The Pink Panther is but a flawed diamond....

Cricket is a straightforward game for the most part. Great players perform great acts, they make good of their opportunities, prevail through the bad, accumulate hefty balances in their Cricketing banks, and later use these balances to retire on top of tables, purchase spots in almanacs and record books and in general gather enough warmth of public adulation to bask in it for the rest of their retired lives.

But like a sly game-show host, the God of Cricket also throws at us an occasional surprise question that does not yield to a straightforward answer.

Every once in an extraordinary while there appears a cricketer who seems too good to be true, and yet who does not fit into the usual templates of greatness. A cricketer who makes us re-visit our constricted perspective on the judgment of 'greatness' - a perspective in which we attribute success, superiority and achievement over class, style and artistry.

It is possible that a composer more talented than A. R. Rehman is perhaps rolling around in a local music circles in rural Kerala...an actor better than Amitabh Bachchan may perhaps be grazing on nightly wages in a Mumbai drama house. VVS Laxman a similar case of God’s cruel ironies. An artist second to none, yet with nothing much to show for it in worldly terms. A paradox in human form. A batsman whose ease and poise can make the most glorious of his contemporaries look mediocre, and yet at the same time a batsman unlikely to appear in anyone’s fantasy XI.

In this age of extra fat bats with computer designed contours that increase the size of the sweet spot on the blade and maximize the punch on the ball, one gets a feeling that VVS Laxman's batting would still be the same if he were thrust a dead plank of crate-packing wood in place of a bat. When he gets on the go, there is seemingly no effort in his bat, not an ugly twitch in his body, not a grotesque jerk in the entire locus of his motion. The fluency is divine. An in-form Laxman at work on the crease feels like a warm cup of tea nested between your palms on a cold rainy day. 

Laxman’s bat is bereft of the blue collared obstinacy of a Steve Waugh or a Shivnarine Chanderpaul. It does not have the grim resolve of a Rahul Dravid or a Jacques Kallis. It is devoid of the explosion of a Brian Lara, a Virender Sehwag, or an Adam Gilchrist. It doesn’t have the cocky aggression of a Matthew Hayden or a Ricky Ponting. It is far removed from the grotesque effectiveness of a Chris Gayle, a Kevin Pietersen, or an M S Dhoni. It lacks the scientific perfection of a Tendulkar. And yet it is the most sublime of sights in the business of bat and ball. 

If bats could talk about their day, Sehwag’s bat would probably moan from the bruises coming from the rapacious hiding its master gave to the poor ball. The one in Laxman’s locker on the other hand would be fresh and grinning from a blissful day of massage.

The ball dispatched disdainfully from Hayden’s bat would grimace in pain like a half dead boxer who just lost his front teeth from a punch to his face. The ball coming off of Laxman’s bat would be like a joyous dog sent scampering behind squirrels in a park by his master on a cheery sunny day.

For all the praise above, Laxman is also the most disappointing batsman to ever play cricket. Is there another cricketer with a bigger contrast between talent and tangible results ? Had he been more human than heavenly, had his art been a tad more rational and tad less romantic, he would doubtlessly have ended up quite high on most of Test cricket's numerical charts. The dozens upon dozens of fluent starts that went unconverted into bigger scores are a testimony of the floundering nature of Laxman's batting.  Had there been an eccentric trophy for the most effortless 40 runs scored by a batsman, Laxman would have laid his hands over it tens of times through his career.

A rather unjust 14 hundreds and 43 fifties in a career spanning 108 Tests and 180 innings makes Laxman the poorest converter of a fifty to a hundred among all batsmen who have over 6000 Test runs, bar Stephen Fleming. It is perhaps this inability to rack up big scores with consistency that was, and is, the prime reason why Laxman could never become a singular backbone of a middle order batting line up the way Dravid or Kallis have held their teams over the years. He isn’t an all out aggressor, neither is he an anchor. He is a natural who goes about mixing and splashing colours on canvas in a state of trance, oblivious of the surroundings. This quandary may be the reason why he wasn't the fulcrum around whom a middle order could be rested and built.  

I leave with my memory of VVS Laxman. Night after night my friends (shout out to Prafulla, Prasanna, Rajesh...good ol’ days guys !) and I watched with timid hearts and shivering faith as Sehwag, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Laxman and Dravid battled Lee, Gillespie, McGill and Bracken on India's tour of Australia in 2003/2004….a series in which the Indians were more determined than ever to come out of their shadows and make a mark against the best Test team on its own home turf. Session after session a grim battle ensued between the two teams. Each Australian delivery hurled at Dravid, Tendulkar, Ganguly was unfailingly prefixed with a small prayer from me... “Please help them get Laxman on the strike”. 


It would indeed take a very very special batsman at the other end to make Tendulkar and Dravid look mortal. 

Enjoy: Laxman on Youtube