DADA REINVENTED

I am writing this post on the 2nd day of the 3rd test between India and Pakistan being played at Bangalore. About 15 minutes back Sourav Ganguly played a trademark cover drive and achieved something that had eluded him in 11 years of international cricket, a double century.

Its been almost a year since Dada has come back into the team after his unceremonious dismissal from the unit which he had formed. India were in South Africa that time and the likes of Nel,Ntini and Pollock definitely did not want to give Dada a warm reception back to the international arena. He scored a gritty half century in that low scoring game at Jo'burg and was the pick of the Indian batsmen on that tour. What was amazing to see was the way Dada had re invented himself as a batsman. He was looking much more confident and and at ease at the crease. The biggest change for me was the way he changed his pull shot, it is very crucial to have that shot in your armoury on the bouncy pitches of South Africa. Earlier, he would get the bat below the ball and invariably sky it, now he plays it more conventionally with the face of the bat in the direction of the boundary.

One year into his comeback he has cemented his place in the team(again). Even in the shorter version of the game, the Tendulkar-Ganguly opening combination came back to terrorise the bowlers. He has been very consistent throughout the year and it is very difficult to point to a particular phase when we could say it looked like he was struggling. Even in the disastrous World Cup campaign he stood out with a couple of solid half centuries. He continued the good form against England and was very close to the elusive century but Simon Taufel made a rare mistake and Trent Bridge wasn't destined to be the place of his comeback century.

The past two weekends have been amazing for him. Last saturday, he achieved a long cherished dream, that of getting a test century at the Eden Gardens, his celebrations showed how much it meant to him, it was very similar to his celebrations in Brisbane (which incidentally was his last century before this one), way back in 2004. The grit and determination showed in that innings was commendable. The timing couldn't have been better, both literally and figuratively. Which Indian cricketer wouldn't want to score a test century against Pakistan at his home ground??

Coming to this weekend, Dada came in to bat yesterday with 3 wickets down in the first session itself, with Laxman being the 4th to go he and Yuvi came together and engineered a fightback you generally would not associate with the Indians. By the end of the day they had put on 300 hundred runs and bailed India out of a precarious situation. Apart from his own century what would have made Dada feel satisfied was the way Yuvraj staked claim for a test spot. Yuvi was brought into the team wen Dada was captain and Dada was a staunch supporter of Yuvi who came in for a lot of criticism during the initial phase of his career. It was definitely a special moment to see both of them get centuries.

Today, the 2nd day he went on to score his maiden double test century and this time his partner at the other end was another young gun whom he had mentored, Irfan Pathan(ironically he too was making a comeback in test cricket and believed in Yuvi's way of doing it, by scoring a century). One more coincidence was that his century in Kolkata, the century and double century in Bangalore, all were brought up by cover drives. Even in the bowling department he is being utilised appropriately now and has been used as a partnership breaker to good effect.

The amount of respect i have for him now has grown manifold. I will be the first one to accept that i was in the group of detractors when he did an ad on TV for Pepsi after he was dropped,in which he asked us to continue cheering for India. I found that ridiculous. But then after coming back he has silenced all of us.

This may seem out of context but i would equate his comeback to SRK developing a six pack for OSO. Its not easy at the age of 42 to do that.Similarly for Dada, when he was dropped from the side he was 33, the normal age for retirement for a cricketer.The easy way out would have been to announce his retirement, after all he had achieved quite a lot in 10 years of international cricket. But he took the decision of working his way back into the team. He went back to the basics and worked extra hard on his fitness. Not many people know this but he had told his physical instructor to keep asking him whether he wanted to get back into the team or not whenever it looked like he was getting too tired and wanted to give up. It worked wonders for him and he came back, a changed player at the age of 34.

One year is a fair amount of time to decide whether a player is good enough for international cricket. And Dada has proved that he is here to stay and will retire on his own terms.