Two good pieces on VVS – one from Harsha and one from Aakash Chopra, whose writing I am a real fan of…
The man who brought thrills and hopeLaxman excited with his elegance, then he instilled a sense of calm. In between, he played the greatest innings by an Indian
Harsha Bhogle
August 24, 2012
It was always "chik", that sound from VVS Laxman's bat when it met ball; a gentle sound, barely audible, a pleasant meeting of two otherwise antagonistic elements. And I often wondered if he would one day play a shot that made no noise at all, as if there were no protest from the ball. It was always like that, always "chik", never the more laboured, more demanding, "thok". No, that was a sound for you and me, for people who needed to muscle a ball, to discipline it.
Only once did I hear him go "thok", in an IPL game, when he was trying to heave a ball over midwicket. He was throwing bat at ball, like a painter of fine miniatures splashing colours, a sitarist playing the drums, a polite man raising his voice. It wasn't him. Laxman and the IPL were never friends, and you could see why.
You could also see why Laxman might have made a fine surgeon; gentle, precise incisions - they might even have been painless - and a sense of calm around him. Indeed, that was what it was thought he was meant to be, coming as he did from a family of doctors. When his parents were told their son could bat, when word began to spread that a kid was batting with a feather, they let him find his calling. But when the schoolboy came home, there was an earthworm laid out to be dissected on one of those trays biology students will recognise. He had missed school and his education was still important.
Early in his career Laxman was the strokeplayer, revelling against pace, standing up to punch deliciously through cover, or merely pausing in the midst of what others might have called an off-drive, or even pulling through midwicket. He did all that in an astonishing innings in Sydney a few days after the fireworks had announced the end of a millennium. It was one of the finest innings I have seen played against fast bowling: 167 out of 261, against McGrath, Fleming, Lee and Warne, with 27 boundaries.
The SCG might have made him feel at home, and it invariably did, but it had to take second place in his career to Eden Gardens, where he averaged 110 from ten Tests (at the SCG, a relatively more modest 78 with three centuries from four Tests). He made five centuries in Kolkata, none more celebrated than that 281, but there was another innings that was to announce the arrival of a man so light on his feet that he seemed to skip towards wherever the ball was pitched.
It was March 1998 and Laxman opened the batting with Navjot Sidhu (wouldn't that have been a priceless mid-wicket conversation!). He made 95 but that was the first time you saw him dance out to Shane Warne and play against the turn through midwicket; or rather against some perceived turn, because he was right where the ball pitched. And then, as if to pay obeisance to an old art, he hit the same ball inside-out through cover occasionally. It was as thrilling a display of batsmanship against spin as any you will see; a sneak preview, maybe, of what was to come three years later, when he played not just the finest but the grandest Test innings by an Indian.
It was inevitable, then, to compare him to that other great Hyderabad batsman, Mohammad Azharuddin. You could see they came from the same school of batsmanship - wrists so supple and obedient that they diverted the ball into crazy spaces just when it seemed it was sniffing at the stumps. Their records aren't dissimilar. Azhar averaged 45.03 from 99 Tests to Laxman's 45.97 from 134. Azhar had 22 centuries and 21 fifties, an amazing conversion, compared to Laxman's 17 centuries and 56 fifties. Once he vacated No. 3 early in his career, Azhar batted at No. 5, which is around where Laxman gravitated to. But Azhar remained the athlete throughout, always light on his feet, whereas Laxman grew a little heavier and tended to, as Aakash Chopra recently pointed out, reach for the ball with his hands in the latter half of his career. Both were remarkably delicate of touch, though Laxman handled pace, and specifically bounce, significantly better.
And until the world of glamour and high-street labels entrapped Azhar, they were very similar people: warm, generous, god-fearing and extraordinarily humble. Hyderabad was like that in the '80s and early '90s; an unhurried city where commerce had merely a bit role, where people spent hours in each other's company and hugged warmly. In August 2012, when Laxman announced his retirement, it was done with the dignity of a man unchanged by commerce and opportunity, who continued to give freely. It was, if I may be permitted a bit of indulgence, Hyderabad as it used to be.
By 2001, Azhar had gone, in the kind of cinematic twist that nobody who saw him as a young man could have imagined. India needed reassurance, for the fan was hurt and felt cheated. A group came together then, a strong confluence of character, and shepherded India through. Sachin Tendulkar was the senior-most, only marginally so over Anil Kumble and Javagal Srinath; Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman, so similar in culture and upbringing, were finding their feet; and at the helm was Sourav Ganguly, a little more brash but his heart belonged to India. It was against this backdrop that the 281 was scored. On the 14th of March, two men of great pedigree put on 335 without being separated. India won the next day, when a callow Sikh took six wickets. India re-embraced cricket, and the shyest of that amazing group of cricketers was centre-stage.
The 281 was followed by spectacular cameos, and it wasn't till Australia again, in 2003, that he rediscovered his best. In December he made 148 in a memorable win in Adelaide, and then Sydney welcomed him again. On the 3rd of January 2004, he made 178. Then in coloured clothing but with similar finesse, he made 103 not out on the 18th, and 106 on the 22nd, both against Australia, and on the 24th he made 131 against Zimbabwe. That was his peak. To merely watch was to be aware that we were in the presence of rare beauty.
He never batted like that again, except maybe for the customary century in Sydney in 2008, when he made 109. The new Laxman was less thrilling, more restrained. In his last 51 Tests he averaged 51.36 compared to a career average of 45.97. He was more solid, more dependable; the lightness of touch was still there, the dignity unwavering, but he wasn't the fencer anymore; he didn't dart towards the ball. Instead, he waited for it, played more from his crease. Where you were on the edge of your seat before, you now sat more calmly. Indeed, he now brought hope where he had dealt in thrill.
And thus he played out his career, the moving ball posing more problems towards the end. It is inevitable, for the faculties must dim. The yearning for the touch, the lightness of execution, grew. Occasionally the ball would still kiss the blade fleetingly and vanish to the boundary, as a reminder of the artist we had in our midst. In India, where he recognised every accent, every idiom a ball could come up with, he could have given himself another year. He really did want to beat England and Australia again.
But it wasn't to be. A man of deep faith and integrity said he listened to an inner divine voice that told him the time had come. And we must believe him, for this is not the time to search for conspiracy. A career of a wonderful man and outstanding batsman is now behind us and it has left us with many memories to savour.
Laxman had something every cricketer dreams of: respect in his dressing room and in those of his opponents. And the opportunity to leave our game richer. It's been a mighty fine innings.
Laxman the revolutionary: You could marvel at VVS Laxman's unorthodox style as long as you didn't try it at home
Aakash Chopra
August 21, 2012
As I look back to my first memories of VVS Laxman, a scene from a South Zone v North Zone Duleep Trophy game in January 2001 plays itself out vividly in my mind.
There were about 15 international cricketers playing in that game, and clearly the quality of cricket was top-notch. Though heaps of runs were scored, it was Laxman's love for refined cricket, which he played with the utmost subtlety and culture, and his supreme skill, that stood out in a way that it remains etched in my mind till this day. Such was his aura that a team-mate had to point out that instead of cheering for our bowlers and egging our team on, I was celebrating Laxman's fine display. It's hard to not be influenced and inspired by greatness.
Laxman had been striking two or three boundaries every over without breaking a sweat, and it felt as if getting smacked all over the park was a small price to pay to witness something truly spectacular. That's what Laxman did all his life to his team-mates and opposition - while his team-mates appreciated his craft, the opposition wished they could be on his side.
Standing in that lonely slip position that day, I was made aware of the fact that a seemingly orthodox, unadventurous-seeming, rather reticent-looking man could play revolutionary cricket; that the belief that cricket is an extension of one's personality wasn't always true. Laxman had made his nonconformist style look like a chapter from the coaching manual - one that the guidebook had been forced to include.
Working the angles
Most young batsmen are taught that the easiest way to bat is to play the ball back in the direction it came from, which basically means playing it with a straight bat. Once you grow as a batsman, you learn to play with the swing and spin, which is an extension of playing with the straight bat. You further learn to either play a little early or to delay the stroke to find gaps, but you're always advised not to play across the line or against the spin or swing.
Laxman turned these fundamentals on their head by not only showing that meeting the ball with an angled bat produces desirable results but also proving that playing with the spin and swing is overrated. Though his style of play made batting look ever so easy, if inspected in detail, it was nothing less than an engineering marvel, for he worked out the angles astutely.
You're advised not to play against the spin, especially when a bowler of Shane Warne's quality is bowling into the rough, but Laxman showed that you can, with good results, if you close the face of the bat at precisely the time of impact (and not a fraction earlier, like more ordinary batsmen tend to do, resulting in return catches). By doing so, he created extraordinary angles, piercing the well-guarded on-side field. His ability to create these angles by, at times, bringing the bat down at a slight angle, or using his supple wrists, enabled him to find gaps where others found fielders. Muttiah Muralitharan, another champion bowler, said that Laxman could potentially play shots on either side of the wicket to any given ball, which made it impossible for a captain to set fields for him.
Playing it late
Most batsmen who are extremely strong off the legs have a technical deficiency that forces their head to fall slightly towards the off side in the stance. The moment the head falls, the judgement of lines gets blurred. This results in hitting balls pitched on off-middle towards the on side. Essentially, these players' affinity for the on side is a byproduct of a technical flaw.
Laxman's preference for the on-side, though, was by design, and he was equally fluent through the off side. His supple wrists and his ability to delay a shot till the last possible instant allowed him to hit balls pitched on middle stump to the right of the square-leg umpire. This is perhaps the most difficult shot to create, because if you don't find the pinpoint precision necessary, you're doomed. You not only have to delay the shot when attempting this stroke, you also need to close the bat face completely (almost showing the edge of the bat to the bowler), and yet hit the ball from the middle.
This became a routine - just when the bowler thought the ball was going to elude Laxman, because he looked visibly late on it, the bat would come down. If Laxman had delayed his shots by even a fraction more than he did, the ball would have hit his body or the stumps. Such was his pristine timing.
Economy of movement
As expansive as Laxman's hand movements were, he was frugal when it came to moving his feet to reach the pitch of the ball, for he could make up for it with his hands. The lack of movement made him extremely still at the crease, which meant that he was rarely off balance. The lack of foot movement created room for his arms and hands to work freely, which made him a free-flowing batsman when in form. The flip side of reaching the ball with hands and not feet was that it didn't look very compact when he was out of form, like in Australia last winter.
Laxman's cricket has been a paradox of a zen-like façade and a fighter's instinct within. Perhaps that's what makes him one of the most intriguing cricketers of our times. His batting has been a viewer's delight, and many Laxman innings have been spectacular cricket extravaganzas. Some of his shots deserve a statutory warning: these stunts have been performed by an expert, please don't try them at home!
Author
Topic: VVS Laxman retires... (Read 1098 times)