Injuries to openers KL Rahul and Shikhar Dhawan __have paved the way for Gautam Gambhir’s comeback. (Source: PTI) ‘Raas Ullal Garba Mahotsav’ is what the giant welcome arch that one passes through after turning left on Race Course Road towards Holkar Stadium reads in bold, glitzy letters. Indore’s maiden tryst with Test cricket might be the talk of the town, but it is also Navratri season here. And every evening around sunset, hundreds walk through this arch and form lengthy queues to enter one of the more upmarket garba pandals in the area.
There was a queue on Thursday too. Only it had started forming well before noon. It’s not an uncommon sight in India’s smaller cricket centres though; to see the locals making use of every opportunity to catch a glimpse of these otherwise elusive cricket superstars. But not often will you find thousands patiently waiting in a line in very humid climes to catch the Indian team go through their practice routines two days before a match, especially when you consider they were here less than a year ago for an one-dayer.
But there is a sense of freshness and a new beginning in the air as Indore braces up for the historic occasion.
So it was kind of incidental that the first raucous cheer that went off inside the stadium was when Gautam Gambhir patted a good length delivery straight back while batting in a practice net 30 yards from the solitary stand housing close to a thousand fans in full voice. Thirty-four is not an age when you expect a cricketer to be on the cusp of a new beginning. But Gambhir is in line for a fresh, or let’s say, renewed start on Saturday. With KL Rahul and now Shikhar Dhawan out with injury, he will, in all likelihood, open the innings with Murali Vijay as Test cricket officially takes guard in Indore.
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“Excitement of a debutant, certainty of experienced, nervousness of a novice…am feeling it all. Eden here I come loaded with ambitions,” is what Gambhir had tweeted prior to the second Test in Kolkata after being picked literally out of the blue after Rahul pulled his right hamstring in Kanpur.
He has given a candid peek into his emotions and headspace. In his years outside the Indian team, he has been vocal about his determination to carry on playing, though one wonders whether deep inside even he really expected to be handed a comeback.
It’d been more than two years, after all, since those forgettable outings in England where he hardly looked like a Test opener averaging in the 40s. He kept getting squared up by deliveries that didn’t even swing alarmingly and his feet were in a tangle.
He was late on the ball on two out of the three occasions — Gambhir was run out in the second innings at the Oval — he was dismissed by an English pacer during that disastrous tour for him in 2014. Those four innings where he averaged 6.25 were part of a comeback he’d made to the Test XI after an 18-month gap.
He had averaged a collective of 31.7 in 27 Tests prior to that without scoring a Test ton — the last hundred came in Chittagong in January 2010. So the downfall wasn’t rapid but more a loss of form and confidence that gradually caught up with him and his career.
For the record, after giving the crowd their first outlet to scream out loud on Thursday, Gambhir hardly put bat to ball on the next dozen deliveries he faced, that too from the net bowlers. Then one delivery from Umesh Yadav hit a length, jagged back into him and knocked his middle-stump back.
To a great extent, Gambhir wasn’t to be totally blamed for his untoward batting display that evoked a number of ‘ooohs and aahs’ from the crowd. There’s been rain in the air and though the drizzle in the morning wasn’t as heavy as the one a day earlier, it had left the practice wickets slightly wet, especially those on which Gambhir had taken first strike.
Immediately, batting coach Sanjay Bangar decided to move the entire session to the nets on the far side, and off went Gambhir and Virat Kohli, who’d just faced a couple of deliveries in the adjoining net. The crowd obviously weren’t chuffed but still continued to maintain the crescendo.
Gambhir was definitely more secure in defence and in his drives on this wicket, which did hold some moisture of its own but wasn’t getting the ball to misbehave much.
But he still kept getting beaten by the likes of Yadav on occasions outside his off-stump.
Opening up
Gambhir has changed his stance dramatically of late and has opened himself up, though not as dramatically as Shivnarine Chanderpaul, to be a lot more chest-on while taking strike. It does ensure that he’s getting a chance to sight the ball a lot better. But it does leave him vulnerable to any delivery that comes into him off a fuller length — like in the first net against Yadav. Gambhir also didn’t manage to middle a number of drives and flicks, two shots that generally bring him lots of runs. He was drastically more at ease while facing the spinners and used his feet in trademark fashion against them.
There is honestly no reason for Gambhir to look not at his best in the nets, considering he’s coming off his best run with the bat in recent years — 356 runs at 71.20 in the Duleep Trophy with four half-centuries — and he looked probably the most adept batsman after Cheteshwar Pujara against the pink ball.
But like he put it best himself in his tweet, it’s only natural that his nerves are active as he builds up to a remarkable Test return. As it turned out, he did spend more time than he would __have expected on the field at the Eden Gardens as a substitute. His only contribution though was two dropped catches.
Now, neither of them were really what you would class as straightforward sitters. But they were those which required quick reflexes. Reflexes are the first attribute of a batsman that generally start to get affected as they age. And it’ll be interesting to see how Gambhir goes against the likes of Matt Henry and Neil Wagner who hit the bat at testing speeds, not to forget Trent Boult. For, it’s been a while since he’s faced such quality bowling with the red ball. There’s no doubt that he still remains among the most consistent IPL batsman in the country.
Now, he gets a chance at a time the series is already decided. India are gunning for a whitewash and Gambhir has two opportunities to prove that his recall is based more on logic than sentiment — let’s not forget the ‘bring back Gautam’ banners that conspicuously showed up at Greater Noida a month ago.
It’s a difficult situation to be in. He can look at it as a new chapter, but you wonder how long it’ll be. India’s next Test is more than a month away and Rahul and Dhawan are likely to be fit by then.
We’ll also be a month into the Ranji Trophy and a minimum of 54 openers — if none of the 27 teams in action make a change in their top order — would have had a fair number of opportunities to stake a claim for the reserve opener’s slot.
Gambhir would also have turned 35, just for the record. Where does that leave him? Maybe fighting for the third opener’s slot with Dhawan, who has also struggled for meaningful scores in recent times. Or maybe, with a last shot at redeeming a fractured career as Indore soaks in its first shot at Test glory.
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