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Death eaters

January 29, 2015 04:14 am | Updated 04:23 am IST

There's no overstating the value of finishers — batsmen who douse fires and walk home whistling

Pyjama Picasso is how Steve Waugh describes Michael Bevan (in picture) for his ability to create masterpieces under pressure. File photo: V.V. Krishnan

There is a certain romance to the 'finisher' in cricket. It's an attractive idea: an unflappable man rescuing his team from impossible predicaments, dousing fires and walking home whistling. But it's no exaggeration. For, pressure plays strange tricks on the mind, and when a batting side begins collapsing, mental strength runs out before stroke-making talent.

Teams today will wonder how many run chases could have gone differently if only they had someone like M.S. Dhoni in their ranks.

But before Dhoni, whose reputation is helped by T20 cricket, there was Michael Bevan, who epitomised the art of closing games out like no one else. He may have hit only 21 sixes and scored merely six hundreds before he retired, but there is no gainsaying Bevan’s phenomenal serenity under extreme stress.

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There was that last-ball four, early on in his career, to seal victory over the West Indies in Sydney. There was an unbeaten 75 against India, in the final of a triangular series in New Delhi in 1998. Three years later, India suffered at his hands again, in the decider of a five-match series at Margao. Bevan took ownership of a tricky pursuit, shepherding Australia home with an undefeated 87.

“It was crisis time for Australia after Darren Lehmann was dismissed, but full marks to Michael Bevan, who, despite all the pressure, was never desperate in his methods, picking up runs cleverly with ones and twos,” K. Srikkanth wrote the following day in The Hindu. “He is such a marvellous runner between the wickets.”

Bevan scored only 26 runs in boundaries that day; the rest were splendidly manoeuvred ones and twos. His finest performance — a 95-ball 102 against New Zealand in Melbourne — was a master-class in running between the wickets.

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From 82 for six, Australia chased down 245, while only 28 of Bevan’s runs came in boundaries. Dot balls were stretched to ones; ones to frightfully hard-run twos. Andy Bichel and he were at it again a year later, frustrating England with a brilliant ninth-wicket stand in Port Elizabeth in the 2003 World Cup.

“A Pyjama Picasso,” Steve Waugh describes him in his autobiography, “creating masterpiece after masterpiece to the point that his genius became mundane when people were spoilt by his continued brilliance.”

It is no surprise that Dhoni or Kohli or A.B. de Villiers rate among the best finishers: they are exceptionally quick between the wickets (although nobody is in the South African’s league), when the most critical need is to keep the scoreboard ticking. In successful run chases (among those with more than 1000 runs), Dhoni averages 103, ahead of Kohli (86.63), Bevan (86.25), de Villiers (79.50), Michael Clarke (77.42), and Eoin Morgan (75.46). Indian fans will be well aware of Morgan’s reputation, his last-ball six off Ashoke Dinda in a T20 game in Mumbai two years ago agonisingly fresh in memory.

Dhoni's last attempt at ‘finishing’ ended in failure in Birmingham, when he refused Ambati Rayudu the strike and set out to win it on his own, but it must not take the gloss off his previous deeds. In the 2012 CB Series, he demolished Clint McKay with 13 needed off the final over. A year later, in a tri-series in the West Indies, Dhoni took 15 off Shaminda Eranga in the last over, completing victory with two balls to spare, having only No. 11 Ishant Sharma for company.

“I think I am blessed with a bit of good cricketing sense,” he said later. “I thought 15 runs was something that I could look for, the reason being the opposition’s bowler was not someone who is very experienced. So I thought, rather than taking on a Malinga or a Mathews, I’d take it to the end, and it really worked in our favour.”

A bit of good cricketing sense, though, is not as common as teams may wish. And under the crushing weight of a tall target, a steep run-rate, and a hostile crowd, it only grows rarer. It is then that the great are separated from the good.

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