No roses in sight as two legends near end of road
Cricket Tour Down Under: Dravid, VVS deserve better treatment
Adelaide Oval has played a massive role in shaping the legends of Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman.
It was here Dravid left his indelible mark in 2003, grinding down the Aussies with a double hundred and an unbeaten fifty. That Adelaide Test will forever belong to Dravid, but Laxman too had played a significant role.
He cracked a stylish hundred (148) while stitching together a mammoth 303-run alliance with his long-standing friend in the first innings. Laxman then produced a crucial 32, laced with six delightful fours, in the second innings that took the pressure considerably off
Dravid while successfully chasing a 200-plus target.
Nine years on, it’s quite unfortunate that they will be heading to one of their favourite grounds feeling hounded by public and pundits back home.
They might hang the boots after the Adelaide Test, having gone through the horrors in the on-going series against Australia and it might be time to get in more youngsters, but it isn’t an excuse to flog these veterans like dirty clothes and forget their hefty contributions to Indian cricket.
Dravid has been India’s top-scorer in three consecutive series last year, against the West Indies at home and away, and during a disastrous tour of England he stood like a shining beacon cracking three hundreds. But a bad run in one series has changed the perception, turning him into a national villain.
Scapegoat
Laxman too is in a similar situation. Being put under pressure is nothing new for him as right from the start of his career the stylish Hyderabadi has been a scapegoat.
Whenever the management required an opener in a crisis they promoted either Laxman or
Dravid to the pole position, Laxman’s name was the most discussed whenever it came to dropping a player to give space to a newcomer. They have been the eternal burden-bearers of Indian cricket, doing their job without waiting for the customary thanksgiving and pats on the shoulder.
So many Tests have been either saved or won by Laxman, it will take a mammoth effort by brain to count them. His 96 at Durban in December 2010, set up a famous win that helped India draw the series for the first time in South Africa. His match-winning efforts along with the tailenders against Sri Lanka at Colombo braving severe back pain, and against Australia at Mohali will go down as remarkable episodes of skill and team-above-self attitude.
His epic in Kolkata (2001) and Dravid’s marvellous hundred that gifted India an improbable win and a sort of mental siege over a generation of Australians will be among the brightest nuggets of Indian cricket history. Then there are those countless and now forgotten mini-masterpieces Laxman has played over and over to lift India out of the woods.
Yet, all those feats have been forgotten in the last stretch of their illustrious careers, with the fans eager to shun them like sodden tomatoes. There have been stories of selectors putting pressure on them to call it a day, and teammates’ dislike to their continued presence in the team.
Now, listen to Gautam Gambhir’s words.
"Why criticise one person? He (Laxman) has been a legend of the game. The top six or seven should be criticised equally. We have failed as a unit. So, why it’s only VVS Laxman?
There should not be anyone else who should be deciding about his retirement. It should be him. The entire team is behind him, and we will always support him.
“Whether it's media or whether it's people back home or whether it be ex-cricketers, no one has any right to force anyone to take retirement. It should be his personal decision,” Gambhir said.
So, let’s bid farewell to these two true legends and gentlemen with more dignity and compassion because it will take ages before we see another Dravid and Laxman.
