‘Very Very Special’ Laxman has retired from international cricket with immediate effect. It has been a long 16-year journey for him, and even when he was surrounded by famous players such as Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, he still managed to stand on his own.
Laxman, a veteran of 134 Tests in which he scored 8,781 runs including 17 centuries and 56 fifties, perhaps came to prominence with his epic innings in the 2001 series against Australia. Steve Waugh’s Australians were on a roll and seemed unbeatable, but that was before they faced Laxman. India, a match down in the series, were on the verge of losing it at Eden Gardens. Following on in the second innings, India were struggling, and it looked as though Australia would wrap up the match in no time. But standing in their way was a gritty Laxman, who batted for nearly two days to score 281, then the highest individual score for India.
He was up against a fierce Australian bowling attack that included McGrath, Gillespie, Kasprowicz and Warne, but nothing could stop him. His innings helped India to an epic win in that match, one of the rare occasions on which a team following on has come back to win.
The innings became part of cricket folklore and set a benchmark that hardly anyone has been able to match.
India’s rise in Test cricket
That innings changed the face of Test cricket in India. The team only got better from there and became one of the fiercest forces in the game. Laxman had a huge role to play in India’s rise to the top of Test cricket. The wristy Hyderabadi went on to play many great knocks after that magical innings in Kolkata and rescued India from dire straits on many occasions.
What Laxman will be remembered for most is his batting in the second innings. The higher the pressure, the better he batted. He was one of India’s ‘Fab Four’, along with Tendulkar, Dravid and Ganguly. The four helped India win many matches both at home and away.
Laxman retired on his own terms. He did not bid goodbye amid millions of fans chanting his name or teammates giving him a lap of honour. Instead, he chose to call it a day without bartering his dignity and honour.
A void in the middle order
With Laxman retiring ahead of the New Zealand series, the Indian team does get the chance to test all their options before playing on foreign soil. India will be playing at home for a long time before going overseas, and only then will the team really miss his services.
India are vulnerable on the fast, bouncy pitches seen in England and Australia last season, and apart from Sachin Tendulkar no one in the middle order has the proven ability to handle that kind of attack.
The whole Indian batting line-up suffered on those two tours, and it was one of the rare occasions on which Laxman failed. His poor run in the last two series and the criticism that followed were among the reasons that led him to retire.
The Indian team will never be the same again. With Dravid retiring after the Australia series, Sachin still had the assurance of Laxman’s support. Now that Laxman has gone as well, it will put immense pressure on the Master Blaster.
The Indian selectors, already struggling to find a replacement for Dravid, will now be scratching their heads to find someone to fill Laxman’s shoes. But his shoes are too big to fill, and there is hardly anyone in the current crop of players who could replace him.
Laxman never batted in his favourite number three position, but he did exceptionally well at number five and has a phenomenal record in the second innings. He stayed calm in the most intense situations and delivered whenever his team needed him to. He carved out a niche for himself in pressure situations, and India will now have to find a player with the same kind of temperament.
Anyone who has followed Laxman knows that every time he was down, he came back strongly, and perhaps we could have seen something like that on the upcoming tour. He had already started preparing for the series but retired before it began. Laxman played cricket for 16 years and still had some cricket left in him, but he has drawn the curtain on his career, leaving a huge void in the team.
Replacing a man who was undoubtedly one of the best batsmen in the fourth innings will be tough for India. The cricketing world has seen many match-winners, but everyone will agree that a crafty middle-order batsman like him comes along once in a generation.
By Samikshan Dutta Choudhury
Indian Sports News
