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Myth-buster — Sunil Gavaskar’s ordinary record when put into bat by the opposition on foreign soil

Sunil Gavaskar had quite a few weaknesses about him, as is mentioned in detail in this article.

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Sunil Gavaskar © Getty Images
Sunil Gavaskar © Getty Images

Perhaps the greatest challenge to the Indian batsmen is when in adverse foreign conditions the opposition wins the toss and asks them to bat first, unleashing bowlers with pace, bounce and movement on a fresh pitch and/or under cloudy skies. Arunabha Sengupta looks at the data to find out how various Indian batsmen have fared in such circumstances.

Oval 2014

“The man who you would want to bat for your life when put in to bat in conditions like these is unfortunately in the commentary box.”

It was a typical London morning, dank, gloomy, overcast and — ominously — windy. The forecast was as sinister. Start was delayed, but not by much. In those cloudy conditions, with a strong cross-breeze blowing across the ground, Alastair Cook had no hesitation in asking India to bat first.

Tension was writ large on the faces of the two gentlemen seated near me as play commenced. Yes, it was one of the two who invoked the allusion to the great Sunil Gavaskar when Murali Vijay and Gautam Gambhir went in to bat with tentative steps.

Off the fourth ball of the innings, Gambhir was for some reason caught in two minds about the pros and cons of leaving a short and considerably wide delivery. The resultant snick off the hanging bat went to Jos Buttler. James Anderson exulted and India were one down.

The cry went around again. Reputed journalists and former cricketers chorused. “None of them have the technique today. You just can’t blame the selectors.”

Soon enough, a delivery from Stuart Broad clipped the flap of the pad of Cheteshwar Pujara, lobbed up and hit his arm and went on to his stumps. Virat Kohli, after one classy drive, offered no stroke to an incoming delivery from Chris Jordan. Ajinkya Rahane pushed with hard hands, and Jordan tumbled to hold the return catch. India were 28 for 4.

“Oh for a Sunny,” voiced several reporters, including former cricketers. I don’t know for sure, but perhaps that was the lament that went into many a match report as well.

Spectators often voice such sentiments, which pass by the world of international cricket as idle wind which threatens not its foundations. However, when such opinions are aired by respected cricket-writers, who mould the thoughts of the public and some decision makers, one tends to get alarmed. The voices in the Oval press box that day had made me uneasy. A slight perusal of the statistics at lunch, when India had gone in at 43 for 5, confirmed my misgivings.

And recently, my good friend Somnath Daripa brought the point up again.

So often, we fall prey to the illusion of what we think is a fact without double checking the actual data. I have heard the same thoughts aired by men who serve as selectors at the zonal level. Which makes it dangerous. Their selection policies are based on heuristics and impressions.

In The Adventure of Copper Breeches, Sherlock Holmes shouts, “Data, data, data. I can’t make bricks without clay.” From cricket columnists to the selectors, data seems to be too much trouble, while their beliefs and impressions are all they tend to go by. In this case, bricks are made of assumptions. The castles built end up hanging on the air.

And pray, why am I so vocal about the remarks? After all, being put into bat in difficult foreign conditions is perhaps the biggest test of technique and temperament. Would we not like to have the best possible copybook master batting for us, giving the first hour to the bowler and making tons of runs for the rest of the day?

Let us look at what the data tells us about such techniques and tactics.

The tale told by cold numbers

Sunil Gavaskar faced this situation 9 times in his career. On 9 occasions, the captain of the home side won the spin of the coin and found the conditions favourable enough to insert India in and unleash his bowlers. Perhaps the most difficult test for the Indian batsmen.

How did Gavaskar fare? It turns out that he scored 142 runs in those 9 innings, at 15.77. Oh, for a Sunny? Indeed? Figures can be cruel.

Gavaskar started with 66 at Sabina Park in 1976. After that his run of scores when sent in to bat by the opposition was:
•    5 at Lahore, 1977-78
•    10 at MCG, 1980-81
•    8 at Karachi, 1982-83
•    12 at Faisalabad 1982-83
•    20 at Sabina Park, 1983
•    1 at Queen’s Park Oval, 1983
•    2 at Kensington Oval, 1983
•    18 at St John’s, 1983

Gambhir, the man who was the centre of all the criticism there at The Oval, actually has a slightly better record when put into bat, with 120 runs in 6 innings at 20.00. Arguably the bowling he had to face was not as incisive, but given that his innings, apart from 23 in Chittagong, came at Wellington, Centurion, Edgbaston, WACA and The Oval, it was not the easiest of tasks for him as well.  In most innings, he spent considerably more time at the wicket than his illustrious predecessor.

Even if we accept the line of reasoning that it was a different era, let us see how Gavaskar fares in comparison to the Indian openers who walked out with him in the 9 innings.

Actually, the motley group of Anshuman Gaekwad, Arun Lal and Chetan Chauhan together scored 133 runs in those 9 innings, losing their wickets eight times, which give them a slightly better average of 16.63. Gaekwad averaged 22 for his five outings, although weighted by one big innings. Arun Lal batted twice scoring 35 and 0. Both have better numbers. It is only Chauhan who scored 10 and 0 who has worse figures.

Gavaskar and his motley group of partners, on being inserted by the opposition

9 Tests after being put into bat

Runs

No

Ave

Gavaskar

142

15.77

Gavaskar’s partners(Gaekwad, Arun Lal, Chauhan)

133

1

16.63

Hence, as an opening batsman put into bat, Gavaskar fared worse than his partners, and his partners fared, to put it mildly, very poorly.

How did the other Indian batsmen fare in those innings?

Perhaps we should only consider top-order batsmen, since by the time the lower order enter the picture the conditions are generally somewhat better.

In those 9 Tests, this is how the top order batsmen fared.

Player

Mat

NO

Runs

Ave

100

50

Gundappa Viswanath

5

0

219

43.80

1

1

Mohinder Amarnath

8

0

318

39.75

0

3

Sandeep Patil

3

0

111

37.00

0

1

Dilip Vengsarkar

9

0

279

31.00

0

2

Yashpal Sharma

5

1

105

26.25

0

1

Anshuman Gaekwad

5

1

88

22.00

0

1

Arun Lal

2

0

35

17.50

0

0

Sunil Gavaskar

9

0

142

15.77

0

1

Chetan Chauhan

2

0

10

5.00

0

0

Some of these numbers may be the result of small sample anomalies, but we do find Gavaskar at the bottom of the pile, not hovering head and shoulders above the others as widely expected.

Let us now find out how the rest of the Indian batsmen across time have performed when asked by the opposition to bat in the first innings on foreign soil. Taking batsmen who have played at least five such innings in foreign conditions, we have the following results.

Indian top-order batsmen on being asked to bat first on foreign soil

Top order batsman

Mat

NO

Runs

Ave

100

50

SV Manjrekar

6

0

343

57.16

1

2

SR Tendulkar

18

2

812

50.75

4

3

GR Viswanath

5

0

219

43.80

1

1

M Azharuddin

7

0

295

42.14

0

4

M Amarnath

8

0

318

39.75

0

3

R Dravid

16

0

624

39.00

2

3

VVS Laxman

14

1

468

36.00

1

2

SC Ganguly

9

0

240

26.66

0

1

DB Vengsarkar

12

0

316

26.33

0

2

Yashpal Sharma

5

1

105

26.25

0

1

V Sehwag

9

0

233

25.88

1

1

RJ Shastri

10

0

234

23.40

1

0

AD Gaekwad

5

1

88

22.00

0

1

G Gambhir

6

0

120

20.00

0

0

SM Gavaskar

9

0

142

15.77

0

1

SS Das

5

0

62

12.40

0

0

We see that the table is headed by Sanjay Manjrekar due to some splendid innings in West Indies (108 in Bridgetown and 47 in Kingston) and Pakistan (76 in Faisalabad and 72 in Sialkot) during his brief dream phase that remained all too brief. However, from the point of view of longevity and continuous performance it is Sachin Tendulkar who leads with 812 runs at 50.75 with four hundreds. Once again, Gavaskar ends up towards the bottom, well below names supposedly far inferior in mettle in adverse conditions.

Yet, the figures may be a misleading. The eras were indeed different. In modern days, Bangladesh had the temerity to insert India in to bat twice, and that did play havoc with the numbers. Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid both rattled off big hundreds when that happened. Besides, it is perhaps not every overseas condition that has been difficult to score when sent in.

Let us limit the analysis of the post-90s batsmen to just the lands known to present challenges on the first day, with pace, bounce, swing, seam and incisive bowling.

We have considered only innings when India has been asked to bat in Australia, England, New Zealand and South Africa.

Post Gavaskar top-order batsmen put in to bat in Eng, Aus, SA, NZ

Player

Mat

Runs

Ave

100

50

SR Tendulkar

10

321

32.10

1

1

R Dravid

8

192

24.00

0

1

V Sehwag

8

181

22.62

1

0

VVS Laxman

8

165

20.62

0

0

SC Ganguly

3

36

12.00

0

0

We see that most of the figures take a hit, but the order of performance for the modern men more or less remain the same. Tendulkar remains at the top, albeit with a less imposing average.

Incidentally, if we extend this to include lower order batsmen, certain interesting numbers do surface.

MS Dhoni happens to have 294 runs in such conditions at 36.75, while against the four major foes, his average climbs to 41.71.

Additionally Kapil Dev has an overall average of 27.85 for 390 runs, and Harbhajan Singh has 150 at 16.66. While these show that batting becomes easier in such circumstances after the ball is older and the wicket has lost its spite, the figures of Gavaskar also stick out like a bizarre miniature.

To return to our original topic, it does seem that the heuristics that most Indian fans suffer from are quite off the mark. Copybook technique is definitely important, but as the figures show, they may not be sufficient to deal with the most demanding of situations.

The results are not really surprising to us. While we have no doubt about the greatness of Sunil Gavaskar, we have made it clear that his career was not without some flaws and misplaced glorification.

We had earlier published the that the best players against the feared four pronged pace attack of West Indies were actually Wasim Raja, Graham Gooch, Bruce Laird and others while Gavaskar just about pushed his average beyond 40. It was quite severely against popular belief. At that time we had our fair share of disgruntled readers who screamed ‘blasphemy’. To paraphrase PG Wodehouse, we certainly do not expect that time has managed to gruntle them back.

There may be many reactions to this article as well, quite a few ‘helmeted’ arguments may do rounds. It is difficult to indulge in detailed analysis in a country which has a healthy disregard for historical facts and a wondrous tradition for mythology. We do accept that as professional hazard of data-based analytical reporting.

The concern however is that the diametrically opposite, and somewhat misleading, view is not only the domain of the arm-chair fans, but also enters the decision making process of zonal, and perhaps, national selectors.

Let me end with something Michael Holding wrote in his autobiography Whispering Death, words studiously ignored by the various ‘legend clubs’ of the country.

“He (Gavaskar) was very sound and technically correct, and, like the other great opposition opener of my time, Geoff Boycott, had tremendous powers of concentration. Unlike Boycott, he seemed keen only when conditions suited him. If the ball was bouncing or moving about a lot, he didn’t seem to value his wicket all that dearly.”

The data shows that Holding did indeed have a point.

 (Arunabha Sengupta is a cricket historian and Chief Cricket Writer at CricketCountry. He writes about the history and the romance of the game, punctuated often by opinions about modern day cricket, while his post-graduate degree in statistics peeps through in occasional analytical pieces. The author of three novels, he can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/senantix)

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