Unforgettable numbers shadow great cricketers. Think about Sunil Gavaskar and you remember his unbeaten 236 against the mighty West Indies at Madras (now Chennai) in 1983. Utter the name Anil Kumble and his ‘Perfect Ten’ at Pakistan’s expense in Delhi (1999), flashes through the mind.
Now whisper ‘V.V.S. Laxman’ and instantly that epochal 281 at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens, of 2001 vintage, which scripted a miracle triumph over Steve Waugh’s Aussies, leaves us smiling. If ever there was a Houdini Act on a cricket field, this was it. Sourav Ganguly’s men showed spine and Indian cricket grew a fresh set of fangs.
Unique identity
Yet, there is much more to Hyderabad’s wristy batsman, well beyond the 281. Laxman played 134 Tests and tallied 8781 runs, often scored with just the tail for company. At the first-class level he had 19730 runs and though he didn’t set the One Day International turf on fire, there too he had a respectable 2338. He was a remarkable batsman, who carved his own niche.
Initially he grew out of the shadow of his stylish predecessor from Hyderabad — Mohammad Azharuddin, and in a batting order of pedigree with Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Ganguly and Virender Sehwag for company, Laxman chiselled a unique identity.
He wasn’t the one brand-managers chased, but he did his job and retreated to the shadows. Finally the unheralded vistas of Laxman’s life are laid bare in a fine book 281 And Beyond , co-authored by senior cricket writer R. Kaushik, who tracked Laxman since his early days in Hyderabad and reported a huge chunk of the artist’s international career.
Still, there is no running away from Laxman and 281. It is dealt upfront in the first chapter. A slipped disc had nearly benched Laxman before that contest, and he requested physio Andrew Leipus to help. Laxman recalls: “I said: ‘Tell me you can fix this Andrew.’ There was a salty taste in my mouth. I didn’t even realise I had started to cry. Perhaps it was the sight of a grown man weeping that did the trick. ”
Those opening passages conveys everything: the grace and grit of Laxman, Dravid’s stellar supporting role, the raucous Eden crowd and the gradual wilting of the Aussies. Once that nostalgia-overload is explained, the remaining 297 pages of the book deal with Laxman’s roller-coaster ride as a cricketer.
A berth in Indian 11
Hailing from a family of doctors, it was natural that Laxman too toyed with the idea of doing a course in medicine. Thankfully maternal uncle Baba Krishna Mohan nudged the nephew towards the willow game. Laxman was consistent through age-group cricket and found a berth in the Indian eleven. However in his early years, he had to cope with the opener’s slot, a position he never enjoyed. The resultant yo-yo in selection, wore him down and he decided not to ever play as an opener. It was a decision that could have stalled his career but with a mountain of runs in domestic cricket, Laxman knocked down the doors of resistance.
Besides being an individual with equanimity, Laxman drew further strength through spiritualism. His trips to Shirdi garnered mental peace and he read the Bhagavad Gita too and quotes: “The Gita says — do your duty, but not with an eye on the outcome. Effectively, it means the only thing that is in your hands is the effort. That is what drove me.”
Respect in the dressing room
The words associated with Laxman are ‘ever-smiling’ and ‘sincere’, but even an iceberg can melt. There is a paragraph about him yelling at his captain Dravid once — yes you heard that right — after the team bus left without Laxman and S. Sreesanth. There is no diplomatic façade either when Laxman reconstructs the days under coach Greg Chappell. “He (Chappell) was brusque and abrasive, highly opinionated and rigid in his thinking. His man-management skills were non-existent. He quickly sowed further seeds of discontent,” Laxman remembers.
What lingers is the love and respect that Laxman commanded in the dressing room. There are references to various acts of kindness from his team-mates, who pepped him up at diverse times when he grappled with self-doubts. Laxman refers to those ‘dark days’ and innocently says that back then depression was never acknowledged. He records his gratitude to his family, especially wife Sailaja. And when the final call is made to retire, it is done with certainty.
Laxman has also etched pen-portraits of Tendulkar, Dravid, Sehwag and Ganguly, besides warmly describing the attributes of Kumble, Zaheer Khan and M.S. Dhoni. Kaushik has written well and there are moving lines highlighting the phase when Laxman briefly thought about an early retirement after not being picked for the 2003 World Cup. To the evolving body of Indian cricket literature, this book is a welcome addition.
281 and Beyond ; V.V.S. Laxman with R. Kaushik, Westland Books, ₹699.
