Rudyard Kipling might have been philosophizing a little more than what he would have liked when he termed success and failure as merely complementary imposters. This world is hardly utopian, and success, no matter how much you despise admitting it, serves as the yardstick of one’s greatness more often than not.Cricket, like every other thing in life, is no less unforgiving than rewarding. Scoring tons consistently or running through the oppositions’ batting line-ups would elevate you to the stature of legends no sooner than a golden duck in a crucial chase would earn you brickbats. Man is a servant of emotions, and sentiments are bound to swell when the demi-gods in question fail to live up to expectations.Failing once or twice is one thing; being written off is quite another. It calls for immense psychological strength, unfaltering dedication and determined perseverance – and of course, a faint stroke of luck – to silence your critics against all odds. Scripting a comeback from the deepest chasms of despondency is never easy, although all it may take for a turnaround in fortunes is a single half-century or a five-for.Perhaps, it is Yuvraj Singh who exemplifies a comeback in its truest essence. Diagnosed with the emperor of all maladies, the Man of the Tournament during India’s historic 2011 World Cup triumph battled against gruesome mortality and emerged victorious after a grueling few months that had the entire nation praying for his recovery. But the man was not yet done with comebacks. He returned to cricket, was called back into the Indian team and subsequently registered quite a few trademark innings while steering his team towards victory.While Yuvraj remains of paradigm of champion, there have been a handful others too, who had lost all, been written off by pundits, and yet never gave up until eventually managing to engineer a riposte, starring in national colours once again. Here go the top five cricketers who eked out a survival against the tide and scripted their names in cricket’s greatest career comebacks.Special Mention:Mitchell Johnson - "He bowls to the left, He bowls to the right, That Mitchell Johnson, His bowling is sh**e."The Barmy Army's chant during the 2010-11 Ashes at home troubled Mitchell Johnson. Later, he admitted that the he let the taunts affect him a lot. In 2013, he was dropped from the squad prior to the 3rd Test against India in an infamous incident now known as "homeworkgate". Having missed the Ashes in England, when he was touted as the man to watch out for during the return Ashes in Australia by Sachin Tendulkar, not many could have imagined the destruction to come next.Donning a menacing moustache, Mitchell Johnson put on display a performance so memorable in that series, not many Australians, and definitely not many Englishmen, are going to forget it for years to come. 37 wickets at an average of 13.97 in 5 matches - Mitch broke the English dreams with his lethal fast bowling. Bowling regularly at 150 kmph, he showed accuracy which has been lacking for many years in his career so far, Mitchell Johnson became the fastest bowler on the planet, and the most dangerous during this period. He backed this performance with an incredible show in South Africa, picking 22 wickets in 3 matches, almost double than Dale Steyn.Hounded for most of his career for his wayward bowling (a majority of his teammates hate to face him in the nets), Johnson made a spectacular comeback, one which will be remembered for a long time to come.
#5 The Master displays his class
The reasons were much more personal than it was apparent when India’s greatest batsman and finest connoisseur of the cover drive left alone a pitched up delivery wide outside the off-stump in the final Test of the India-Australia series in 2004 at Sydney. Another day, he would have pierced the region between the cover and extra cover with the precision which only he guarantees. But the stakes were different on that warm January morning.
Sachin Tendulkar had garnered a paltry collective of 82 runs in five innings including two ducks on the tour. His last Test century had come against West Indies in Novemeber 2002 at the Eden Gardens. He had already celebrated his 30th birthday a while back and with 31 international tons in the longest format of the game, there was little left for him to achieve.
The obituaries seemed inevitable when Tendulkar was dismissed playing one of his favourite cover drives in the fourth Test. But the man in question had other plans as he adjusted his pads and resolved to make amends in the second session on Day One of the fifth Test. When he finally left the field, he was unconquered on 241 having played not a single off-drive during his arduous knock that spanned 436 balls and 613 minutes.
With a discipline that words continue to fall short of describing even today, Tendulkar left everything outside the off from length balls to juicy half-volleys. He persuaded the Brett Lees to bowl towards him as he capitulated on the gaps and wristed the cherry through the onside with impeccable timing. He returned to carve out an unbeaten 60 in the second innings before finishing the tour with 383 runs at an average of 76.60.
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#4 Gooch makes hay under the Indian sun
The stroke of luck, however faint it might be, often proves enough to regain form. The unfortunate Kiran More had little idea about his calamitous mistake when he almost lazily dropped Graham Gooch on 36 on the first day of the Lord’s Test in 1990. That innings, as it turned out, ended at 333, and revived Gooch’s career, establishing him as a frontline batsman in the English squad.
Just a year previously, England had surrendered meekly to the Aussies on home soil, with no batsman looking to stage a fight back against the Australian pace attack. Gooch returned with 183 runs in five Tests as England lost the Ashes with least competition.
The repeated manner of his dismissals – falling on the leg side and being trapped LBW right in front of the stumps – raised the concern over his place in the team to such an extent that he was left out of the playing XI for the last match at Trent Bridge. What had been lurking latent in what seemed to be obscurity, ignited at the right time as Gooch salvaged the horror of his hitherto career and realized his potential ultimately.
He returned in the second innings to hammer 123 runs off 113 deliveries en route to seizing the numero uno position in rankings and finishing the three Test series with an astonishing record of 752 runs at an average of 125 including three hundreds and two fifties.
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#3 Warne weaves his magic
The summer of 2003 turned out to be a disgrace for the Australian legend Shane Warne as he was sent home from the World Cup in Johannesburg after being tested positive for a diuretic, a drug that can be used to mask performance-enhancing steroids. 34, and living a life that had been frequently dubbed as acutely indisciplined by a cricketer’s standards, few anticipated a successful comeback from him.
However, returning from a one-year ban that consisted of almost no competitive cricket, Warne settled down into his rhythm picking up the 28th five-wicket haul of his 108-Test career in the first Test against Sri Lanka at Galle in 2004. He completed the milestone of 500 wickets in the second innings, dismissing Tillakaratne Dilshan in the process of achieving a 10-wicket match haul.
The mesmerizing comeback continued in full grandeur as the blonde-haired leg-spinner scalped another 10 wickets in the next match before emerging with six more in the last Test of the series. He went on to amass a world record tally of 96 wickets in the following year including an Ashes record of 40 against England in a vastly rewarding summer of 2005.
The rest, as they say, is history.
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#2 Dada\'s tenacity pays off
The Greg Chappell-Sourav Ganguly controversy had been publicized so much during the late 2005 and early 2006 that Wikipedia had to end up dedicating a whole page to the twist and turn of events. Nine years later, it remains no secret that the then Indian skipper had been a victim of murky board politics and the Indian coach’s personal dislike more than his poor batting form.
With BCCI continuing to overlook Ganguly despite him scoring fluently in the domestic circuit and his replacements in the national team failing hopelessly, even the most passionate fans had virtually given up hope of his scripting a comeback. But it happened eventually, and when it did, it managed to go down as one of the greatest career comebacks in the history of the game.
The southpaw carved out a majestic 87 in a tour match against the rest of South Africa days before sculpting a fighting 51 in his comeback Test at Johannesburg. He adjusted his original batting style and succeeded in accumulating the most runs in the scoring chart in that tour. He was subsequently called back for the ODI series against West Indies and Sri Lanka where he averaged close to 70 and was awarded the Man of the Series prize against Sri Lanka.
Ganguly scored 1106 Test runs in 2007 at an average of 61.44 with three centuries and five fifties to emerge the second highest run-getter in Tests in that year behind Jacques Kallis. In ODIs, he gathered 1240 runs at a scintillating average of 44.28 before ultimately hanging his boots in 2008.
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#1 Alderman\'s six \'five-for\'s spell England\'s doom
West Australian fast bowler Terry Alderman had played 16 Tests and picked up 66 wickets before an on-field incident with a spectator at Perth in 1982 ended up with him injuring his right shoulder and sidelining him for 14 months. His career was interrupted again when he decided to join a rebel tour to South Africa in 1985/86 and 1986/87.
As a consequence, he was forced to miss both the 1985 and 1986/87 Ashes series after earning a three year ban from international cricket due to his actions. It was a long road back for the 33-year-old when he was called up in the national team for the 1989 Ashes series in England.
This series is the same one that proved to be Graham Gooch’s undoing and it was Alderman who horrified the English right-hander, dismissing him plumb in front of the wicket for a staggering six times before the latter was rested for the fifth Test at Trent Bridge.
Alderman claimed 41 wickets at an average of only 17 in that tour, demolishing the experienced English batting under the captaincy of David Gower and scripted a memorable away Ashes victory for Australia. He completed his mind-boggling comeback with six ‘five-for’s and a 10-wicket match haul.
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