From: XSNAIK@FULLERTON.EDU (Sanjay Naik)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.cricket
Subject: No more anti-Raju stuff, thanx!
Date: 7 Nov 1992 16:45:53 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

In a previous article, sajja@gradient.cis.upenn.edu writes:

> Cut this crap out. Give that young guy a chance alright.....

Couldn't agree more. I've been wanting to reply to the "pathetic" thread for a
long time, but for one reason or another, I've been stalling.

Personally speaking, I would have liked to have seen Maninder on this tour, but
the criticism that Raju's been getting is wholly unfair. One of the standard
comments has been, "well if you take away his Chandigarh performance, then he 
hasn't taken many wickets in Tests". Well, if you take away Gavaskar's 34 
hundreds, then he wasn't the same batsman. It's also unfair to write off his 
performance at Chandigarh, because the track was a minefield.

Let me give a couple of examples to emphasise this. Firstly, it takes a little
more than just pitching the ball up on a responsive track to get wickets. Raju
took those wickets and should be given fair credit. More importantly, he took 
us to victory, something we don't experience too often these days. He wasn't 
the only spinner bowling in that match. How come the other spinners didn't come 
close to his wicket-haul?? Taking us to victory was exactly what Maninder 
didn't do in the Bangalore test vs. Pak. Talk about a responsive track - he 
bowled very badly in the 2nd innings and allowed Pak to compile a matchwinning 
200+ score. And what about Maninder's performance in the WC semi of '87 at
Bombay. Swept to oblivion. Despite this, I still think he's a good bowler, but 
Maninder never gets the flak that Raju experiences - infact those two above 
performances cost us a heck of a lot. They were more than just two defeats.

Secondly, when Hirwani took 16 wickets, WI's spinner (I think it was Butts)
bowled more overs than Hirwani and didn't take a fraction of the wickets that 
Hirwani took. It takes more than a minefield for someone to bowl you to 
victory. 

I saw Raju bowl in Australia and although he wasn't devastating, he did ok in
the one-dayers - gave Jones a bit of bother now & again. Then, I saw him bowl 
against the WI in the WC and he gave all the WI batsmen trouble. Infact, he 
brought us right back into the game. In the end, Arthurton displayed a cool 
head and saw WI safely home, but I suspect we'd have won the game if we had 
another spinner in the side (possibly even Shastri). 

The sad fact is that we no longer have the quality spinners of bygone years. We 
haven't had a classy spinner since Doshi and the prime reason has been the 
state of wickets in India. For years, players such as Gavaskar & Kapil have 
been bemoaning the state of wickets and nothing has been done about it. I can 
safely say that Bedi, Chandra & Co. wouldn't have been so successful if they 
had to bowl on today's Indian wickets. 

Finally, it beats me why it's ok for countries such as WI, Aust, SA to prepare 
wickets to suit their fast bowlers and when India prepares a minefield such as 
the Chandigarh wicket, somehow that's unfair to the opposition batsmen. Indian 
batsmen, prepared on dead tracks are immediately expected to adjust to 
green-tops, etc. And if they should fail - "My God!! How hopeless!! It's the 
end of the world!!" When we win the Hirwani/Raju tests, they're simply written 
off. After all, how are the batsmen suppose to survive on these square turners.

Well, that takes a load off my chest. Getting back to Raju, 2-58 or, whatever it
was, certainly ain't pathetic. And bowling out The opposn. for 268 wasn't a bad
performance. We all know that the bowling ain't much, but somehow we make do 
with our limited resources. Now the same can't be said for our superstar,
super-talented batsmen. Someone said that our batting started with Kapil. How 
true! To steal someone else's phrase, the batsmen have been consistent in their 
inconsistency.

Bye,

Sanjay Naik.