“Ravi Shastri maximized what God gave him,” said commentator
Harsha Bhogle in an interview. It is
perhaps the most perfect summation of a man who has polarized opinions like few
other, yet was a vital, if underappreciated, cog in the Indian cricket wheel of
the 1980s. It was a wheel full of
incredibly talented cogs that didn’t always work in concert with one
another. It was a wheel that occasionally
spun in the right direction and achieved notable successes but to me, the
Indian cricket saga of the 1980s, especially from 1986-90 was a story of how
much further the wheel could have traveled had the cogs been realigned.
On youtube, if you search for videos of Shastri batting, you
unfortunately will find only one rather unflattering post of a Shastri innings
of 10 off 63 balls, that too in an ODI.
Yes, you read that right – 10 off 63 balls! Yes, that’s one fifth of the innings consumed
for 10 runs (that funnily enough includes a boundary!) Yet, the video is a sad representation of a
man who not only hit six sixes in an over in a first class match but also, when
backed by the team management and selectors, could go anywhere from being a dour
opener to a very useful lower order hitter.
Sure, there is no excuse for an innings of 10 off 63 balls. The truth is there were days when Shastri could
not get the ball off the square. There
were days when Shastri could not bring himself to run quick singles. Heck, there were days when Shastri could not
bring himself to get out and end his (and the spectators’) misery. But if you carefully look at the statistics
of his career and try to get some context for some of his awful
miscalculations, you will quickly realize that it is mostly concentrated in the
last part of his career. To understand
Shastri’s failures in the last two or three years of his career (the notable
exception being his typically solid-but-not-spectacular 206 at Sydney where he
made a mess of Shane Warne’s debut) is to understand the failures of the Indian
cricket system. But a bit of context
first…
The first five years of Shastri’s career offered ample
evidence of his ability to adapt and to evolve.
In his debut series against NZ in 1981, he was primarily an off spinner
who could bat lower in the order. By
1983, he opened the batting against Pakistan, in Pakistan, and scored 128. By 1985, he alternated between opening the
batting and batting in the middle order (in Tests and ODIs), his off spin was
marginally effective but the most important development was that he had become
vice-captain by the age of 23. Mentored
and backed to the hilt by Sunil Gavaskar, Shastri came into his own as an
effective, thinking cricketer who was an integral part of the think tank and
was built up to be the future captain.
Gavaskar stepped down as the captain after the victorious 1985 WCC and
Kapil Dev took over with the hope that he would recreate the magic and deliver
on the promise of the 1983 World Cup win.
But if you dig deeper, you will see that Kapil rarely had the smarts as
the captain. What he could do was lead
the way with stunning performances with the bat or ball but it was very rare
that Kapil could stomp his authority as a captain through an intelligent
tactical move or an inspired choice of selection. By 1986, Dilip Vengsarkar had become one of
the best batsmen in the world, stylishly crafting century after century. The powers of Indian cricket, in their
infinite wisdom, decided that the best player in the team would become captain.
So, after the fiasco of the 1987 World
Cup, Kapil was sacked and Vengsarkar became captain. As Harsha Bhogle notes in his biography of
Azhar, the two year grooming period of Shastri was completely wasted.
What Shastri possessed were a shrewd mind and a go-getter
spirit. Where Vengsarkar won over was in
sheer batting talent. It poses a very
interesting question – who should lead a team?
A less talented but smart youngster or a more senior, more talented but
less astute leader? Save a home series
win against a NZ side, Vengsarkar’s tenure was a failure, not only in terms of
less than stellar results but also low team morale and poor direction for
talented players. (Vengsarkar was once
supposed to have yelled at Azhar from the pavilion when the latter was in the
middle, batting slower than what Vengsarkar expected!)
Shastri meanwhile continued to be an effective all-rounder
(even if not a dominating one), even making a fighting century in the West
Indies. His performance in the Tied Test
betrayed his shrewd cricketing mind.
Sure, he exposed the last man Maninder Singh to Greg Matthews but it was
only after he played a superb knock under pressure (48 off 40 balls…in a Test;
Mr. Youtube poster, why not post this?!) and ensured that India did not lose. By the late 80s, the players had a serious
dispute with the Board (headed by Raj Singh Dungarpur) over pay issues. Vengsarkar was dropped. Krish Srikkanth was dumped as a player after
one series as a captain. And, the
captaincy was handed over to Azhar. Did
the selectors ever think of Shastri, now in his 10th year as an
international player, with a few years of experience as a vice captain? I don’t know all of what happened in the
offices of the BCCI but from what I have read of this period, it is safe to say
that Azhar was deemed a “safer” (read, more subservient) choice as a captain by
the board than any of the seniors. That
was one of the most horrible decisions in the history of Indian cricket for
Azhar was a fiasco of colossal proportions as a leader, being a poor
communicator and an even poorer tactician.
Sure, he was a glorious sight to watch as a batsman and he had a number
of successes in the Indian dustbowls in the early 90s but I find myself
hard-pressed to attribute even one success to his captaincy.
By the early 90s, Shastri had declined as a player. He had started to have knee troubles and
played in the World Cup despite that and limped – literally and figuratively –
to pathetic innings such as 25 off 67 balls in the crunch game against
Australia where India was chasing a stiff target of almost five an over. It was a sign that the end was nigh. He made the mistake that many others such as
Kapil made of neither quitting nor evolving when the signs of decline were
clear (the way Sachin reinvented himself, curbing his aggression, post
2007-08).
But, what an empowered Shastri would have done, had he taken
over the captaincy in the mid-to-late 80s is a matter of conjecture. But I sincerely feel that given his superb
track record as captain in domestic cricket and his deep understanding of the
game, especially in Tests, that he should have at least been given a proper
chance to prove his mettle. The failures
of the team under Vengsarkar and Azhar proved that the captaincy should have
been given to the best leader, not the best player. It is a testament to Shastri’s adaptability
that he scored runs under all four captains in the 1980s, all with different
styles.
He is an inspiration to me for the sheer reason that as a
player, he turned up and put in his best efforts and made sure that there was
not an ounce of talent (even if limited) that he left unutilized. He is an inspiration to me for the way in
which he ignored his critics who highlighted his lack of flair but didn’t always
appreciate his grafting ability. His
supreme confidence in himself may have bordered on arrogance but the fact is
that far more talented players fell prey to self-doubt and muddled minds. The fact that he was able to score more than
10 centuries, making hundreds in Pakistan (against Imran, et al), in West
Indies (against Marshall, Patterson, et al) and in Australia (against
McDermott, Hughes and Warne) all go to show that he could fight it out in his
own way. To put it succinctly, Shastri
certainly maximized what God gave him.
It is just sad that Indian cricket did not maximize Shastri for what he
offered.
PS: The lack of any mention of Shastri the commentator of
present is intentional. To me, the facet
of Shastri that inspired me the most was that of a cricketer, not of an expert.
