Munaf Patel – Is he a victim of cliche?

Munaf Patel asks some pertinent questions about “intensity” and “fitness”. I have raised this question on this blog before – can a lay observer make a definite judgement as to whether a particular player is trying hard (intensity)? Can s/he make a judgement as to how “aggressive” a particular player is?

Munaf has been consistently as quick or quicker than Zaheer, Sreesanth and co. whenever he has played for India. He has also been more accurate than these other bowlers (Zaheer was brilliant in the Tests in England). Yet he finds himself out of the side. Can “lay” observers make judgements about a players injury? The only time when i’ve believed reports of faked injuries in recent times was in Sourav Ganguly’s case in the Nagpur Test incident in 2004. I believed this because of the alleged politics surrounding the event (Ganguly had no business quitting even then), and because multiple journalists quoted sources in the side saying “thats Sourav for you” (with a knowing smile according to some journalists). Even this is merely circumstantial evidence but in other instances, as in the case of Patel, even this circumstantial evidence is absent.

I see great parallels between Munaf and Sreesanth amongst our bowlers today, and Ganguly and Dravid. Ganguly is the flamboyant, “aggressive”, expressive one – with the “intensity” and the “charisma”. Dravid has been the understated, thoughtful one. Put Sreesanth in place of Ganguly, and Munaf in place of Dravid and both those statements would be just as apt. The difference between Dravid and Munaf is that Dravid has drilled his worth into the Indian mind by the sheer number of hours that he has batted out there for India – a study in intense concentration, thoughtful and deliberate in deed, in a single minded pursuit of runs. Ganguly’s intensity was easily apparent though a single hour of yelling and screaming and visibly living every moment as captain. Dravid’s was drilled indelibly on the observer through long hours of single minded application at the wicket.

That is what Munaf needs to do. He should not fall into the Sreesanthesque trap of being a showman. Its all right if he can’t act like a cat on a hot tin roof like Sreesanth tends to do. He is more correct and more accurate than Sreesanth at the moment (all though Sreesanth is impossible to gauge because he can have spectacularly good spells amidst a sea of poor spells). He needs to stick to what he is good at. Too many experienced observers have been too impressed by him for him to worry about being inadequate. Ignore those to wonder about his intensity. Don’t be a victim of the cliches of the popular press.

Then when he’s achieved enough, like Dravid, he can thumb his nose at all the nonsense and walk away a champion like Rahul Dravid did from the captaincy. But he needs to travel the Dravid journey before that. It is not as though Dravid has always been successful. His place in the ODI side was uncertain for most of the 1990’s until the 1999 world cup, which was his first great success. His Test career was at the crossroads after the home series against SA in 2000. But he came out of that. Im sure he wondered what he was doing wrong. Im sure he wondered after he self-destructed against Alan Donald during that Final in South Africa in 1997, whether his temperament was questionable…. but he came away a better player.

Munaf can do the same – in Rahul Dravid he has a terrific role model (there are no fast bowling role models in India for Munaf to follow – not Venky Prasad, not Srinath). If Munaf ends his career at the level of Prasad or Srinath, he should be disappointed – for it will have meant that he joins the long line of pacemen who were not good enough to bowl out Test line ups consistently. Im surprised that Venky Prasad in his 2nd or 3rd month as bowling coach has found it appropriate to make a public comment as general as the one he made about Munaf. I wish a press reporter had had the presence of mind to ask him to elaborate what he meant by “intensity”. John Wright, as i recall, never publicly chastised a bowler or a batsman, and definitely not behind the players back in his 5 years as coach. I guess each person has his own way of doing things.

Thats another thing for Munaf to learn. The questions about intensity will never go away unless he adopts a bad boy image – because that is the flavor of the month. The one thing that will never go out of fashion is wickets. Wickets, wickets and more wickets. Munaf has the ability to be the best Indian fast bowler ever. Already in his career he has done something unbelievably impressive – he grew up as a tearaway paceman, but in his India avatar has been able to realize and more importantly implement the virtues of line and length.

Here are the comparative career records of Munaf Patel, RP Singh and S Sreesanth as of today September 30, 2007:

ODI Cricket against non-minnows:

Munaf: 27 wickets at 29.00 at 4.94 runs/over
Sreesanth: 38 wickets at 34.71 at 5.75 runs/over
RP Singh: 31 wickets at 34.19 at 5.12 runs/over

Test Cricket against non-minnows:

RP Singh: 32 wickets at 32.95
Sreesanth: 46 wickets at 28.23
Munaf: 25 wickets at 29.00

If Munaf can outperform his colleagues inspite of an alleged lack of intensity, then one has to question Venkatesh Prasad’s judgement. It is not for nothing that Sachin Tendulkar, who rarely expresses an opinion in such matters specifically requested Munaf to move to Mumbai. Munaf is the only player that Tendulkar has found worthy of such attention. It has been said of Munaf by his colleagues in the Indian side, that even they (who have had phenomenal journeys in life themselves to be where they are) cannot imagine how enormous the leaps have been for him from a small village in rural Gujarat to the noisy glare of being an India cricketer. I wonder what Venky Prasad thinks about this.

The only way ahead of Munaf, if he’s to kill speculation about intensity is to take wickets. This blog will always be a supportive fan of this brilliant young fast bowler from the village of Ikhar in Bharuch, Gujarat. I dream of the day when India will be able to field a paceman of the quality of McGrath or Akram or Pollock. Only Munaf amongst todays bowlers has that potential. I wish people would help him realize it. I hope people are – behind the noise of pointless questions which seem to befuddle the poor man.

As for Venky Prasad, he ought to quit complaining about Munaf’s lack of intensity, and crack the whip or do whatever it is that coaches do to get the bowler on the same page as far as his expectations. If Munaf is wondering what this “intensity” is – then it can only mean that Prasad is unable to do his job well enough. The NatWest series was lost due to the terrible performance of the pacemen. India need a bowling coach – but they need one who will coach his bowlers, not complain about them behind their backs in print.

The Ranji Trophy could be Munaf’s chance for a ticket to Australia. Its upto him to destroy line ups for Mumbai and force his name onto the team sheet – whatever Venkatesh Prasad may say. Injuries though are in God’s hands. I hope He finds it possible to be kind to Munaf.

An infamous incident…..

I came across this video of the 1996 World Cup quarter final between India and Pakistan at Bangalore. The incident in question involves Aamir Sohail and Venkatesh Prasad.

India made 284 in their 50 overs thanks to some rousing hitting from Ajay Jadeja at the death, and the Pakistanis responded by reaching 100 within the first 15 overs – their crack opening combination of Sohail and Anwar putting the Indian bowling to sword with some crackling strokeplay. This incident provides a microcosm of the effect of a jingoistically charged atmosphere and an even contest on individuals in that contest.

India had played well, and the game was evenly poised at that stage – Pakistan who were a great team in 1996 had probably had the upper hand with their rollicking assault during the first fifteen overs. That was when Aamir Sohail, got a bit carried away, charged out and absolutely creamed the ball forward of square on the off side. So far so good. He then revealed the extent of his excitement by wagging his finger at the bowler as though he were warning him about the treatment he was about the mete out. This was probably not outside the realm of acceptable behaviour, even though the opinion in India was and still remains almost unanimous about the inappropriateness of Sohail’s actions. India was enraged, and Venkatesh Prasad thankfully kept his head up until his next ball (credit to him for bowling it straight) crashed into Sohail’s off stump after having somehow evaded Sohail’s incoherent non-stroke. At that point, Prasad lost it, and did his own bit of finger wagging at Sohail, accompanied with some choice abuse. The tragedy for Prasad was that this abuse was probably in English – and David Shepherd cottoned on to Venky’s sentiment. Sohail’s efforts were probably not in basic anglo-saxon.

All in all it was a charged moment. In purely cricketing terms, it was a case of Sohail losing his head and throwing his wicket away. But purely cricketing analyses rarely tell the whole story.