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Saturday, December 14, 2024

Gambhir vs Gambhir!

Gautam Gambhir last scored a Test ton in January 2010. For a self-admitted “insecure” man, it must be gnawing his soul, though he has tried to put up a brave front. Throughout the tour of Australia, he kept insisting that “hundreds don’t matter”.

Gautam Gambhir

It was a strange way to see the problem. His lack of hundreds was just a convenient way for the critics to tell his tale of woes. It’s not as if he has been racking up high scores; he had four ducks and scored less than 15 on 17 occasions in his last 38 Test innings. It’s officially the time to fret.    No one can accuse him of not trying hard or being mentally lax. Throughout Australia, his desire for runs screamed out in the nets. He sweated it hard, worked extra hours, sought the counsel of the coach, and even pitted himself against the bowling machine but nothing worked out in the middle.    Sometimes, trying hard isn’t just enough. It’s not just an alteration of mindset that is needed but a fine tuning of his game that is required. The new ball exposes his weakness the most and as an opener he has no place to hide. His travails have been well-documented. The angled bat feeling for the ball outside off has been his strength and weakness. It’s what he turns to a lot early in his knocks, it’s what uses to maneuver the strike, but it’s what’s dragging him down now.    Perhaps, it hasn’t helped that his drought period has coincided with a rise in ambition. There has been much written about his captaincy desires but it has come at a time when his bat has turned mute. Only he can tell whether those peripheral issues are affecting his game.    His record overseas, in England and Australia, are nothing to brag about, but luckily for him India have a long home season ahead and he should be able to affect a turnaround in these conditions.    In Indian conditions, his dab shot fetches him many runs but in the first Test against New Zealand in Hyderabad he fell while playing the shot. It’s something so natural to him that he is unlikely to shelve it. He can’t drop it, he can’t keep playing it and so, what does he do?    Gambhir is the type who usually excels when he is under fire. He is an aggressive individual but his aggression isn’t macho. It’s more frenetic, of a man trying to prove himself, a man at a battle with himself if not the world. With Gambhir, cricket isn’t a joyous activity. “I don’t think I enjoy too much of cricket, to be honest. I think, for me, cricket is something which is my priority,” he said in a recent interview.    “So even at this stage, if I don’t score runs in 2-3 games, I start getting that feeling that I’m going to get dropped,” he said.    His insecurity has percolated so deep inside his system that he says he can’t now change it. Instead he has just started living with it.    “That’s what I’ve heard ever since the time I was growing up as a kid. That every game was the last game for me.”    It’s unlikely that Gambhir will view the next Test against New Zealand, which starts in Bangalore on the 31st, as his last game but if he doesn’t come up with a knock of substance, who knows what demons his mind will throw up.

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