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And soft into the twilight...

Harsha Bhogle
If you are a cricketer, it can be a chilling moment. If you've played cricket for over a decade, if waking up to the prospect of matching your skill against another is an invigorating thought, it can be the moment of reckoning itself. And it is looking rather uncomfortably, and squarely, at Mohammad Azharuddin.

And if, like me, you are an observer, it can be a peculiar moment. Are you face-to-face with a historic moment? Is the career of one of the finest batsmen to play for India over? And then the mind drifts and you ask yourself -- will that great wristy flick through the on-side be seen one more time on an international cricket ground?

If the answer is no, this has to be a sad day. But much as cricket lovers would want the answer to be yes, and emotion is a poetic but otherwise useless thought, I'm afraid it looks like Azharuddin may never play for India again.

His heart must wish him to and his head should guide him towards the path of a comeback, but he will be aware that very very few cricketers who have been dropped at 34 have managed to return. And India's selectors have a reputation for clothing anyone over 30 in moth balls.

And yet, the question deserves to be asked: should Azharuddin have been dropped? AS a selector, and therefore endowed with power and, ostensibly, with reason, you have to look beyond images, beyond convenience and towards the common good of team and nation. In the case of Azharuddin, you need to look at two factors: his attitude to the game and the number of runs he has scored.

The only reason I even talk about his attitude is that it has been questioned in recent times by a lot of experts who cite his apparent lack of commitment at the crease as an indicator of something deeper. For a few years now, and rather more startlingly for about six months now, he has batted like he hates defence and has a deep infatuation for unbridled attack. It has led to speculation that he is enjoying himself at the expense of his side. Even that he is "selfish".

Much as I have found his approach to batting inexplicable, especially for someone who has been blessed with such riches, I find it difficult to believe that he can put his interests above those of his side. Of all the cricketers who have played for India for any length of time in the last fifteen years, the finest team men have been Kapil Dev and Mohammad Azharuddin. As he said to me sometime back, "I have played with broken bones, with a serious groin injury; I have played shots when within sight of my century because the team has needed quick runs; I have scarified my wicket even in the midst of a bad patch because the other batsman was in better form. And I can say with all honesty that I have never put my interests above the team's interests."

But sometimes, while personal intentions could be noble, the act of batsmanship itself could go against team interests and it must be said in recent times that Azhar's aggressive approach has occasionally been counter-productive. It can work two ways. For one, the loss of a key wicket and for a second, the influence it has on the rest. If a senior batsman is seen to sell his wicket easily, it can be very difficult to convince another that he must forego something in the interest of the team. To my mind, that is what must have given the team management in South Africa and the West Indies its share of trouble.

More than anything else, what probably went against Azhar was the apparent anger that seemed to reside inside him. It seemed sometimes that there was an inferno raging within and that attacking the ball was an almost cathartic reaction. You could see it in the way he reacted to decisions by umpires; something he had never done before. He didn't seem to react after holding a great catch (and it must to said, there were several in the West Indies) or even after any of his three recent hundreds. To me, it was all symbolic of a deeper problem and that the situation he now finds himself in is the result of his inability to overcome the fire within.

In spite of his apparent problems, and to be fair to him they have been written about with an almost maniacal obsession, selectors have to sit down and take a very cold look at each player. They have to look at performances in the light of immediate needs and I am afraid, from that point of view, they have some uncomfortable questions to answer.

It has been noticeable that most of Azhar's problems have been in the longer game. He averages around 30 in Test cricket in the last year which does his talent, and his team, no justice. But in one-day internationals, he averages around 40 and that is a fact that has escaped a lot of breast-beaters. What marks out a selector from the others is his ability to look beyond the image and at the reality within. And the reality states that he has been, with the possible exception of Tendulkar but including Dravid and Ganguly and Jadeja, India's most consistent one-day batsman in the last twelve months. To drop him from a limited overs tournament on home ground, on cricketing reasons, is quite inexplicable.

Had India been faced with a Test series, or even if there was a long tour coming up, the decision to drop him would have acquired more reason. In a one-day tournament, it defeats me.

I believed that he had a good year ahead of him because he would have been playing five Tests against Sri Lanka and three at home against Australia on wickets that would have suited his style of play. At the end of those eight Tests would have come the critical moment. In April 1998, he would have been 35 and that off season would have been a very good time to introspect. Given his awesome fitness standards, he could perhaps have continued playing in the one-day game for a little longer and maybe, by the end of 1998, he would have said goodbye.

That goodbye suddenly seems a lot closer. Maybe it is upon us. For Azhar to come back, it will require him to work harder than he ever has; to go down to the relative obscurity of domestic cricket and plunder runs and then, to convince selectors that investing in him for a couple of years is more beneficial to the team in the immediate future than investing in a young man of 24. It is not an impossible scenario, but one that you have to admit is improbable.

There have been several cricketers, as young or, if you choose to look at it that way, as old as Azhar, who left the main stage and found they didn't have the motivation to perform on a smaller stage. Mohinder Amarnath did and until his knees gave way completely, Ravi Shastri did. And so did Syed Kirmani. But they were different cricketers temperamentally. And they had a fire within because they believed they had something to prove. G.R. Vishwanath couldn't, though he played on for Karnataka for more than four years after he had been dropped. Sandeep Patil played on and breifly, so did Srikkanth. But those were not serious attempts. They were merely softening the impact.

Does Azharuddin have it in him to play with the fire of a 22 year old again? It will be fascinating and much as I believe that he has gone too far to return, I will not be putting any money on it. For he has surprised people before and he might just have another up his sleeve. There is one indicator in that direction and that is his near paranoid attention to fitness and to his diet. Azhar at 34 is still the best all round fielder in the side; he is by some distance the fittest member and at slip, he has discovered a fresh dimension to fielding.

The heart says he will return for one final goodbye. The head fears it has already been done.

PS: Folks, you'll be as delighted as we are that Harsha, after six months spent traipsing around the world on various television and other assignments, has finally dropped anchor at Rediff again. For starters, he will be writing a weekly column - but the periodicity of his writing will increase by the end of next month. Look, too, for live chats, interviews and, in a word, the sort of cricket coverage that has made Harsha a household name the world over. We have provided his e-mail address here, so that you can communicate with him directly. Go for it. - Prem