SOLID PERFORMERS WITH BAT AND BALL
Although India haven’t been able to produce all rounders in bulk, as do New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, there are a few gems who have all been wonderful whenever they have been asked to save the team either with the bat or with the ball. It’s a rare composition of talent when players can excel with both bat and ball. Here is the list of Indian players who have been masters of this valuable trade through the years.
Vinoo Mankad
One of the three batsmen in world cricket history to have batted at all positions, Vinoo Mankad scored 5 test hundreds and also took two 8-wicket hauls in an innings during the time when India was still a toddler in international cricket. Much like, Vijay Hazare, Mankad’s contribution to Indian cricket that was just blossoming on the world stage is beyond those 2109 test runs and 162 test wickets. He possessed great powers of concentration and a very solid defence. His contribution to India’s first ever test victory at Chennai was immense. Mankad could well get into any time for only his batting or only for his bowling. Infact, he impressed Lord Tennyson (when Tennyson was touring India with his team) so much so that, Tennyson told him that he could well play for World XI. And this happened, when he had just 2 years of first-class experience (1937) and was not in line for a national debut (Mankad debuted 9 years after this incident). To imagine India’s early heroes on the cricket field getting unlimited appreciations from British gives me goose-bumps, considering the fact that this game was invented by the British. It is an immense matter of pride, quite seriously.
Dattu Phadkar
Dattu Phadkar was a rare commodity in Indian cricket. While teams like England, Australia, New Zealand and Pakistan had fast-bowling all rounders, India had very few of them. One of them was a hard hitting middle order batsman and an accurate medium pace bowler from Kolhapur in Maharashtra.
Phadkar was a very important cog in the Indian wheel for almost ten years after India got its independence. He was a genuine all rounder who the team could rely on to score runs quickly at any position and pick up wickets at ease. His debut against the likes of Lindwall and Miller was a story in itself. He scored an attacking 51 coming at No.8 and later picked up three wickets too. He was a thorn in the flesh for the Aussies when India toured Australia in 1947-58. In that particular series Phadkar scored 314 runs at an average of 52.33. Phadkar contributed 1229 runs in his 31 test matches for India. In addition to the two hundreds and eight fifties he scores, Phadkar took 62 wickets with three five wicket hauls at Madras, Bridgetown and Kolkata.
Madras was where he registered his best bowling figures of 7/159. West Indies were playing India in India and Phadkar showed them his class. Phadkar was actually leading the attack on that occasion and went on bowl long spells in that match.
Some heroes can never be quantified!
Kapil Dev
Wisden recognized his services to Indian cricket by choosing him as India’s cricketer of the century (2002) ahead of batting stalwarts, Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar. Kapil remains the only all rounder in the world to have taken more than 400 test wickets and scored more than 5000 test runs. Kapil Dev possessed a graceful action along with deadly outswingers that got the batsmen edging many a time. By the early 1980s, he had also developed the lethal inswinging yorker with which he removed the tail enders with ease. Although he wasn’t striking as good as Imran, Hadlee and Botham, Kapil Dev still had an outstanding accuracy with his line and length. The Haryana Hurricane’s was lethal against West Indies when he took 9/83 at Ahmedabad. Earlier in the same year (1983), Kapil rocked Pakistan with 8/85 at Lahore. However, the Chennai test in 1980 would always be Kapil’s best performance with the ball as he helped India register a 10 wicket victory against Pakistan with a 11-wicket matc haul. Kapil snapped 4 wickets in Pakistan’s first innings. Later when India batted, Kapil piled on the agony with a 98 ball 84 that came late in the innings after Gavaskar scored a magnificent 166. The likes of Mudassar Nazar, Sadiq Mohammad, Zaheer Abbas, Asif Iqbal and Imran Khan faced the music once again. Kapil went to capture 7 Pakistani wickets and with that also ensured India won the game handsomely.
Apart from being the greatest pace bowler India has produced, Kapil was belligerent with the bat. With 8 scores greater than hundred, Kapil attacked right from the word go. To put it in simpler terms, Sehwag bats the way Kapil batted those days. His best knocks have always been scored at strike rate close to 100. He was also an astute captain who never feared to take bold decisions.
Kapil will always be remembered as someone who dedicated his life to Indian cricket.
Ravi Shastri
After making his test debut when he was just 18 years old, Shastri started to become a premier batsman in India’s middle-order from a left-arm spinner. Although, some of his stone-walling tactics, brought him under immense scrutiny, Shastri always had numbers to disprove his detractors. He scored over 3800 runs with 11 test hundreds and also picked up 151 test victims. Shastri’s ability to bowl and bat, made him a very useful player in the team during the 80s. He was the only solution for every problem Indian cricket faced. When Pranab Roy and Ghulam Parkar kept failing regularly at the top of the innings, Shastri was elevated as an opener to solve the problem. Out of those 80 test matches he played for India, Ravi Shastri had played 17 of those as an opener. He was definitely, India’s man for all seasons.
Manoj Prabhakar
One of India’s fast bowlers, who modelled himself on Kapil Dev – the cricketer. Prabhakar performed various roles for Team India in the late 80s and early 90s. He was a slow yet stubborn opening batsman, a useful lower middle-order batsman and more importantly a virtuoso of swing bowling. Prabhakar was wily whenever he opened the attack with the new ball for India. He can swing the ball both ways and can cause trouble for openining batsmen. One such victim was Kepler Wessels. Wessels was bowled twice in two matches for duck. This was the only occasion when Wessels had recorded a duck when playing for South Africa. Prabhakar was also a great exponent of reverse swing. As it always happens in dry surfaces, Prabhakar made the ball reverse swing when India toured Pakistan in 1989. His early orthodox swing bowling along with the late reverse swing he got with the older ball, meant Pakistan were in all sorts of trouble facing Manoj. He claimed 5/104 at Karachi and also went on to get 6/132 in Faisalabad.
Prabhakar’s contribution to the team, as said above, was just not restricted to swing bowling that earned him 96 test wickets . He averaged 32.65 with the bat as he scored 1600 runs in 39 matches. Some of his best performances came when he opened the innings. His 120 against West Indies at Mohali (1994), 95 against New Zealand at Napier (1990) and another 95 against Sri Lanka at Colombo (1993) were his best scores for India. That he also batted down the order at No.6, 7 and 8 meant he scored more fifties (9 of them) and lesser hundreds. Prabhakar also had 11 scores that were between 31 and 50. All it meant was, Prabhakar was a total utility player in the team as he contributed with the ball and with the bat at all positions ranging from No.1 to No.9
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Author: Ananthasubramanian – Seasoned Keeda
Has written 24 Articles, posted 5 Comments, 0 Posts, has 7 Fans and was thanked 19 Times
Nice article, i have voted for Kapil Dev here. Manoj Prabhkar was a great force too with the bat as well as the ball.
Impressive, you are as good or better than pro cricket writer, keep going