Saturday, June 5, 2010

Looking past the fab four

For over a decade, Team India had the services of arguably the best middle order in modern day test cricket. Famously known as the Fab Four - Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman have played a staggering 80 tests together, spanning over 1996 to 2008. India had won 26, lost 27 and drawn 27 of those 80 tests.

Here are the player-wise records in those 80 tests.
NameRunsHSAvg100
Rahul Dravid651827053.8617
Sachin Tendulkar6692248*53.5319
Sourav Ganguly 433414435.525
V.V.S. Laxman525328146.90

The batting average of Sourav Ganguly drops drastically from his career average of 42.17, while the rest have done well. Sourav however had a more important role to play as the captain of Team India. He should be credited for building a team which had the self-belief to win test matches on foreign soil. Nevertheless, he never did excel in tests as a batsman as he did in One Day Internationals.

Now lets have a look at the current Scenario. Ganguly has already retired and the rest are ageing. Laxman, who is the youngest of the pack will turn 36 coming November. The time is nigh, when the middle order would not have such big names and like all good things, the joy of watching Sachin and Dravid bat with the reassuring Laxman to follow, will come to an end. There are many batsmen who will finally have a chance to showcase their talent in test cricket. For many many years, it was almost impossible to debut in the middle order. Its time now to look for replacements. Here are a few probables who might bag a permanent spot in the side
  1. Yuvraj Singh - With 33 test matches under his belt and over 10 years of experience, Yuvi is a prime contender for a test spot. He is a natural stroke maker with a wide range of shots. Lack of patience has been his nemesis in the longer version of the game.
  2. Rohit Sharma - Monstrously talented, sound technique and wrist work which reminds of Azharrudin. Rohit Sharma has long been tauted as the next big thing of Indian cricket after Sachin Tendulkar. Though it is unfair to expect Sharma to fill the larger-than-life shoes of SRT, he does have the talent to excel in all forms of cricket.
  3. Suresh Raina - With 5 years and 93 matches of ODI experience, Raina should be a front runner for the number 5 or 6 spot, but he isnt. Reason being his less than stellar first class record and his 'block and slog' batting style. Still I feel the selectors would show faith in him.
  4. Murli Vijay - This tall TamilNadu opener has a solid technique and rather surprisingly, he exhibited murderous aggression in season 3 of the IPL. The selectors may look to him to become the next wall of Indian cricket.
  5. Virat Kohli - Many experts look at him as a future captain. He has a cool head on his shoulders, is aggresive yet mature in his approach towards the game. Kohli has done well in the ODIs so far and is an exciting prospect.
  6. Subramaniam Badrinath - Badri is a giant in the domestic circuit. He plays for TamilNadu and has an excellent first class record(6000+ runs with an average in late 50s). He featured in 2 tests in the Ind-SA test series, Feb 2010 and would be hungry for more.
  7. Cheteshwar Pujara - Not so much in the national reckoning, Pujara has knocked at the door several times. Someone who scored three triple centuries in a season cannot be ignored for long. A dismal outing for KKR in the IPL does dent his chances though.
It cannot be the denied that the team will have to undergo a phase of rehabilitation. Look what happened to the mighty Aussies after the retirement of McGrath, Warne, Gilly and Haydos. They suffered series defeats to India,South Africa and England. Will India, who relies heavily on its batting firepower, be able to cope with it? It is difficult, almost impossible, to replace a Tendulkar or a Dravid but cricket will not retire with these stalwarts. The show must go on and hopefully the young brigade would shine to make the loss bearable.