Cricket Round-Up: IPL The Great Leveller, Racism In South Africa And A Slice Of India-Pakistan Jugalbandi

Tucked away in one corner amongst the busy IPL headlines was a story about former South African leg-spinner Paul Adams refusing to testify at a Cricket South Africa hearing on racial abuse and being drawn into what many felt was ‘playing to the galleries’ on a racial abuse incident from years ago involving Adams and his then South African teammates, including Mark Boucher, now head coach of the South African men’s national team.

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At the time, a bunch of over-exuberant young men in the South African team had poked fun at him in a ribald song at team meetings, in keeping with the then prevailing culture within the national team.  

Showing dignity and maturity, Adams went on record to say that he was prepared to let it go and accept Boucher’s apology of a misdemeanour committed as a young man and move on.

Adams said he did not see the sense of penalising Mark Boucher separately for the incident now, 20 years on, which could see him losing his job as the national cricket coach.

A lot of South Africans, especially those who have faced similar racial abuse in their lives did not agree with Paul Adams, while a lot of them said it was time to move on and make a better life for future generations.

My friend Grant from Cape Town, a former provincial cricketer, said pretty much the same thing when I asked him what he thought of the Paul Adams story. The conversation inevitably veered around to Cheteshwar Pujara and his incredible comeback to form in County cricket.

PUJARA-RIZWAN SHOW

While the hallowed achievement of ‘1000 runs by the end of May looks a mere formality for Pujara at this point in time, not so long ago it was painful to see him scratching around in Test cricket, desperately trying to save a glittering career that seemed to be fast slipping away.

Dropped from the Indian side, he is now turning out for Sussex in Division II of the County Championship in the midst of a dream run with the bat in the early part of an English Summer.

The spectacle of Cheteshwar Pujara batting together with Pakistani wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammed Rizwan for Sussex and putting up a wonderful show for the team, casting aside all differences and politics related to their respective nationalities, is a truly heart-warming show of what sports can do to bring nations and people closer together.

Simultaneously, it also offered a fleeting glimpse of what a magical force the sub-continent would have been in world cricket, if only we could “Imagine no countries and no flags to live and die for” as dreamed once upon a time by John Lennon of the Beatles fame, in the words of his iconic song from the early 70s.

Half a world away at the IPL, there was the spectacle of cricket the great leveller, as Virat Kohli began the long, forlorn trudge back to the pavilion after yet another first-ball duck!  

At the same tournament where he once reigned as the undisputed king with nearly 1000 runs in the 2016 edition, he now averages less than 20 in a very public nightmare under the full glare and scrutiny of the harsh floodlights forever trained on him, in a cricket-crazy country that allows him no respite or personal space whatsoever.

CRASH LANDING

Kohli’s teammate and former vice-captain, Rohit Sharma is going through a separate nightmare of his own, averaging 18 with the bat, as his once-dominant team struggles to avoid the wooden spoon this time around.

From dizzy heights, the wheel seems to have turned a full circle for Virat Kohli. There is talk of him being rested from the South African T20 series. Will he make a comeback? Only time will tell.

Great players like Kohli are forever on the cusp of rediscovering form with one good innings that will come sooner or later. On that day, he will play to his strengths once again and everything will fall into place, as if he had never been away. The question is can Kohli hold on and keep the faith till then?

The IPL is a bit like going to a nightclub on a weekend where you didn’t even remember what happened when you wake up on a Monday morning. Test cricket on the other hand, is like watching a much looked forward to concert by a virtuoso at the Royal Albert Hall. Something that you cherish and savour, even years after the applause and the last musical note has died away.

Perhaps Kohli can take heart from that and look forward to getting runs for India again in a Test match and wipe out the nightmares of this IPL season. One red-ball hundred for India overseas in a winning cause and all would surely be forgotten and forgiven. The journey would resume after the blip and who knows what it could finally lead to.

To be fair, the IPL has had its fair share of heart-warming stories too. Where else would you hear of a young, unheralded fast bowler hailing from a modest background in Jammu and Kashmir, hurling down thunderbolts at 153 Kph, becoming an overnight sensation that the world is holding its breath to see on a bigger stage.

In the space of a few short weeks, Umran Malik has gone from near obscurity to becoming the latest star to emerge from the Indian fast bowling stable. He is quick, frighteningly so, and accurate as well.

What remains to be seen is what he can do with a red ball, on an overseas tour where the wickets are green and the ball is moving around. The ‘Nation wants to Know’ as Arnab Goswami would say!

KUL-CHA!

And there have been other comebacks, equally stirring, in this IPL with Yuzvendra Chahal leading the race for the Purple Cap and his out of favour spin twin Kuldeep Yadav also up amongst the leaders.

With T Natarajan bouncing back after a long spell in the wilderness through injury and illness and  Umesh Yadav finding form and consistency for the Kolkata Knight Riders, the Indian bowling attack looks to be in fine fettle with the national selectors spoilt for choice for the upcoming Test Match against England and the T20 World Cup later this year.

It seems to be the batting that could a worry.

(The writer is a retired IAF Wing Commander and a former first-class cricketer.)