Amarnath, Manjrekar, Chanderpaul – three of a kind

933 is the latest tally, as of today; the average is down a little – 103.66, but there are still six days left in May – he (Nick Compton) will make it – in the nick of time. But why is he grieving? Aah… because he is not playing for England, in a series which promises so much – as the Second Test begins today, Sammy and co. know that they put up a fight – as does England and the second Test in a three-Test series is always the best. Everything depends on it – and if someone in the upper-order of the Windies batting can come good, so that Chanderpaul has a platform to play from – but – then again—maybe he does not want a platform – maybe he just enjoys being the deep-sea diver in his own bubble – maybe that is what drives him. [caption id=“attachment_321371” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Shivnarine Chanderpaul has been superb. AP”]  [/caption] Years ago, our own Mohinder Amarnath – Jimmy – used to play the same role for India, albeit with a little more dash than Chanderpaul – but in two series – Pakistan in ’82 – ‘83 and West Indies in ’83 – he was so good, that the great Richards called him the ‘best player of fast bowling in the world.’ Here are the stats – against a rampant Imran and equally rampant Pakistani umpires, he scored 584 runs in six tests at an average of 73. India lost the series, 3-0 – there were 21 lbw decisions against India in the six Tests and six against Pakistan. Gavaskar had 434 runs at 48.22, Vengsakrar 241 at 34.42, and the great Vishwanath, in the final series of his brilliant career, only 134 at 16.75. Then against the Windies at their best, in the spring of ’83, 598 at 66.64 from five Tests – Gavaskar 240 runs at 30.00, Vengsarkar 279 at 31.00, and Kapil Dev the next best behind Mohinder – and in those 11 Tests over six months, he scored five centuries – and then went on to be the key player in the World Cup of ’83 – not a bad cricketing season of ’82 – ’83. In these two series, fast bowlers not only dominated, they were unplayable – Imran had 40 wickets at 13.95, and I remember a delivery that bowled Vengsarkar – it cut in at 90 miles an hour, and Vengsarkar, raising arms, was as cleanly bowled as anybody could be. And in the Windies, Roberts and Marshall took 24 and 21 wickets, with Holding and Garner following up at 12 and 7 – have any four fast bowlers of such skill and pace ever bowled in tandem – and as any batsman played them as well as Jimmy did that season of seasons? Seven years later, Sanjay Manjrekar would do a Jimmy in Pakistan, scoring 569 at 94.83, in a drawn series – Azharuddin was a distant second, at 312 runs – and Tendulkar, in his first series at the age of 16, would score 215 runs at 35.83 – and this followed an earlier series in the Windies, where Manjrekar, once again, led the averages and the runs at 33.33 and 200 – in a series lost, 0-3 – facing – take a guess – Walsh, Marshall, Bishop and Ambrose. And now Chanderpaul – in the first Test, he scored 178 out of 588 runs scored by his team, and was out only once – 31% of his team’s runs, batting at number five – and in the first innings, when runs were needed, he scored at a very healthy strike rate of 50. Amarnath, Manjrekar, Chanderpaul – they all played, or play, with much bigger names in their teams – but when the ball was flying fast and hard, and the umpires’ fingers were just itching to be raised, it is players like them who face and win the Test.