by Arunabha Sengupta
Called to New Zealand as an SOS reinforcement, he captured six wickets on Test debut and batted at No 10. But the enormous reservoirs of guts and application with which he tried to plug in the yawning gaps of talent saw him being pushed to every position in the line up where there was a gap.
Eventually, at Manchester, he was pushed out with Sunny Gavaskar to face Bob Willis and Derek Pringle with the new ball, with Ian Botham waiting in the wings. He fell for a duck, but in the next Test at The Oval he opened again and got 66.
The next time he was asked to open was against Imran Khan at Karachi, the final Test of a series in which the Pakistan speedster had repeatedly destroyed the Indian batting. Ravi Shastri batted through the first day and much of the second, scoring 128.
He did not open regularly till late in his career. In the interim, he got a few hundreds from No 6 and 7, one against the fearsome West Indians at St John’s in 1982. Pushed up to No 3 as India ducked for cover against the West Indians in 1988, he hit 107 against Marshall, Ambrose, Bishop and Walsh. When the real four-pronged West Indian attack bowled at him in their backyard, Shastri scored 406 runs at 34. Note that under the same circumstances, Sunil Gavaskar managed 270 at 30.
But, he kept floating up and down the order … the successes remained erratic. His bowling was still considered his main weapon.
His left-arm spin was accurate at best, without being incisive. His batting was too one-dimensional, too stroke-less, to stir up the imagination of the Indian fans.
Well, he did cause some rethinking by hitting six sixes in an over and becoming the Champion of Champions. But his style of play, limited repertoire, and rather sedate approach in both departments, made him a man Indians loved to hate. The ‘Shastri hai hai’ chant became constant accompaniment to an Indian match in the mid to late 1980s.
In the one Test he captained, India vanquished the mighty West Indians. But he was a stop-gap skipper and never led again.
Then, with Mohammad Azharuddin at the helm, his role changed. He still bowled, but less and less. With India struggling to find a pair of openers, he was slotted permanently as one of them. It started at Lord’s, 1990, and Shastri responded with exactly 100. He ended the series with 187 at The Oval.
And then there was that 206 at Sydney. By then he was just an occasional change bowler. However, with the pitch responsive to spin and Australia fighting to save the Test, he captured 4 for 45 in the second innings and brought India within two wickets of a memorable win.
At that point Shastri had 1031 runs as an opening batsman for India at 54.26 with 4 hundreds in 13 Tests. A stroke-less, disappointing South African tour brought it shooting down to 1101 runs at 44.04, but it still reads mighty impressive. Take a 1000-run cut off, and only Gavaskar and Sehwag have a better batting average as an Indian opener.
3830 runs at 35.79 with 11 hundreds, 151 wickets at 40.96 … perhaps not extraordinary figures, but when measured against his limited ability, the utility of his role, and the balance he brought to the Indian team, the achievements are stupendous.
He continues in the same vein now. A coach people love to criticise and hate, but somehow India remain perched near the top of the cricketing world.
A controversial man, a fierce competitor and perhaps the opening batsman India identified too late. And the one superb captain India neither recognised nor retained.
Ravi Shastri was born on 27 May 1962.