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Home > Cricket > Columns > Harsha Bhogle
October 10, 2000
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That special Saturday

Harsha Bhogle

It is three days since Yuvraj Singh provided us the most dramatic entry into one-day cricket that I can remember seeing. Sometimes time soothes the passion of the moment but the more I look back at that wonderful Saturday, the more I am convinced that what I saw was something very special. Not just from a young man but from a side that seemed to have lost the passion to compete.

84 runs from 80 balls against the best one-day team in the world on a bouncy track is a sensational performance. The Australians did not shy away from telling him a thing or two but, as he told us on ESPN, he merely smiled back. There is something about youth that is so utterly unprepared for reputations, that it reacts in a most natural, instinctive manner. And so, it was the approach that Yuvraj brought to the crease that meant more to me than the runs he scored.

I think Indian cricket has finally started to benefit from the exposure that television has brought in the last few years. Young cricketers are smarter, more savvy and they know a few tricks of the trade without having to discover them the hard way. And so, when third man was creeping into the circle, Yuvraj stopped the bowler, waited till the fielder was in position and then took stance.

I think he is special because he brought a cool head to a tense situation. A lot of cricketers have the ability but fewer have the self-belief and that is what you look for in a young man. If you have to deviate from the model personality, it is better to err on the side of arrogance than on the meek and it is not difficult to see that there is a streak of arrogance to Yuvraj.

In course of time, he might need to temper it a bit; to replace parts of it with realism for there is no doubt that opposition bowlers will be better prepared for him. I will be very surprised if England or South Africa haven't already thought of a plan to bowl to him and that is why sometimes the second test is more revealing than the first.

But we must guard against thinking that we have found the solution to our one-day batting problems. We have seen one swallow and it is beautiful but the summer is far away and Yuvraj's future success will depend greatly on how he perceives himself and indeed, on how he copes with people telling him that he is the best thing to have happened to Indian cricket.

Interestingly, and it came as a bit of a surprise to me, Sunil Gavaskar touched on that issue during one of our live broadcasts. He tapped me on the thigh suggesting that he had something to say and then told Navjot Sidhu in the studio in Singapore that it was his responsibility as a senior player from Punjab to speak to the crop of youngsters from there about handling success and failure. Young minds have their own agendas sometimes and while it works fairly well on a cricket ground, it sometimes negates that effect off it.

Dramatic as Yuvraj's debut was, it cannot cast a shadow over another that, to my mind, is just as significant to Indian cricket. I must confess I was a bit uneasy when Sourav Ganguly tossed the new ball to Zahir Khan during the game against Kenya. Ganguly had spoken very highly of Zahir in the build-up to the event and obviously had decided to follow his instincts. To say it worked would be an understatement because Zahir bowled with great heart and pace.

There is a spirit to him that makes you want to keep an eye on him. He is quite happy to drop one short early on and he bowls a mean yorker. That was the most heartening aspect to his cricket because it is something we have been crying ourselves hoarse about. With Agarkar dropping off alarmingly in the slog overs, India really have nobody to turn to and it will do our cricket an enormous good if young Zahir can do that job consistently. Admittedly, at this stage it would be expecting a little too much from him but the next few games will show whether or not he is a good learner.

I am not sure if it was merely the presence of the youngsters, or a symbol of the spirit that now exists in the side that they put on the finest display of fielding I have seen from an Indian side in recent years. India have fielded well in patches before, and hopefully this wasn't just a passing phase, but what was most heartening was the fact that whenever Australia started looking good, it was an Indian fielder that brought about the breakthrough.

First it was a catch by Yuvraj but it was Robin Singh's effort at square leg to remove Ponting when Australia were cruising that really turned things around. Robin hasn't been a very happy man in recent times. He hasn't been bowling too much and that was bound to put some pressure on his batting but on Saturday he did just about everything. The fascinating thing about the catch was that his hands split as the ball made impact. Normally the ball tends to go down when that happens but he held on in his left hand and even though he came down heavily, he didn't allow it to drop out. You could see, on the faces of Tendulkar and Ganguly, that they believed a turning point had been seen. If ever it needed to be driven home to Indian cricketers that fielding wins matches, this was it.

Almost immediately afterwards Yuvraj did it again. He was just a touch lucky with the bounce that gave him a very comfortable hold on the ball but his pick-and-throw was sensational and as Ian Chappell said, it had to be very very good because Michael Bevan hardly ever gets run-out.

I know Friday will be another day and I will be very pleasantly surprised if India are able to maintain their intensity (and I say so only because I have watched so much of them). But whatever happens from here on, what I saw on Saturday will not fade.

India are not missing anyone here and that is something very few of us were willing to say last week.

Harsha Bhogle

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