Skip to main content

A tribute to Vengsarkar

The recent change of the selection committee brought to mind once again how under-rated Vengsarkar was as a batsman. To an extent, justifiably I suppose given that his record (overall and abroad particularly) definitely doesn't let one classify him as a great batsman. He probably wouldn't even make my Indian top 5 of all time. But he was a valuable player at a time when we didn't have that many batsmen to support Gavaskar and Vishwanath (given the shabby treatment that Mohinder Amarnath always received) and always did his utmost to rise above his limitations as a player. My memories of him will always be of a player who struggled in the West Indies and Australia but that is only because I happened to start watching cricket at a time when he was nearing the end of his career. More recently, he's been the best selector that India has had in some time and is greatly responsible for India's recovery as a one-day team and in India having a pool of pace bowlers to pick from.

In closing, a look at his career stats (as a Test match player) throws up some interesting bits. For a player of his calibre, its pretty shocking that he doesn't average more than 35 anywhere except India and England (he hasn't scored a hundred anywhere else either). Also interesting is that being the captain (although in my opinion he shouldn't have been made skipper) didn't affect his batting average at all. And the third interesting bit is that he performed much better (ave 61.23) under Kapil Dev than under Gavaskar (ave 40.98). I'll have to look into the stats of some other guys of the time to see if there's a trend (and therefore a story) there.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Happy New Year .....

....well almost......its only 2 months in to 2009 so I guess its not terribly late for the first post of the year :-) The end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 has been quite engrossing primarily because of the tussle for supremacy between Australia and South Africa. And its interesting how once again, the Aussies are showing that the biggest mistake 'pundits' can make is to write them off. But I am jumping way ahead. The series in Australia was a real cracker and it was great to see the Springboks actually delivering so well on their abilities for once and not choking at the big moments. And in Steyn, Amla, de Villiers, Duminy and Morkel they have some real stars in the making and should be a strong team for some time to come. Australia's struggles on the other hand were not surprising after their performance in India. The same guys, i.e. Hayden and Lee continued to underwhelm and with the inexplicable selection of Symonds made things worse for Ricky Ponting. They were a l...
Post a Comment
Read more

Season ending review

Well, officially the season hasn't quite ended since the last one-dayer between Australia and South Africa still remains to be played but given that its a dead rubber, the season is as good as over. And what a season its been. Probably as much action off-field as on it, but its been riveting throughout and the quality of Test cricket overall (apart from the WI-Eng series) has been top-notch and a welcome reminder of why I like the 5 day format the most. The two Aus-SA series have in particular been fascinating to watch though a lot of it has been driven by Australia waiting too long to make much needed changes. South Africa though has truly come on in leaps and bounds and though they will be losing Kallis and Ntini sooner rather than later, their decreasing reliance on them over the last year or so has meant that they won't be missed much. Their one-day game has come along strongly too and they should have a genuine shot at the World Cup this time. Australia on the other hand h...
Post a Comment
Read more

Of backward selections and England's future

A couple of interesting selectorial decisions recently by England and India (and actually as its turning out Australia as well!). For once I think the England selectors didn't panic and showed the right thinking by not picking either Key or Ramprakash for the Oval Test. And luckily for them, both Bell and Trott have performed well enough to vindicate the decision. India on the other hand have actually gone the other way bringing Dravid back to the one-day squad. I'm a bit ambivalent on that one. While the decision to leave out Rohit Sharma and retain Raina was certainly the right one, bringing back Dravid is questionable. It would have been a bolder decision to pick someone like Kohli or Rahane who both played really well in the Emerging Players Trophy recently, mainly because Dravid is quite unlikely to feature in the 2011 World Cup so why bring him back now? As for the Aussies, they will certainly be regretting not picking Nathan Hauritz for the Oval. A defensive decision if...
Post a Comment
Read more