Ratra's success proves the value of persevering with talent
Partab Ramchand - 13 May 2002
In these days of instant food, instant coffee and instant
communication, it is tempting to look for instant results. Towards
achieving this objective, old-fashioned virtues of patience and
forbearance, tolerance and reasoning are sometimes given the go by.
Unfortunately, instant results are not always possible. Some things
take time to mature and grow in the traditional manner. The same is
true in sport. It is not every cricketer who scores a century or has a
match haul of ten wickets in his first Test. Even a prodigiously
gifted player like Sachin Tendulkar got his first Test hundred in only
his ninth match.
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I am mentioning all this now keeping in mind the example of Ajay
Ratra. The 20-year-old wicket-keeper from Haryana, according to
reports, came very close to being dropped for the Antigua Test.
Plainly put, I could not comprehend why such a move was even being
contemplated. True, he had scored just 16 runs in four innings. But
then he is a specialist wicket-keeper whose batting should be
considered a bonus. And from all accounts, he had kept reasonably well
at Port of Spain and Bridgetown.
It is about time we stopped this obsession with wicket-keeper batsmen.
If there is an Engineer and Kirmani who can bat as well as he can
keep, that's fine. But in the absence of such a player, it is always
better to go in for a specialist `keeper rather than a sub standard
stumper who can score a few runs. In the long run, the latter is a
short-term policy from which the team will not benefit.
But then if Ratra came close to being dropped though good sense
finally prevailed among the team management it is part of a larger
malaise. The policy of hiring and firing rather indiscriminately is
quite common in Indian cricket. Young players are hardly given
adequate opportunities to prove their credentials.
This is best exemplified in the following statistic. Of the some 240
cricketers who have been given Test caps, an alarmingly high
proportion of about 80 roughly a third have played in one or two
matches. Australia, on the other hand, is known for giving its players
a fair trial and this is borne out by figures. Of the nearly 400
cricketers who have represented the country in Tests since 1877, only
about 80 just about a fifth have played in one or two matches.
Certainly this benign and refreshing approach is one of the reasons
why Australia enjoys the pre-eminent position in world cricket not
only today but also in overall results of matches played since Test
cricket was first played a century and a quarter ago.
My favourite stories about how perseverance by Australian selectors
has yielded long-term results concern Arthur Morris, Richie Benaud and
Alan Davidson. In his first 13 Tests, Benaud took just 23 wickets at
enormous cost and did not even score a half-century. In his first 12
Tests, Davidson got only 16 wickets and hit one half-century. In
Indian cricket, such results would have meant banishment from the Test
arena. But aware that theirs was a case of potential far outweighing
performance, the selectors and team managements one must add gave
them every encouragement and this far sighted policy paid off rich
dividends as the whole cricketing world knows.
Benaud became the first cricketer to achieve the double of 2000 runs
and 200 wickets besides being one of the outstanding captains in the
game's history - while Davidson, one of the leading all-rounders of
his time, finished with 186 wickets from 44 Tests at an average of
20.53.
Again, in the case of Morris, the scores in his first two Tests were 2
and 5. If he had been an Indian cricketer, that would have been the
end of his Test career. Yet going by the adage `Form is temporary,
class is permanent', the selectors picked him for the third Test. The
left-hander later to find a place in Don Bradman's dream team -
repaid their confidence by scoring 155, the first of three centuries
in successive Test innings and he remained Australia's No 1 opening
batsman for the next decade.
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This roughshod policy in Indian cricket has been particularly rampant
in the case of wicket-keepers. This at least was one slot in which
there was more than a semblance of permanence in the Indian team,
right from Engineer and Kunderan to Kirmani and More, from the 1960s
to the 1990s.
In the last couple of years, the selectors have created more than a
sense of just uncertainty in dealing with this crucial position. Once
Nayan Mongia for reasons still unclear, went out of favour, the
stumper's place has been filled with no sense of permanency - by MSK
Prasad, Samir Dighe, Vijay Dahiya, Saba Karim, Deep Dasgupta and Ajay
Ratra. This kind of hiring and firing does no good in bolstering the
morale of a team that is already beset by inherent weaknesses.
It is to be hoped that Ratra has now cemented his place in the side
and the game of musical chairs for the stumper's slot is finally over.
The selectors would also do well to learn by Ratra's example that a
policy of hiring and firing will not yield dividends in the long run,
that deserving cricketers should get a fair trial and that a
discerning approach is what Indian cricket needs. It is ironical that
it has taken Ratra a feat with the bat to consolidate his place behind
the stumps. But then such ironies are a disturbing aspect of Indian
cricket.
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