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MS Dhoni and the Evolution of the Batsman Keeper |
A Special Feature
by Pradeep Ramarathnam
 This is exactly what former cricketers and
experts say we shouldn’t do. Judge a cricketer.
But Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s breathtaking 148 has
opened a Pandora’s Box. It is startling that no
Indian specialist keeper has, prior to Dhoni
made a 100 in One day internationals. The
manner, in which Dhoni, wielding the willow like
a Jedi Knight, went about carting the ball far and
wide, sent me down memory lane, wondering if any
Indian keeper ever, in the past could hold his
own with the bat.
India
as a country has been terribly unlucky with
Wicket keepers who can bat in the Past.
Australia for the rest of eternity can flaunt
Adam Gilchrist. England had the massively
underrated Alec Stewart. Alan Knott held his own
against the West Indian pace battery. South
Africa pre-apartheid had Lee Irvine .One has to
dig deep to find an Indian wicket keeper would
could read swing and turn in front of the stumps
as good as he did at the back.
In 1933-34, Messrs Douglas Jardine and co
landed in India post Bodyline and somewhat
absent mindedly dished out the same treatment to
the hapless Indians. The Indian team, with no
experience of playing such raw pace, folded on
their stomachs. The one man who stood up was a
balding, portly wicket keeper called Dilawar
Hussain. Hussain was hit on the head by Nichols,
but with a huge bandage around his head carried
on hooking and pulling to make 55 and 54. He
never played a test after that.
The other famous instance was of course Budhi
Kunderan whose rollicking 192 against England
heralded the arrival of a raging talent.
Unfortunately, Kunderan’s ability behind the
stumps was only marginally above Parthiv
Patel’s. His decline was as smooth an incline as
Parthiv’s baby cheeks.
Dhoni is not a one off. A couple of weeks
ago, Jharkand were chasing a gargantuan total in
the Ranji Plate Semi finals against Haryana,
which had two bowlers who played for India-
Joginder Sharma and Amit Mishra. Chasing a huge
500 plus score, Jharkand’s irritatingly feeble
top order collapsed. What does Mahendra Dhoni do
coming in at 4? Smash 109 off 75 balls of
course. More proof? Rewind to Duleep finals a few
years back. One hour left for the end of day,
Mahendra Dhoni walks in - 60 off 47.
India has carried some mediocre batsmen
keepers in the past- Kiran More, Sadanand
Vishwanath, Syed Kirmani, Naren Tamhane. There
also existed some keepers who would be back to
the pavilion before a plate of Maggi was cooked
- Probir Sen, P Krishnamurthy, and a dozen
others. The only two other keepers who could bat
before were Farokh Engineer and Nayan Mongia.
Dhoni in fact strikes an uncanny resemblance to
Engineer in terms of his personality and flair.
The unnoticed yet effective way of keeping, the
massive array of strokes, the ability to
extemporize at the crease, and last but not the
least, the flowing manes. Engineer was India’s
first cricketer-model for Brylcreem. Dhoni, with
probably the longest locks ever possessed by an
Indian cricketer, is a sitting duck for this
modeling assignment, don’t you think?
M.S.Dhoni is a phenomenon. Luckily for him,
India is at a time when the wicket keeping spot
in a state of flux. Too many talented wicket
keepers have been lost in the past because the
Indian selectors thought Kiran More came along
with the set of stumps and was a perennial
attachment. To his credit, More dropped a catch
as often as Prabhakar beat a batsman for pace.
The one time he did drop a catch though, Gooch
made 300 more.
Why is it so hard to keep well and bat well
at the same time? One logical explanation is
that the human mind has limited faculties. It is
impossible to sustain such high levels of
concentration on a sustained basis; which is why
a lot of keepers who were successful with the
bat have been attacking batsmen which a
significant element of natural ability and
reflexes that carried their batting - Stewart,
Gilchrist, and Walcott were all naturally gifted
batsmen. Two, the amount of athletic ability it
requires is often underestimated. Now we have
John Gloster and Gregory King. In the 60s and
the 70s, in fact right upto Ali Irani, our
physical training was limited to running around
the ground twice and then playing catch-catch.
Three, obviously, both require an inhuman amount
of practice to get good at. English legend,
Godfrey Evans could “stump with a speed
paralysing in its speed and sharpness “but
batted at number 10.
The muddle in Indian cricket is not about
good keepers and average bats or the other way
around. It is ridden with average keepers and
average bats. Dinesh Kaarthick deserves a couple
more series to make a dent with the bat and to
show improvement with the gloves. Otherwise,
there is Pankaj Dharmani who I fear Intikhab
Alam might just beg and drag off to Pakistan if
we don’t appreciate his talent. His comatose
temperament in the face of mounting adversity in
the Ranji semis and finals deserve an India A
spot if nothing less. And yes, he can keep
wickets without being yelled at by first slip.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni is the harbinger of a
new era in Indian cricket. At least he should
be. Kirmani could afford to average 27 in tests
because he didn’t drop anything and he had
Gavaskar, Vishwanath, Amarnath before him and
Chandra, Pras, Bedi after him. Both ends were
secure. Patel, Dhoni, Kaarthick don’t. Put
simple, there are only two ways to survive in
Indian cricket as a keeper- Bat very well and
keep wickets somewhat well, OR, Bat very well
and keep wickets very well. If you bat somewhat
well, please get into a time travel machine and
get into the Indian team of 1948. You have no
place here.
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