The second-chance saloon

[Ram]

A Very good article on some players making remarkable comebacks into cricket and how some others were dumped too soon. -------------------------------------------------- Coming back, the Australian way The second-chance saloon Dileep Premachandran October 21, 2007 Hayden's journey from test flop to the leading opener of his era is a testament to the Australian way © Getty Images If Matthew Hayden had been born in King's Circle, Mumbai, rather than Kingaroy in Queensland, the chances are that he would have finished up as just another one-century wonder. His journey from Test flop to being the dominant opener of his era tells you something about the Australian way, and provides a lesson for others who jettison talent far too soon. Years from now, how many Indian cricket followers will remember Pravin Amre? Will they know that he played 11 Tests for his country in less than a year and then disappeared into the domestic ether? How many will be aware of the bravery, technique and temperament that he showed to defy Allan Donald and friends on a lively Kingsmead pitch on his way to a maiden century? Amre made his debut at 24, and was history by 25. A couple of years later Vinod Kambli would join him in the wilderness, roughed up by West Indian quicks and unable to reclaim a middle-order slot after the advent of Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly. The English still wax eloquent about Mark Ramprakash, who averaged 27 in Tests, but how good might Kambli have been? How many are thrown onto the garbage heap while still averaging 54? In Hayden's first 13 Tests, before he arrived in India in February 2001, he averaged just 24.36, with a century and two fifties. It was a make-or-break tour for him. Mark Taylor had retreated into retirement, Michael Slater was showing signs of frailty, and Matthew Elliott had slipped from the standards that he had set at Headingley in 1997. One of the believers was Stephen Waugh, Hayden's captain. Waugh had seen plenty of Hayden in the Pura Cup and was certain that he could turn it around at Test level after having endured a harsh baptism at the hands of the West Indians nearly a decade earlier. At the Wankhede Stadium, Hayden slowly set about vindicating his captain's faith. It didn't come easy. Waugh himself was one of the victims as Australia slipped to 99 for 5 in reply to a paltry Indian total. The last frontline batsman standing was Adam Gilchrist, and over the next couple of hours they produced batsmanship of such incandescent quality that the fate of the match was sealed within a session. He may have appeared ham-fisted in comparison to Gilchrist, who was in magical touch, but for the first time Hayden had pillaged an international attack as he had so often done for Queensland back home. There would be 549 runs in the series, and six years on he can boast of 27 centuries, a tally that will likely increase over the course of this Australian summer. His erstwhile opening partner, Justin Langer, was another renaissance man. He showed tremendous grit on debut against Curtly Ambrose and the last of the great West Indian attacks, but most people remembered that series for the way Langer's helmet and body were used as target practice. As the years passed, Langer made an impression at No. 3, even scoring 250 against India in 1999, but by the time the 2001 Ashes came around, he was back on the fringes. On the eve of the final Test, at The Oval, an emotional Langer was convinced that his days at the top were numbered. But a candid chat in the bar with John Buchanan that culminated in the coach hugging him was to be the fork in the road that would lead to one of the great opening partnerships in the game's history. Slater the maverick was dumped, and Langer and Hayden put on the first of what would be many century partnerships. Both men had found the rigours of Test cricket too much to bear at the first time of asking and gone back to the Pura Cup finishing school before returning as better players. Of course, it helps to play in a domestic competition of that standard. Brad Hodge may not have done his Test chances much good with some shaky displays in India over the last month, but he is another example of a player who did the hard yards year upon year before earning baggy-green recognition. Like Michael Hussey, who made his debut in the same year, Hodge made the transition from state cricket look almost seamless. "When I came into the side, the guys treated me as an experienced player," he says. "I may not have played for Australia before, but I'd made close to 9000 runs in the Pura Cup. Of course you know it's a step up, but I don't think Mike [Hussey] and I felt it as much as others might." In India anyone over the age of 25 is usually considered a fossil, and you can count on your fingers the number of experienced pros who have been given the blue cap. Instead, Indian cricket specialises in unearthing prodigies and - as Suresh Raina and Parthiv Patel will tell you - forgetting about them as soon as the weight of expectation crushes their initial promise. Once banished, few make it back. Robin Singh, the current fielding coach, was a notable exception, returning in 1996, seven years after he had been discarded. Others, like Abey Kuruvilla, who was once almost as quick as Javagal Srinath, were ignored when at their best and picked after slow decline had set in. Much depends on the selectors and captain, and educated hunches. Mediocre first-class records aren't really an indicator of quality, as two Michaels, Vaughan and Clarke, could tell you. In the same way, impressive figures meant little when the hapless Debang Gandhi was taken to Australia and ruthlessly worked over by Glenn McGrath and company. When he was being pilloried for backing Raina last year, Greg Chappell used to insist that a player needed 15 to 20 games to establish himself at the highest level. He knew what he was talking about, having been part of the selection panel that handed Waugh his baggy green. It took Waugh 27 Tests to score the first of his 32 centuries. Hayden, Langer and Waugh are names that will resonate for as long as the game is played. Slow starters, men who took a while to understand their game, and bonafide legends. Their stories couldn't have been replicated in India, where we feed on our young the moment they fail to live up to our lofty expectations. Where, for every Sachin Tendulkar, there's a footnote from the past. Just ask Amre. Dileep Premachandran is an associate editor at Cricinfo © Cricinfo