Ageing legs still have some mileage left

By Rahul Banerji

Mohali

Oct. 19: If nothing else, the ongoing series against Australia has settled one debate, hopefully for some time, that the "ageing" Fab Four still have much to give to Indian cricket.

Sourav Ganguly’s 16th Test hundred here that capped Sachin Tendulkar’s record-busting feats and Rahul Dravid and Venkatasai Laxman’s efforts in the first Test at Bengaluru has drive home the point that there is still some mileage left in these thirty-plus legs.

Ganguly put it well after his 102-run dig at the PCA Stadium here on Saturday, "It should be performance, and not age that should be the real criteria for selection. It’s the runs you get and people like Laxman, Sachin and Rahul have been scoring runs. They should be judged on their performance."

The former India skipper was echoing what the master blaster had said the day before. "I think as long as I’m enjoying myself, I’ll play. I don’t need X, Y, Z to tell me when I should stop or whether I should continue.

"When I started playing cricket, no one told me whether I should start, whether I should continue or stop. Nobody told me that, and nobody needs to tell me that now either."

"I’ve enjoyed my game and I need to just continue with that because I started as a 16-year-old, there were no targets. I just wanted to go out and enjoy every moment, and I wish to continue that… because it’s important to enjoy the game.

"When you enjoy the game, you always are in a different mood to go out there and there and deliver the goods, the needful. That’s what I’d like to continue, not think about too many things. Not to complicate my game."

Clearly the new selection committee, headed by another former India captain in Krishnamachari Srikkanth, has got the formula right. In backing the seniors, they have also sent out the signal that performance, and not talent or potential alone will unlock doors to the Test squad in particular, which is anyway what most genuine cricketers aspire to the most.

Added Ganguly on Saturday, "You will be remembered in what you have done in Test matches. First Test matches, then one-day cricket. When you talk about great players, you talk about a Gavaskar or Waugh or Tendulkar or Ponting. It’s because of their performances in Test matches. Not what they do in Twenty20."

Given that and the obviously pressure-free manner in which the Fab Four in particular have approached this series, they still have a way to go, even if Ganguly has decided that his journey at least, will end at Nagpur in three weeks time.

ENDS