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Vibrant vista of India-Pakistan cricket

Raju Bharatan

23 January 1999


IS there anything to beat an India-Pakistand off? Nothing in the world if the stand-off is to come off in India or Pakistan itself! Recall how both David Shepherd and Steve Bucknor had their hearts in their mouths when they walked out to umpire the India-Pakistan, March 1996 World Cup quarter-final encounter at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore.

Bangalore, in fact, was the watershed venue where India and Pakistan last met over five days - in the March 1987 fifth and final Test that sealed the rubber 1-0 in favour of Imran Khan and co. The 16 runs that then separated the two teams in the final reckoning could so easily have seen India (rather than Pakistan) win that see-saw series 1-0 to revive misty memories of the 2-0 beating that Sunil Gavaskar's spirited squad handed out to Asif Iqbal's Pakistan - where else if not at Chepauk, on January 20, 1980. And it was the very same Sunil Gavaskar (96) who stood as a one-man road-block between Pakistan and India on March 15 and 17, 1987, at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in that deciding Test that this ace opener all but clinched for India.

It is the amazing fashion in India to deride Sunil Gavaskar as a fair-weather opener to uphold the suzerainty of G. R. Viswanath, whose admirers argue, to this day. That Sunny's batting never won a Test match for India. What about that needle January 1980 Cheapauk Test in which Gavaskar's Atlas-like 166 and 29 not out (compared to Visvanath's 16) fetched for India perhaps its most coveted rubber ever - one against Packer-packed Pakistan?

Again, only technically did India fail to win when Gavaskar had the scoring drop on Visvanath in the August-September 1979 Oval Test vs Brearley's England and the March 1987 Bangalore Test vs Imran Khan's Pakistan. That Gavaskar's 221 in the one Test and 96 in the other did not logically result in wins for India (in those two suspense-thrillingly finishing matches) was but the luck of the game mocking Sunny. For that 221 rates as a Gavaskar classic and that 96 as a Sunny epic. Umpire V. K. Ramaswamy, in fact, had the grace to acknowledge that he might have erred in ruling Gavaskar out, caught bat-pad by Rizwan-us-Zaman off Iqbal Qasim, in the case of that 96. Yet Gavaskar walked the moment Ramaswamy signalled him out, probably because, first thing on that determinant March 17 morning, a similar 'close-up' decision had gone in his favour! Remember the ruckus that the Pakistan team, masterminded by Javed Maindad, created (on the Chinnaswamy Stadium field) when Sunil was so ruled not out in the latter part of that 96, putting the stamp on him as the technician supreme. Their spot-mobilised ire arose from the relisation that Gavaskar was the one batsman who could still turn that Bangalore Test (and the series) India's way.

It was Sunny's private contention later that ''the brute of a ball'' from Iqbal Qasim had grazed his arm-protector on its way to Rizwan as a 'catch'. The Chinnaswamy Stadium wicket on which Sunny crafted that 96 against Pakistan aptly came to be identified as a ''minefield''. Like Sir Donald Bradman (6,996 Tests runs from 79 innings) needing only a four to average 100.00 (when bowled for a duck by 'the bosie of bosies' from Eric Hollies), Gavaskar here required but a similar boundary-hit to reach what would have been his 35th hundred for India - 6 more tons than those by the Don for Australia, albiet from 134 more innings! That Bangalore 96 by Sunny against Pakistan was interpreted by the media as the Little Master's sayonara, all the more so as Gavaskar invited a select band of journalists, after that knock, for a cup of tea. But it just was not Sunny's cup of tea to see it end in the 90's even ''in the December of my career''! He waited for his moment of international focus and, when the eyes of the cricketing world were still trained on him, came up with that 188 in the MCC Bicentenary match the same year (1987) at Lord's. The Mecca of 'Farewell to Cricket'!

Where Visvanath was all style, Gavaskar was all substance. Once you persuade yourself to view it in that objective light, you come to observe the two as the Corsican Brothers-in-law of Indian cricket. India, against an implacable cricketing foe like Pakistan, was only as strong, in batting, as these two ideal- foils-to-each-other could get it to be. The moment Visvanath came unstuck (1) 24 and 0; 53 and 9; 0 and 37; (10) in that numbing 1982-83 series in Pakistan, India was nowhere. Imran Khan cut like a swathe through the Indian batting (40 wickets at 13.95 runs each), nothing that even the indomitable Mohinder Amarnath could do (109 not out, 5 and 3, 22 and 78, 61 and 64, 120, 19 and 103 not out) helped salvage enough from the wreckage. Even Sunil Gavaskar's 83, 8 and 42, 12 and 127 not out, 17 and 60, 13, 5 and 67 could not ward off the spectacle of the Indian captaincy (at the end of the tour of Pakistan) passing to Kapil Dev - the very way it had passed from Bishen Singh Bedi to Sunny, across the Wagah border, towards the end of 1978, as we were whipped 2-0 by Mushtaq Mohammad's superbly charged team.

Thus Sunil Gavaskar was to India what Len Hutton was to England. Just as G. R. Visvanath was to India what Denis Compton was to England. On crystal-clear Pakistan TV, rewind the mental tape to that super 145 Visvanath hit (as a follow-up to Gavaskar's 89) in the October 1978 first Test at Iqbal Stadium, Faisalabad, on the resumption (after 18 years) of cricketing hostilities between the two countries. That was the Test match during which we saw Lal Krishna Advani (as India's I&B Minister in the Janata Government) materialise in the commentary-box to be interviewed by the Urdu telecaster who had, up to that point, been loudly wondering about how Pakistan was going to see the back of Visvanath after Gavaskar had shown the way from up front. Vividly etched in my mind is the way that Urdu commentator shrank away, as L. K. Advani let viewers know that Faisalabad had been in the nature of a 'homecoming' to him, since he was born in the Sindh part of Pakistan. That young-looking Urdu commentator drew away from Mr. Advani obviously because he associated his persona with the RSS.

But now, when the BJP-led government, at the Centre, has cleared the Pakistan tour of India, when there is a 'ground'-swell of opionion in favour of the dictum that 'the game must go on', there is the Shiv Sena to dig up the past.

Chepauk and Chennai have a cricketing tradition to maintain, so that the hope is that nothing extraneous will be allowed to influence the course of the first Test between India and Pakistan (due to begin next Thursday). Those venturing to disrupt proceedings need to be reminded of how there was a time when India's Test status itself was in peril on this very account. I am talking of Partition (in August 1947) and its cricketing aftermath. As Pakistan, in consequence, became a playing entity in itself, the ICC (then the Imperial Cricket Conference), at its meeting in London during the start of the 1948 English summer, expressed a certain anxiety about India's continuing viability as a Test-playing country.

India's record in Test cricket (even as a unified nation up to that point) had been far from flattering. We had tamely lost, 0- 2, the 1933-34 three-Test series at home to Douglas Jardine's England, after having surrendered our maiden Test at Lord's (in June 1932) by 158 runs. The two tours of England by India, under the Maharajkumar of Vizianagram in 1936 and the Nawab of Pataudi (Sr) in 1946, had only raised further queries about India's intrinsic worth as a Test-playing nation, the three-match series (on both visits) being lost (0-2 and 0-1) without a real fight being put up.

For all the individual brilliance of Vijay Merchant as an opener, for all the all-round skills of Lala Amarnath and Vinoo Mankad, the fact remained, as the MCC saw it, that India fell well short of international class even before Partition. In the circumstances, our disastrous 'Independent India' tour of Australia (led by Don Bradman) in 1947-48 did nothing to erase the impression that this nation was there still, on the international scene, by the imperious grace of Lord's.

Vijay Hazare might have done free India proud in the Adealide Test (116 and 145) as a batsman of obvious Test class during that 1947-48 tour of Australia, Lala Amarnath might have created a tremendous impression as a leader of men even while failing to translate his great State-level form to tangible Test scores. In the face of all that, the way we lost that series (0-4) to Bradman's Australia, the MCC continued to entertain doubts about India's ability to deliver at the highest level.

It was therefore hardly an opportune time for India to press Pakistan's case for Test status in mid-1948. India's move in this direction only led to its own Test standing, in the game, being further questioned! So much so that it was with some difficulty that the Indian Cricket Board could succeed in persuading the MCC to leave our own Test status undisturbed! Indeed, that mid-1948 ICC meeting was not unanimous in giving ''divided India'' a grace period of two years to see whether we could perform better at Test level.

Undeterred, India continued to put up Pakistan's case and, in July 1952, A. N. Ghose (as our Cricket Board's Honorary Secretary) proposed, afresh the name of Pakistan as a Test- playing country. Considerable diplomatic activity thus went into fetching Pakistan Test status.

I touch upon all this to underline that there should, logically, have been more meaningful interaction between the two countries at Testplaying level than the growing acrimony we have seen over the last 45 years. Maybe, in the early years, politics had its part to play in vitiating the atmosphere. But as we approach the end of the century, as the two countries have (by now) met often enough in 'neutral' territory, one would expect to see the old barriers crumbling.

Thus the two Test matches (due to be played in Chennai and Delhi) going through without interruption would help send its own message to the world at this sensitive juncture. One of my poignant Indo-Pak memories is of the Pakistan Services and Bahawalpur XI being invited to play at the Brabourne Stadium (late in 1954) as part of the Bombay Cricket Association's silver jubilee celebrations. Never here can I forget viewing Subhash Gupte claiming all 10 wickets in an innings (for 78 runs) against the visiting side.

Nor can I erase from my mindset seeing Imtiaz Ahmed (turning out for the Indian Prime Minister's XI against the Second Commonwealth team in 1950-51) hit a polished 300 not out at the same Brabourne Stadium. Two rare feats in cricket - 10 wickets in a single innings by an Indian, a triple hundred by a Pakistani bat in hand.

No, I am not getting sentimental, just drawing attention to the fact that, if there could be such informal cricketing exchanges at the height of Indo-Pak tension, things should pragmatically have been better, not worse. But then those were the times of Jawaharlal Nehru and the man had a world view. Today our political vision is such that the BJP says the tour must go on, but its ally, the Shiv Sena, is out to put a spoke in the cartwheel action of Wasim Akram.

To be sure, a India-Pakistan five-day contest is not going to be easy going. Where the game is still viewed through a prism of emotion and passion, there are bound to be hurdles to overcome. But it is time those hurdles are swept away. Bitter feelings are aroused during the ashes contest, a series between the West Indies and South Africa touches the gut in both parts of the world, yet the game goes on. So must the game go on, at Test level, in the case of India and Pakistan too, It must be a game keenly, even ruthlessly, fought. But, beyond such combat, the spirit prevailing has to be the mood that Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi tried to recapture when he wrote:
''I want to win just as badly as anyone else - within the written laws of cricket and the unwritten laws of sportsmanship. A game isn't worth playing unless you are trying to win. But if, having tried your utmost, you still lose, it is not the end of the world.''

Would it have been the end of Tiger Pataudi's career for India - like it virtually was the finish of Abbas Ali Baig (in 1960-61), following scores of 1, 13, 19 and 1 in the first three Tests against Pakistan if the prince had replaced that thoroughbred in the Indian team then?

For even as Nari Contractor was confirmed as captain of India after the first two Tests against Pakistan late in 1960, who do you think was summoned to the nets (in the wake of Baig's continuing failure) midway through that series? Who but the Nawab of Pataudi (Jr) for what remained of a Indo-Pak series that had proved the undoing of Abbas Ali Baig, rated then as a better prospect than Tiger by Poly Umrigar.

Mohammed Azharuddin leads in tough times no doubt - in the full glare of TV. But the pressure that built up on the soft-spoken Baig, in 1960-61, was of an altogether different dimension, stemming as it did from the very attitude of mind that led to that attempt to cut the Kotla ground from under our feet.

One thing I can say from what I got to know of Tiger, the man, during the years I drew fairly close to Pataudi. This is that Pataudi would have been a temperamental and psychological misfit in a series against Pakistan, given the 'two-nation' background still prevailing in 1961.

To think that it is at Chennai that Tiger Pataudi, if picked then, would have made his debut for India (in the fourth Test after the dropping of Baig)! Tiger Pataudi's very approach to the game laidback, taciturn and withdrawn at all times - would have been mistaken for indifference to India's cause at the turn of the 1960's.

By way of a postscript, between which two players, do you imagine, did the choice for the January 1961, fourth Test against Pakistan at Madras lie? Between Chandu Borde and Tiger Pataudi! As Borde, then still playing for his place, proceeded to hit his Test career-best 177 not out in that Madras Test against Pakistan, the advent of Tiger Pataudi was delayed. Happily, I say, considering the litmus Test that Madras would have been in January 1961, for the Nawab of Pataudi against Pakistan.

Source: The Hindu