – and Rajan Bala wrote – ‘who is to partner CS
Sureshkumar’ – underlining that the TN Opener had the correct technique and in
the absence for Sunil, Selectors should find someone who would open with CS
Suraishkumar, who had many tons in Ranji.
He did play against the visitors at Nagpur turning for Board President’s
XI – openers being Pranob Roy and Navjot Sidhu – besides Suresh, there were
Ashok Malhotra, Gursharan Singh, Chandrakant Pandit, L Sivaramakrishnan, Raju
Kulkarni, Chetan Sharma, Shivlal Yadav & Maninder Singh.
A few days earlier, the Indian had been handed a
humiliating innings defeat at Kanpur. In West Indies' first innings, India had
had their chances, having reduced the mighty tourists to 157 for 5 at one
stage. But Gordon Greenidge, en route to a monumental 194 that took over nine
hours, put on partnerships of 152 and 130 with Jeff Dujon and Malcolm Marshall,
to guide West Indies to 454. Then we saw
how quick and menacing Malcolm Marshall was - in two balls, he made his mark,
dismissing Sunil Gavaskar, caught behind for a duck. India 0 for 1. A few
deliveries later, Mohinder Amarnath, about to begin his infamous
"binary" run of scores, was leg-before for a duck. India 0 for 2. Gaekwad,
poking desperately, edged one to Dujon and left, India 9 for 3. Vengsarkar’s
stumps went for a fierce walk - 18 for
4. Winston Davis, happy to wade into the
carnage Marshall had engendered, snapped up Ravi Shastri for a blob. India 29
for 5. India ended the day at 34 for 5, with Marshall's bowling figures reading
8-5-9-4. Cue the most famous headline in modern Indian cricket history:
"Marshall Law in Kanpur". India were only able to recover partially
before subsiding to 207 all out. Following
on, India again lost their first five
wickets under 50, three of them to Marshall, and they went on to lose by an
innings and 83 runs. (This little spell of play featured a moment familiar to
all Indian fans who watched the telecast: Gavaskar's bat knocked out of his
hand by a Marshall scorcher.)
The present WI team is nowhere close to dreaming such
a spell – and Indian selectors are toying with opening slot - keeping
faith in Prithvi Shaw and bringing on Mayank Agarwal. Murali Vijay has made runs in foreign soil, but
failed in England and so did Shikhar Dhawan.
KL Rahul made runs once the series was over – at Rajkot one of the
rookies is bound to make their debut as opening partner to KL Rahul on Thursday
- may just come down to the runs they've got, or more specifically the way in
which they've got them. Agarwal began turning heads in the 2017-18 Ranji
Trophy, when he racked up 1160 in 13 innings at a strike-rate of 68.80. He's
always been a hard-hitter of the ball, particularly when he is able to flat-bat
it right through the line. Shaw, by the way, has gone even quicker, scoring
76.69 per 100 balls even as he averages 56.72. But tons of players have
walloped domestic bowlers around. It doesn't guarantee that they'll be able to
make the step up, let alone reprise such a dangerous style of cricket.
Whatever the conditions, the spotlight will be on
Agarwal and Shaw. In the last 10 years, India have had only one instance of the
openers putting on 100 runs or more while on tour in Australia, England, New
Zealand and South Africa. The West
Indies have been dealt a serious blow even before a ball has been bowled in
what is likely to be a tough Two-Test series against India. Kemar Roach, their
leading pacer, will miss the opening Test at the SCA Stadium here as he has
been forced to fly back to Barbados following the death of his grandmother. He
will re-join the squad midway through the first Test beginning here on
Thursday. Roach has played 48 Tests, in which he’s taken 163 wickets at 28.31.
In July, he had taken five wickets in just 12 balls at the Sir Vivian Richards
Stadium in North Sound, Antigua, to send Bangladesh crashing to 43 all out —
the lowest total in Test cricket in the last 44 years. It was his eighth
five-wicket haul. The Caribbeans are set to miss both his experience and pace
on what is likely to be a fairly grassy track here.
Interestingly, if you remember, there was this lad –
Abhinav Mukund who was pitchforked as an opener in foreign soil. His career stats read : 7 matches 320 runs –
here is how they came debut at Kingston June 2011 : 11 & 25;
Bridgetown 1 & 48; Roseau 62; England 2011 – Lords 49 & 12; Nottingham
0 & 3; then 6 years wait in Mar 2017 against Australia at Bengaluru 0 &
16 – his final change was against Srilanka at Galle – 12 & 81. Yes, in his last innings he made 81 !! and
never looked up thereafter
With regards – S. Sampathkumar
3rd Oct 2018.
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