Sport Today

This is another excerpt from Michael Holding's book, "Whispering Death",
this one has to do with what he says about Gavaskar.

%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%

[ About the tour to India in 1983 ].

We had been forewarned that the umpiring might lean towards the home team,
but I'd played enough by now to know this was generally true everywhere.
After the third test, Clive Lloyd was moved to describe the umpires as two
of the worst he had come across, a pretty sweeping indictment. But it was
never the controversial issue it was in Australia in 1975-76 or in New
Zealand in 1980.

The major 'incident' occurred in the final test in which Sunil Gavaskar
went past Don Bradman's record number of test centuries with his
thirtieth, converting it into an eventual 236 not out. It had been a
difficult series for Gavaskar. He was out to the first ball of the match
in Calcutta and was bitterly criticised by the press and by the fans when
he virtually threw his hand away in the second innings with an atrocious
shot. With five failures on the trot, he asked to be put in at no. 4 in
the order in the last test. It was a sure sign of his loss of confidence
but he might as well have opened for Marshall took the first two wickets
without a run on the board. India were again in danger of falling apart at
92 for five in reply to our 313 when Gavaskar edged Marshall's second ball
of the fourth day to third slip. Harper held a low, clean catch but, as
Gavaskar stood his ground, the umpire said 'not out'. It was a blatant
mistake, if that is what it was, and we made our feelings known by
refusing to acknowledge Gavaskar's various landmarks. There was a great
deal of criticism in the press of what was termed our unsportsmanlike
behaviour, but nothing of Gavaskar's sportsmanship in influencing a
not-out decision for a clear catch.

[... details of why he bounced/beamed at Kirmani deleted...]

I suppose I never did come in terms with poor umpiring and there is no
more irritating feeling in the game than to have the umpire shake his head
when you know he should've raised his finger, or vice versa. It is worse
when the batsman is someone like Gavaskar, who was the most difficult
batsman to dislodge once the conditions suited him. You just tried to be
economical, and once he got past 30 or 40, you hoped he took a single
early in the over so you could get at the other batsman. He 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, however, he seemed keen only when conditions suited him. If the
ball was bouncing or moving about a lot, he did'nt seem to value his
wicket all that dearly.

%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%

It's interesting to note that Holding thinks that it was "a difficult
series for Gavaskar". I suppose it depends on how one looks at it, if one
were to look at the final tally and average (505 runs at ??), it does
look fairly healthy, but if one sees that Gavaskar failed in 9 test innings
out of the 12 (or was it 11?) on the tour, then it looks like *atleast* a
partial victory for the West Indian pace attack, esp. for Malcolm Marshall
and Michael Holding.

Win or lose, forever Windies.
Venky (Venkatesh Sridharan).

        There had been some series when Gavskar was not able to play the
bowlers with confidence, but I can't remember a series when he was completely
out of form.  He always struck a good score or two.  Even in the 1982 Pak-Ind
series he struck a 127* (much to my displeasure) and generally had a decent
series against Imran.

        Can anybody recall a series where Gavsakar was a total failure, i.e.
not even a 50 to his name?

|> Venky (Venkatesh Sridharan).

Syed
--

Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs
30  tons, computers in  the future may  have only 1,000 vacuum  tubes and weigh
only 1 1/2 tons.                               ---Popular Mechanics, March 1949

Stay cool,
Spaceman Spiff

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Things went down we don't understand,
but I think in time we will.
Now, I don't know, but I was told
in the heat of the sun a man died of cold.

Stay cool,
Spaceman Spiff

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran into the Devil, babe, he loaned me twenty bills.
He spent the night in Utah in a cave up in the hills.
Set out runnin', but I take my time.
A friend of the Devil is a friend of mine.
I get home before daylight, just might get some sleep tonight.

        It is again Holding's view point, and I don't care
        a whole lot about his criticism of umpiring etc. since
        those things only lead to flame wars etc. But I find his
        statement that Gavaskar didn't care too much on bouncy
        wickets ludicrous. But then again, Our man Holding must
        have something against Gavaskar after all the grind out
        knocks in the sun.

1) 1983 series against W.Indies before the 83 World Cup. He failed in
   all his innings except in the third test in Guyana where he scored
   147 n.o. where there was absolutely no chance of a result and the
   W.Indies' first innings ended sometime on the fourth day. Most of
   the Windies bowling was done by spinners Gomes and Richards.
   Gavaskar had a torrid time in that series against Marshall, Garner,
   Holding and Roberts.

2) The 1984-85 series against England in India. This was the series
   Azhar made his debut. Gavaskar had just a single 50 in five tests
   and Norman Cowans had his number in that series. The fifty he
   scored was in the 'infamous' Delhi test when Kapil was dropped
   for playing an irresponsible shot. Gavaskar himself played a
   very irresponsible shot, trying to square cut offspinner Pocock
   on a turning wicket ( he was clean bowled ).

3) The 1980 series against Australia in Australia. He was a total
   failure against Lillee and Pascoe. He scored 70 in the third
   test at Melbourne and created a big scene by walking off the
   field with Chauhan when given out LBW to Lillee. It was a
   wrong decision as Gavaskar 'played' the ball but his behavior
   was very childish.

4) The 1981 series against New Zealand in NZ. He had a fifty in
   one of the tests but Hadlee was too good for him in that
   series.

   Gavaskar has always had problems facing Hadlee and Lillee.

  this series was cut short.if you can consider this as a series where he
  didn't score big then you should consider the 1982 series (famous as
  botham vs kapil series) also where he didn't get a fifty.then also there
  is this golden jubilee test in 1980 against england( if you consider a
  one test series as a series) where he was out for 49 and 24.

: Stay cool,
: Spaceman Spiff

ramu
: ----------------------------------------------------------------------
: Things went down we don't understand,
: but I think in time we will.
: Now, I don't know, but I was told
: in the heat of the sun a man died of cold.

        There had been some series when Gavskar was not able to play the
bowlers with confidence, but I can't remember a series when he was completely
out of form.  He always struck a good score or two.  Even in the 1982 Pak-Ind
series he struck a 127* (much to my displeasure) and generally had a decent
series against Imran.

-------
He actually did pretty well in that series against Pakistan. In more than
one innings, he was playing well before a very good delivery got him (I
particularly remember an indipper from Imran), and only towards the end
of the series, or atleast the latter half, did it look like Amarnath's
series. But Imran, for his part, had no hesitation in saying that the best
batsman he bowled to in that year was Mohinder Amarnath (he says this in
'Imran', his first autobiography)...
-------

        Can anybody recall a series where Gavsakar was a total failure, i.e.
not even a 50 to his name?

-------
There would probably be a couple, but these would be the ones where he was
out of form, *and* where there was not much pressure on him to get runs,
because, when there was any such pressure, as in the West Indies in 1982,
and against the West Indies in India in 1983, he did manage to overcome his
problems and get runs... he got a very good 70 against Lillee in Melbourne
when he was'nt in the best of form, got that 96 in Bangalore in what was
another so-so series for him, got a century at Lords' when he had that
one last opportunity...

I remember Richard Ellison troubling him outside the off stump in the series
against England in India in 1984, but that probably means little... that
was the series in which Azharuddin got those 3 centuries in a row, and
I cannot conceive of such bowling being too good for Gavaskar, unless he
had some problems of his own, like lack of form and/or motivation...

As for the incident mentioned by Holding, I seem to remember seeing (in
slow motion replay) the ball fly off the arm guard, as also mentioned by
Spiff. Didn't the WI team see the video of the match after it was over?

Amitabha
--

No one else is responsible for what I say and vice versa.

Is that a typo (of sorts) ? :-)
-------

watched the match, venky, but slo-mo replay showed the ball hitting him on
the arm guard. this was confirmed when the team physio had to come out a short
while later and treat gavaskar's swollen arm. he developed a pretty nice bruise
on that arm.

-------
[VS]:

I saw every ball of that innings, but I could'nt really tell if the ball
came off the shoulder of the bat (as the West Indians players claim), or
if it came off the forearm protector (as Gavaskar, and the umpire thought).
But it *is* difficult to imagine any half-competent umpire ruling a batsman
not out when he's been caught at *third slip* off the shoulder of the bat...

In general, I think Holding's comments need to be seen in perspective,

[1] He never bowled to Gavaskar in the period 1976-81, a period than was
    certainly the best one for both Holding and Gavaskar.

[2] Gavaskar's comments about Jamaica (during the '***bath' test) were
    hardly complimentary... and it's difficult to see that not having an
    effect on Holding's overall judgement of Gavaskar.

PS: Gavaskar's comments about that incident at Madras: "... the ball went
    off my forearm protector... I still have that forearm protector with
    me, with a mark where it was struck, and that was the only time I was
    hit there... "  [not his exact words, but pretty close!]

Reply to Syed M. Ali's question about Gavaskar's failures:

One of Gavaskar's(And India's) worst serieses was against England at home in
1985. India lost the series 2-1, Gavaskar managed only one fifty plus score in 5
tests, the series was marred by Kapil-Gavaskar tensions and even the Crowd was Anti-Gavaskar at times(Especially at Culcutta). But cometh the hour, cometh the man. And the Man of the hour for India was none other than Mohd Azharuddin. Playing in his debut series Azhar hit three classy hundreds in three test matches
to give a semblence of respect to the indian performance.

Another bad series for Gavaskar was In England in 1986. He was going for his
shots from the word go and managed to score quick thirties, but got out soon However in the last test, he hit a classy 54 which some of the Brit commentators described as the best Innings played in England that season.(Mind you Vengsarkar had scored two great hundreds in that series already)

-Balky
(The Debo-Nair)

If as a fast bowler, you have to consistently
resort to decapitation as a mode of dismissal, it reflects poorly
on your general talents.  I have always thought less of Holding
because of his Sabina Park performance.

Bowlers whom I like more than Holding like Imran and Lillee do not
have a Sabina Park on their resume.  I can understand that
Holding was pretty young in '76 and could perhaps be forgiven
on account of his inexperience, but the deeds stand.

Regards,

- Vaibhav.

Rohan [presenting Sunny's version of the story]

Stay cool,
Spaceman Spiff

----------------------------------------------------------------------
If the game is lost then we're all the same.
No one left to place or take the blame.
We will leave this place an empty stone.
Well that shining ball we can call our home.

Stay cool,
Spaceman Spiff

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Long distance runner, what you standing there for?
Get up, get off, get out of the door
You played cold music on the barroom floor
drown in your laughter and dead to the core.
There's a dragon with matches that's loose on the town
take a whole pail of water just to cool him down.