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SPORTS: CRICKET
Escape To Victory
India's stunning reversal of fortune in the second
test match against Australia in Kolkata created history, a hero and a
new hope for the future.
By Pradeep Magazine
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HAT-TRICK HERO:
Harbhajan Singh and friends bid farewell to another Australian |
In a country given
to hyperbole, where even little achievements are blown into larger than
life images, India's stunning victory over the Australians in the Kolkata
test will forever remain one of its greatest sporting achievements.
On day three of the Test, the notorious Kolkata
crowd had almost turned its back to the match. "What is the point
of going to see India lose once again?'' a disgusted fan, trying to scalp
his ticket outside the stadium, asked his friend. It wasn't difficult
to agree with the desolate youngster. A nation was in despair: the Indian
team had every possible slur slung at them: match-fixers, men hungry for
money not runs, sellers of pro-ducts, not talent ...
There wasn't any hope. In Mumbai, India had
lost to the team they call "the Invincibles" within three days.
In Kolkata, by the third afternoon, the Australians' clinical precision
and sheer professionalism had forced India to follow on and the margin
of the deficit was a staggering 274 runs. As Sachin Tendulkar-the only
one who counted for something and sometimes everything in the team-started
his walk back to the pavilion for just 10 runs in the second innings when
the score had barely crossed 100, even the gods in their heaven could
not have prevented the Indian team's journey into hell. The boy at the
gate naturally didn't want to waste his time.
And then it or rather he happened. Vangipurappu
Venkata Sai Laxman. A man with a complicated name and a simple game. In
the first innings, he came in at No. 6, and people wondered whether this
was the same Laxman who had played a stunning innings in Sydney last January.
There, he had scored a hundred which, like many hundreds from Indian players,
became significant only to the individual not the team. In Sydney, the
Indians lost the Test by an innings, allowing the Australians to complete
a 3-0 sweep of the series.
The 26-year-old Hyderabadi, in and out of the
Indian team for the past four years, constantly shuffled in the batting
order, soon exposed the Australian attack. Anything short was pulled,
anything pitched-up was driven with effortless ease. He got to a half-century
in the hardy company of tailenders.
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| THE COOLEST ONES: Laxman and
David savour their record-breaking day |
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But fifties save neither matches nor humiliation
and India was down in the dumps yet again. Then, for the second time in
an hour Laxman walked in to bat. This time at No. 3, a position previously
occupied by Rahul Dravid with tremendous distinction. Except that against
the Australians, Dravid's slow batting had often led people to wonder
why he was occupying the crease but not scoring, allowing the opposition
to maul him. When Dravid came in to bat at No. 6, Laxman was still at
the crease and India looked set for an innings defeat. But it was not
to be. The two set in motion a partnership that defied most predictions,
allowing the seeds of a historic recovery to sprout.
On the third evening, people weren't selling
tickets, they were searching for them. By the fourth day, a miracle had
been wrought. Laxman had, by unanimous consensus, played one of the greatest
innings by an Indian. In the process, overtaking record after record-the
first and most significant being Sunil Gavaskar's 236, till March 14 the
highest by an Indian in a Test.
Ravi Shastri, who scored the only other Indian
double hundred against the Australians, was the most effusive. "The
only two innings I can think of that come anywhere near it is the 97 scored
by Gundappa Vishwanath against the West Indies in 1974 and Sachin Tendulkar's
155 against the Australians in 1998,'' said Shastri. "Laxman's innings
was against the best team in the world, a team which doesn't give a single
run cheaply and it came at a time when it was impossible to think India
could draw this game, let alone win it.''
The highest praise, putting Laxman's marathon
melody in even better perspective, came from former Indian middle-order
batsman Sanjay Manjrekar: "This has been the most selfless innings
played by an Indian. Never for a moment did Laxman think of himself, not
even on the fifth morning of the match when he could have tried to get
his triple hundred." Manjrekar then went across to Tendulkar to tell
him that at last the man to relieve him of his burden had been found.
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