We've invited some of the very best cricket writers and bloggers to tell us why certain players stand out for them above all others. This week, Minal of Granger Gab and The Sight Screen writes of the most stylish Indian of them all, a man whose nickname was the ultimate compliment: VVS Laxman. Minal tweets @granger_gab, and we really suggest you follow her.
As
much as we love to deny it, we all have a secret crush - the one we
adore but won’t admit because it would mean sharing loyalties with
our one true love. My favourite cricketer has always been and will
always be Rahul Dravid. When the Balanced Sports and World Cricket Watch team asked me to pen a
piece for this series, I saw that Rahul was already spoken for, and thought it best to write about my secret cricketing crush –
the Very Very Very Special Laxman.
In
fact VVS Laxman is the secret crush of every Indian fan. He is the
guy that unites the Tendulkar, Dravid and Dada fans alike. VVS the
last of the Fab Four to hit the scene - his batting - exquisite,
beautiful , elegant - a delight to watch; one that could tempt many a
staunch supporters of any other cricketer to commit infidelity when
it came to this man.
After witnessing the birth of two future batting stalwarts at Lords 1996, India wasn’t quite prepared for the sublime batting that would put her in a trance for the next 16 years.
On
a devilish pitch, probably one of the worst test wickets, a young man
of 22 held fort in the second innings to get 51 after India has
conceded a small lead of 21 runs. No Indian batsmen had got a 50 in
that match barring this young lad. When I was watching him bat, the
teenage me turned to my dad and asked “Papa
since when did the rules allow a batsman to bat twice in the same
innings, why is Azhar playing again?”
Laxman reminded me of Azhar then– still does; the silken grace, the
wristy shots on the on-side, the gift of impeccable timing. These
batsmen from Hyderabad seemed to be blessed with a batting style as
delectable as the Biryani from that land.
But sadly as has been the case with Indian cricket, a permanent place in the packed middle order was always going to be tough. Ganguly came back from his injury and VVS found himself out of the side in the 3rd test of that series. VVS was later asked to open and he never really succeeded in that position; but his affair with Australia started at that very position. In the 99-00 tour VVS wove his first spell of magic on the Aussies at Sydney. He decimated the Aussie attack single-handedly. His 167 in a team total of 261 was intoxication at its best – even today while revisiting the innings you will drown in the beauty and wide array of strokes on display - the ease in his batting, the delicacy of his wrist play. As a friend once said, “Sachin is God, but there are strokes that Laxman plays at times, which Sachin would only dream of.” I have never dared to debate with him on this point.
Post
this series and the one at home against South Africa, Laxman put his
foot down and refused to open. He went back to the domestic grind,
scored big hundreds and forced the selectors to consider him as a
middle-order bat. After a year, Laxman came back to the Indian side
and the rest as they say is history. VVS’s
281 Vs Australia in 2001
still gives me goosebumps when I watch the VCD of the match. He was
the only one who put his hand up in the first innings – getting
59 in a team total of 171
and the last man to be out. Trailing by 274 with the test and series
loss looming large, VVS walked in at number 3 and scripted a miracle
along with Rahul Dravid. What he achieved with that knock did not
merely amount to an Indian victory to be stored in cricket’s record
books, with it he restored the shaken belief of a billion Indian
fans. In that one knock, he truly reflected the attitude that John
Wright and Ganguly were trying to build into this team – to make
them world beaters; he showed that his team was not the one to give
up, had the courage to conquer all demons and withstand all attacks.
That knock laid the first brick to India’s success in test cricket
– of achieving the Numero Uno position. In that one knock –
Laxman weaved his magic forever on us.
