Before proceeding to read this article, the unfulfilled talent of VVS Laxman – 2, please read part one of the two part series.
The lack of consistency throughout his career
Laxman took another 13 tests to register the 3rd hundred of his career. Between the 281 and the third hundred, he did score 7 fifties but for a batsman of his class, those are meagre returns especially after having played the innings of a millennium. In a little over 30 tests, Laxman had only 3 hundreds to show for. This was followed by another lengthy period of lull. Infact, for a substantial part between 2004 and 2006, Laxman hardly scored. During this period, he had far too many low scores that it was a miracle that he still continued to be part of the playing eleven.
During this period, India depended a lot on Dravid, Sehwag and to a lesser extent on Sachin with absolutely zero contribution from Laxman and Ganguly. A player of Laxman’s class and calibre must definitely have felt unimportant because of lack of contribution. A technical problem seemed to have crept into Laxman batting. He left sufficient gap between the pad and the bat for the ball to sneak in and crash onto the stumps or hit the pad.
This was his mode of dismissal for a large part of his career. This was something Laxman must have eradicated from his play. If only he had done that, he could have contributed a lot more towards the team’s cause. This is not to say that Laxman was a selfish player. However, he didn’t have the temperament to adjust his game. It did not help that he carried far too many injuries probably because of lack of fitness.
Far too many low scores
It is really hard to explain the far too many low scores in a convincing manner. Less than 30 in half of his test innings. Laxman after switching over to the middle order cannot complain about lack of consecutive opportunities. He was virtually among the top 6 names who will always be in the team. The consistent opportunities that Laxman got was so enormous that the likes of Amol Mazumdar or Badrinath, KP Baskar and the rest would have wished that they had similar opportunities. Yet, Laxman failed to achieve more than he should have. In a way, he actually let the team and the nation down on more than one occasion. He probably made amends for his innumerable number of failures later on in his career.
Laxman if I remember well, has ever had only 2 consistently successful series and both of them against the best team of his time, Australia. His 2001 exploits and the 2004 series in Australia.
The latter part of his career with lot of match winning knocks
Towards the last stage of his career, Laxman played several match winning innings. These were not the typical daddy hundreds that Graham Gooch would like to call. They were rather excellent fifties that proved to be the difference between win and a loss. The 96 against South Africa at Durban, the second innings hundred against Sri Lanka in Colombo, the brilliant 73 against Australia with only Ishant Sharma for company all comes to mind. These innings goes onto show what Laxman failed to achieve. For me, he is not far behind Sachin or Dravid or Sehwag when it comes to ability.
Yet, he finished his career with an average lower than all of them. There was a period when his average went as low as the early 40s but eventually he was able to retire with a decent enough average with several match winning knocks. Laxman must have be spoken about along the same lines as Gavaskar, Sachin & Dravid but he will always be remembered as someone who came second or infact fourth. If only Laxman had taken care of his fitness probably he would have performed much better. Alas, it wasn’t to be.
Retirement and commentary stint
Now that Laxman has joined the commentary team, he has been steady instead of spectacular. He is able to hold himself against the established commentators. The one advantage that he has is that he has had a really long career and his fellow commentators with the exception of Gavaskar cannot claim that. This will ensure that his views will carry more weightage. Hence, he has one more opportunity to really shine and be rated along the likes of the greats of commentary. Namely, Gavaskar, Benaud, Boycott, Holding. I would like to wish him all the best and hope that he strives for excellence and does not settle for merely being good.
Conclusion – The unfulfilled talent of VVS Laxman – 2
After more than 10 years, where among the pantheon of Indian batsmen, do I rate Laxman? Definitely not in the range of Gavaskar, Sachin or Dravid because their success and their consistency was something Laxman had fleetingly. Sehwag, Kohli & Pujara have had much higher success rate than Laxman. Vengsarkar scored against the ferocious West Indies attack. Based on the available evidence, Laxman will comfortably rank alongside his state mate Mohammed Azharuddin. This is certainly a climb down for a player whose ability is equal to the most successful Indian batsmen.