The Successors

[Sachin=GOD]

While a one-day tournament isn’t the best context in which to judge durable batsmanship, India’s decisive wins against South Africa and the West Indies in the ICC Championship Trophy have made Indians wonder if we have come to the end of our long batting drought. After a decade of poor harvests, India might finally have produced a decent crop of young batsmen. The great quintet of Indian batsmen — Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Virender Sehwag — was assembled over a decade, between Tendulkar’s debut in 1989 and Sehwag’s ten years later. Their take-over of Indian batsmanship was so complete that the next generation of batmen withered in their shade. The Noughties produced nothing unless you count Yuvraj Singh or Gautam Gambhir which, given the afore-mentioned Immortals, you can’t. Yuvraj never made the cut as a Test match batsman and while Gambhir did, his brief time at the top was a temporary triumph of temperament over talent and technique. For 10 long years there was no room at the top: you could count the pretenders on the fingers of one hand. Besides the ones I’ve mentioned, the only ones who broke through, even briefly, were Mohammad Kaif, Wasim Jaffer and Akash Chopra: while all of them were worthy, none of them was wonderful. The Famous Five were felled by age and failing eyes, not younger competition. Till recently, Sehwag’s perch atop the batting line up and Tendulkar’s decision to extend his international tenure indefinitely seemed reasonable because there wasn’t anyone pressing them for their places. Then, in 2010, things began to change: the first (and arguably the best) of India’s young batsmen emerged: Cheteshwar Pujara. Ever since Gavaskar (and Vijay Merchant before him) the classical, run-hungry, top-order batsman has spoken directly to the Indian spectator’s soul. The desi fan might live for Vishwanath’s dazzle and Sehwag’s pyrotechnics but hard-wired into his head is a race memory of batting collapses in the face of fast men, so the first order of business is the solvency that only a Gavaskar or Dravid can supply. When Pujara announced himself with a 72 against the Australians in Bangalore in 2010, something about the composure and poise of the innings rang bells in middle-aged heads, bells that we hadn’t heard in a decade and more. When Pujara injured himself soon after we sighed and went back to consoling ourselves with the twilight of our Immortals, but luckily for us, despite his dodgy knees, this young lion from Gujarat came roaring back with four big hundreds, two of them double centuries. The one thing Pujara has to prove to himself and the world is his ability to make runs outside the sub-continent. There’s nothing in his temperament or technique that’s likely to prevent him from doing just that, but his one outing to South Africa didn’t go well. For doubting desis who value foreign runs more than local scores, Pujara has that bridge to cross. For reasons best known to India’s selectors, he hasn’t played a single ODI and wasn’t even in the running for the Champions Trophy squad but I can’t believe that a man who scored an unbeaten eighty in his last Test innings (against the Australians) at a strike rate of nearly ninety will be permanently typecast as a Test-only batsman. The second name in this young cohort — let’s call them the Successors — is Virat Kohli. Apart from his curious habit of swearing at everything on a cricket pitch — and he swears impartially at both triumph and disaster — Kohli is an extraordinary ODI talent who has, by dint of determination and will, turned himself into a decent Test match batsman. The greatest Test match laurel he has won is the century he scored in Adelaide in a losing cause (he top-scored in a side that included Sehwag, Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman) and perhaps his greatest gift is his determination to impose himself on a match. Unusually for an Indian batting grandee, Kohli is an electrifying fielder. The determination of pundits to see him as Dhoni’s successor, though, is premature: his hyper-ventilating style as skipper might fit the WWF mood of an IPL match but it’s an inappropriate manner for an Indian captain. The third Successor makes this list on potential, not achievement. Rohit Sharma made his international debut six years ago in 2007, a year before Kohli did. For a man who has been around this long, he is one of the great under-achievers of contemporary cricket. He has played ninety ODIs without nailing down a place in the Indian team and he has two miserable centuries to show for his efforts. He hasn’t played a Test match. And yet his demeanour, his stance, the casual perfection of his cover-drive has desi fans dying for him to succeed. The two innings he has played in this Champions Trophy have given them hope: promoted to open the innings thanks to one of Dhoni’s famous hunches, Rohit made two perfectly judged fifties against high quality fast bowling on foreign pitches. Fifties. Fast Bowling. Foreign pitches. Who could ask for more? Out of nowhere Rohit Sharma chose to demonstrate that he had the attention span of a human being not a hamster and allowed us to hope that his lavish potential might actually be fulfilled. I’ve saved the most exciting Successor for last. For the ten years or so that Sehwag rolled up to open the batting for India, he was the most exciting batsman in the world. Sehwag was an attacking batsman in the way that Malcolm Marshall was a hostile fast bowler. Fast bowlers like Marshall terrorised batting line-ups. Sehwag terrorised bowling attacks. There are no categories for an opening batsman whose strike-rate made Matthew Hayden look sluggish. When he was dropped from the Indian side recently after going into a steep decline, I knew that cricket had lost a one-of-a-kind genius. Then Shikhar Dhawan strolled in. Nine years into his first class career, Dhawan was given a debut Test against the Australians in Mohali and he scored 187 at faster than a run-a-ball, for a strike-rate higher than Sehwag’s. There is, of course, a small difference: Dhawan’s record consists of a single Test outing while Sehwag sustained his ferocious strike-rate over 180 innings. Still, a man has to start somewhere and given that Dhawan has scored hundreds in the two international innings he has played since then (the matches against South Africa and the West Indies in this Champions Trophy) at a strike rate of over a hundred, I think he’s trying to tell us something. My personal cricket fantasy is a brief Sehwag comeback just so that I can tell my grandchildren that I watched Dhawan and Sehwag, left- and right-handed hurricanes, open the batting for India. But hyperbole aside, there is a whiplash soundness about Dhawan’s batting that leaves you feeling both exhilarated and reassured. It’s a not feeling that Indian fans are used to. So that makes Four. It isn’t a quintet yet but four is enough to be going on with. Since we are talking about both Tests and ODIs, there is a possible Successor in Murali Vijay who made two huge Test hundreds against the Australians this year. And perhaps Dinesh Karthik will shrug off a chequered early career and cement a specialist batting place in the Indian team in both formats of the game. He has had some success in England opening the batting in Tests, and his form of late has been exceptional. The man who isn’t in contention for Successorship, despite his permanent place in India’s ODI team, is Suresh Raina. He’s a wonderful wholehearted cricketer, a fine fielder and, given a flat track and less than express bowling, an attacking lower-order batsman. But his bankruptcy against fast, short-pitched bowling is a reminder of Indian batting’s fatal weakness in the past, a weakness that Vishwanath, Gavaskar, Vengsarkar, Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman exorcised by their magnficent example. It shouldn’t be allowed to return to haunt Indian batsmanship today. Pujara, Kohli, Sharma and Dhawan have a mountain to climb before they can claim to be legitimate heirs of the Famous Five. Apart from the glorious memories that Tendulkar & Co. left us, their achievement, statistically measured, is so massive that to name a group of young batsmen as their successors is to weigh them down with an impossible burden of expectation. So let us be clear: it’s very unlikely that this or any cohort of Indian batsmen will ever properly fill their shoes. On the other hand, there was a time when Gundappa Vishwanath, Sunil Gavaskar, Mohinder Amarnath and Dilip Vengsarkar played for India and we wondered if we would see their like again. And then, in 1989, came the One…

http://www.starsports.com/cricket/features/articleid=1269316/index.html#the-successors

[MCcricket]

These four batters look like they can play pace and spin well also play on both sides of the wicket and only in case of Rohit it is time he gets a berth in test's, there is a huge gulf in his domestic Ranji and ODI averages, he is a test match player and averages 60 in Ranji cricket. Rayudu, Kartik, Saha, Chand, Vijay, Gambhir, Sehwag, Rahane should form the pool for test batters besides the above mentioned.

[carnish]

Rohit Sharma .... LOL

[ravishingravi]

I think if we pick Sachin up after this, we deserve more 8 - 0 s

[kubrickian]

Pujara, Kohli, Rohit, Raina were always billed as the next big batting stars in the past. Never thought Dhawan would be mentioned among them but he has been brilliant in this series.

[Holysmoke]

On the other hand, there was a time when Gundappa Vishwanath, Sunil Gavaskar, Mohinder Amarnath and Dilip Vengsarkar played for India and we wondered if we would see their like again. And then, in 1989, came the One…

Wah!

[jalebi_bhai]

"And then, in 1989, came the One…" Beautiful line......

[tweaker]

Add to this list Ambatti Rayuddu,.If given a chance i think he is talented enough to create his own place in all the format of the game.

[rkt.india]

Yuvraj never made the cut as a Test match batsman and while Gambhir did, his brief time at the top was a temporary triumph of temperament over talent and technique.

This is what I had said in another thread about Gambhir.

[Holysmoke]

Add to this list Ambatti Rayuddu' date='.If given a chance i think he is talented enough to create his own place in all the format of the game.[/quote'] He won't be given a chance. Everyone knows that. Hint - Arjun Yadav

[SLICKR392]

I don't rate Rohit as of yet.

[saneindian]

Kesavan has always been a Gambhir critic. Even when Gambhir was hitting test 100s for fun, remember reading a piece he had written comparing VVS and GG with some nasty shots at GG. Also, Kesavan has himself criticized others requesting not to judge test potential based on ODI performances. Here he's himself doing exactly that!

[vvvslaxman]

They are not successors. Apart from Pujara nobody has displayed the traits of our yesteryear greats. M Vijay did score couple of 100s in home conditions. We have to wait and see whether he can continue in the same vein for few more years. Same with Dhawan.

[Tendulkar_Bhai]

Vijay does not have the technique to play outside India/IPL imo, Dhawan i wasnt sure about but he has put that to rest totally in the last few matches. Sharma opening i feel is only short term, he has a lot still to prove and has shown no consistency in the past. Pujara, Dhawan, Kohli and the future. DK is feel is just taking up a spot in the current squad dont see him as long term

[Raghav_12]

a bit premature.. it hasn't been long since we lost to England at home.

[Sidhoni]

No Rahane? After playing as many ODIs as Rohit has played, any batsman is bound to come good at times.

[mastana]

Add Sanju Samson to that list. He looks special.

[Sachin=GOD]

No Rahane? After playing as many ODIs as Rohit has played' date=' any batsman is bound to come good at times.[/quote'] Rohit has only now been promoted up the order - he will now bat very well...

[Sidhoni]

Rohit has only now been promoted up the order - he will now bat very well...

Thank Dhoni for that :D

[Sachin=GOD]

Thank Dhoni for that :D

I'll thank Sehwag and Gambhir because they failed :P