The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Test of the best

How good are Sachin Tendulkar’s batting statistics compared to his five top contemporaries, asks Vikramdeep Johal

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the finest contemporary Test batsman of them all? Using the word "finest" in a statistical sense. Sachin Tendulkar, of course, tops the all-time list of century makers, while Brian Lara is the highest run scorer ever, However, these two are not the only batsmen who have dominated world cricket in the past over one decade.

There are four others who have been scoring loads of runs and hitting many centuries — Inzamam-ul-Haq, Matthew Hayden, Ricky Ponting and Rahul Dravid. That means Sachin’s career statistics should be compared with not one but five run machines. All of them belong to the same era and have faced by and large the same set of bowlers.

We are well aware of their insatiable appetite for runs and tons. The important questions to be answered are: Who has contributed more to his respective team’s success than the rest? How have they fared in matches lost by their team? Which of them has performed the best on foreign pitches? (see tables alongside)

Ponting and Hayden have been fortunate to be part of the all-conquering Aussie side. No wonder their team has won over two-thirds of the matches they have played. However, their batting averages in Tests won is lower than that of Inzamam, Dravid and Tendulkar, whose teams’ fortunes have often swung from one extreme to the other. Inzamam’s average is the best (80.46 in 45 Tests won), followed by Dravid (77.51 in 31 matches) and Tendulkar (67.01 in 39 matches). Thus, the Pakistan skipper can be called the number one match-winning batsman from this elite group. He may not have been the sole architect of his team’s victories, but he has certainly played a stellar role.

In matches lost, the performances of these star batsmen have been at best mediocre. Lara, who has stood among the ruins for the West Indies many a time, is on top with 5040 runs in 58 Tests at an average of 43.44, including 13 hundreds. He is followed by Ponting (39.93 in 15 Tests) and Tendulkar (36.54 in 35 matches). Dravid is at the bottom of the list with a poor average of 28.28, which shows how much his failures have affected India’s fortunes.

Dravid is the only batsman of the lot who has a better average on foreign pitches than on home soil. In Tendulkar’s case, the averages are similar, indicating that he is quite at home playing abroad.

The bottomline is that Tendulkar is not really peerless.

Analysis of the figures of the “Super Six”

An analysis of the figures of the “Super Six” in six categories — overall record, performance on home turf and foreign soil, matches won, lost and drawn. The key factor is the batting average (runs scored per completed innings). The batsman with the best average in each category is placed at the top, followed by the others in descending order.

(M - matches, R - runs, H - highest score, A - average, C - centuries, F - fifties)

Dravid is at the top in three categories, while Hayden, Inzamam and Lara are the leaders in one each. Tendulkar is second in two categories, third (in three) and fourth (in one). The analysis includes the figures of the India-Sri Lanka Test in New Delhi and the ICC Super Test, but not the ongoing Australia-South Africa match

Prince of Asia

It is hard not to turn the clock exactly 12 months back. Last December, when Jyoti Randhawa was winning the Volvo Masters of Asia, Shiv Kapur was triumphing in the Surya Nepal Masters on the Amby Valley Indian PGA Tour in Kathmandu. On the final day, Indians pros were as engrossed with the progress of Randhawa in Kota Permai, where the Volvo Masters was being staged, as they were with Shiv Kapur who was battling hard to catch up with the leaders in the Indian Tour event.

News filtered in a little later that Randhawa had beaten Terry Pilkadaris in a playoff and an hour or so later, Kapur was engaged in a playoff with Amritinder Singh and Gurbaaz Mann. Kapur held his nerve, holed a 35-footer for a birdie on the first playoff hole and won the title.

Last week, he held his nerve to beat Randhawa to win his maiden Asian Tour title and that too at the Volvo Masters of Asia where the best of the continent had gathered for the season-ending tournament.

"The wheel has turned a full circle. I could hardly have realised that a year later I would be at the Volvo Masters. And not just that, but winning it, too," said Kapur.

In many senses it was that week in Nepal that launched Kapur. Sure, as a pro he had already won once before in his very second tournament in Chennai but after that had finished second more than a few times.

A month later he went to the Asian Qualifying School and finished 10th and was the only Indian to earn a full card. But that card was of no help as he was the alternate and reserve for most joint-sanctioned events.

"I just needed to be patient. But I was not doing well either," Kapur says.

The first half of Asian Tour season was rather mediocre. And as recently as September, after the Singapore Open, where he missed the cut, Kapur was as far back as 85th on the money list.

"My thought was to try and keep my card. I went and worked with Kel Llewellyn and when I was looking disappointed at watching events like the Singapore Masters and Malaysian Open on TV, he told me to be patient and said, ‘soon you will be there’. I didn't realise it would be so soon."

A string of top-10 finishes followed but that also included a heart-break of losing in a playoff to an amateur Chinarat Phadsungil at the Double A International.

"Losing in the Double A play-off was a disappointment. I was telling people that I would be a better player from that experience and when I got onto the bigger stage, it would help me. I didn’t expect this win to come this soon and I think I earned it."

Kapur first came into the limelight two years ago at the 2002 Asian Games at Busan when he stood on the winner’s podium to wear the ultimate honour — the gold medal. But his story began much before that.

Kapur, who had access to the Delhi Golf Club as his father was a member, picked golf rather early.

"But it was hardly a cool game then. My friends used to say it was for old men, and I played cricket (which he still loves) and soccer to be ‘in’ with the rest," Kapur says.

He stayed at the Asian Games Village, and the big event meant a lot to him.

He was born in 1982, when the Asian Games were held in New Delhi and India won the gold medal in team and individual events.

"Living in the Games Village, I used to see names of big stars who had won gold medals in various events. I always wanted to win one. And I got a chance, when I took part in the 2002 games in Busan. I was trailing after the third day and on the final day, when it rained, I felt I could do it, because I had played in such conditions at Purdue University in the USA," he recalled.

He went on to win the gold medal at the Asiad. In the following year, the Arjuna Award was conferred on him ahead of professionals like Jyoti Randhawa and Arjun Atwal.

"That was not my choice," he said then. But now with a brilliant rookie year on Asian Tour, and on the Amby Valley Indian PGA Tour earlier in the season, he has proved more than worthy of all accolades that have come his way.

"I was impatient to turn pro after winning the Asian Games gold," he says. He had already won most amateur titles. He was the all-India junior champion in 1998 and 1999 and in 2000 he was the best amateur in the Indian Open, when Randhawa won the pro title.

"My father, Ravi Kapur, insisted I complete my degree and then turn pro. In retrospect that was the right thing to do. Too many sportsmen in India have had to endure hardships after their playing career," he says.

Kapur also confessed that his parents did not want him to play pro golf.

"My dad and my mum never really wanted me to be a pro golfer. They said play corporate golf, do the social part. They wanted me to go to Harvard and pursue an education but I turned that down because I wanted to do golf and academics. My sister went to Harvard. I went to Purdue and played golf on the college team. My parents left it up to me. Especially to be self-disciplined."

No sooner had he finished his degree, he turned professional. In his first year as a pro on the Indian Tour, he won two titles and finished second in five others. He ended in third place on the Order of Merit.

In 2004, Kapur came close to playing in the US Open as an amateur. After coming through the local qualifiers, he finished third in the sectionals and became the first alternate.

He came to Shinecock hoping he would get in case of some withdrawal.

But it did not happen. "I was allowed to practise at the range and saw guys like Phil Mickelson, Fred Couples and the rest there. I felt I belonged and hoped to be there someday."

Interestingly, the man on the bag for him then was his old friend, Neeraj Sareen, who was once again his caddie at Bangkok.

The gateways to a bigger stage have just opened. Just as he emerged with the trophy, he was informed by Louis Martin, Chief Executive of the Asian Tour, that he had received an invitation for Sony Open on the US Tour. He also gets an entry into the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.

And, surely there will be lots more to come. — PTI

Survivor’s tale
Manjeet Singh Rurki Khas

Kulwinder Kumar narrowly escaped death in the Chomo Yummu expedition

On September 24 this year, a 11-member joint expedition team of the Punjab Police and Intelligence Bureau (Sikkim) left a transit camp to conquer Chomo Yummu summit (6,829m). Only one member of the police team survived — Head Constable Kulwinder Kumar. The others, including P.M. Das, Punjab’s Additional Director General of Police (Telecommunications) and the founder of the Punjab Police Adventure Club, lost their lives in an avalanche.

Recalling the incident brings a lump in Kulwinder’s throat. Among the victims was his brother-in-law, Sub-Inspector Inder Kumar, and Head Constable Nari Dhami, the sole woman member of the expedition. The mountaineers had scaled a height of 21,500 ft when the Punjab Police personnel heard huge snow-covered ridges collapsing. The masses of snow formed an avalanche within no time, rolling down with tremendous speed towards them. It swept them down more than 5,500 ft in just five minutes. It had taken them two gruelling days to scale that height. P.M. Das, Nari Dhami and Inder Kumar met an icy death.

Kulwinder was extricated from the snow by a sherpa. During the ascent, he had seen an Army outpost near the India-China border. It was this post that he approached for help. The Army men were amazed to see him alive, since the whole outpost area was riddled with mines. Army personnel admitted him to a regional military hospital. Later, he was air-lifted to Chandigarh from Bagdoka (West Bengal) along with the bodies of P.M. Das and the others.

A resident of Garhshankar, Kulwinder is presently posted at Nawanshahr. Since 2001, Kulwinder has been a member of various expeditions, hoisting flags on snowy summits like Kala Nag (21,000 ft) Pauri Garhwal, Kedardom (22,440) ft above Gangotri, Ramjuk (21,000 ft) above Ladakh, Lampak Too (20,700 ft) above Joshi Math, and Parvati mountain (20,500 ft) beyond Badrinath.

Despite being traumatised by the memory of the Chomo Yummu tragedy, Kulwinder is keen to scale new heights. His passion for mountaineering has not decreased. He is determined to fulfil his dream of conquering Mount Everest. He wants to do it not only for himself, but also to pay a befitting tribute to P.M. Das.