The other Little Master

WHO is the best batsman India has produced since its entry into Test cricket more than 50 years ago? Though Sachin Tendulkar is likely to be the popular choice for this singular honour, we cannot forget the names of other great batsmen. Some of them will go down in history as comparable to the best in the game, regardless of nationality. G. R. Viswanath is one such name. Throughout the Gavaskar era, there were Vishy fans by the thousand who swore that he was the real Little Master.

Gundappa Viswanath raised batsmanship to a higher plane, with his elegant strokeplay, daring and rare ability to innovate. Of him, it was said by his contemporaries that he had three strokes to every ball. For example, he could whip an outswinger away to midwicket with the aid of wrists of steel, or glide it down to deep third man with the latest of late cuts, or drive it majestically through the covers, standing on tiptoe to get on top of the ball. Vishy as he was known to everyone, had to do that because he was extremely short, barely five foot three, competing with his brother-in-law Sunil Gavaskar for the title of the shortest batsman in the world.

Compact in defence, Viswanath's batting was founded on an excellent technique and confident backfootplay, the hallmark of batting excellence. He was a perfect judge of length and very strong square of the wicket. He constantly exercised to make his strong wrists stronger; and it showed in the power and precision of the sledgehammer blows that became his trademark squarecut. He was especially effective on wickets that afforded bounce and pace. Though perfectly behind the line of the ball in the normal course, he developed the successful stratagem of staying alongside the line of the ball on such surfaces and deciding on evasion or attack in the very last moment.

Starting his first class career with a double century for Karnataka on debut against Andhra, Vishy grew rapidly in stature, playing some sterling innings in the Duleep Trophy, and establishing himself as arguably the most talented batsman in India by the time the Australians arrived on Indian shores in 1969. Disillusioned by the casual attitude and indifferent form of some of India's senior batsmen, the selection committee under the chairmanship of Vijay Merchant, blooded a number of youngsters in that series. Merchant had apparently not seen the Bangalore youngster in action and so it took the persuasive ability of the Indian captain M.A.K. Pataudi, Vishy's senior by many years in the South Zone team, to convince the chairman that he deserved a look-in. Came the Kanpur Test, and Little Viswanath was included in the eleven for the first time. A first innings zero did not exactly help the nervous youngster's cause. The dejected young man found a firm ally in the captain who advised him to go out and play his natural game in the second innings. What followed was a brilliant counter offensive against the Australian attack. In one of the most stunning debuts by an Indian batsman, Viswanath played all the shots in the book and more, studding his 137 with no fewer than 25 hits to the boundary.

Tours of the West Indies and England followed and though Viswanath did not do anything spectacular he gave enough evidence of his class with some fighting innings when the chips were down. For a while, there was the unnerving anxiety that he might be unable to overcome the hoodoo that had haunted Indian batsmen to score centuries on debut before him. There was relief all round when the Karnataka batsman scored his second century against England. He did not look back.

Some of Viswanath's greatest test innings were played against the West Indies, though his highest score, a double hundred, was against England. His valiant, yet stroke-filled 97 not out against Andy Roberts and Co. has inspired some of the finest prose written in India on cricket. People fortunate enough to watch that splendid rearguard action at Chepauk in 1974-1975, will never forget how he farmed the bowling away from last man Chandrasekhar, while despatching the ball to all corners of the ground, against some of the most hostile bowling seen on that ground. In the same series, Vishy scored 139 in the Calcutta Test, an innings he rated his personal favourite. At Chepauk, I knew I had nothing to lose by going for my strokes in the company of tailenders, but at Calcutta it was an uphill struggle and I had to bat in a much more disciplined manner, Vishy was to tell his admirers in his typically candid, forthright style.

Chepauk was the venue of two more innings of great courage by him a few years later, when India was caught on a nasty wicket of great pace and uneven bounce, against the West Indian pacemen, Sylvester Clarke, Norbert Phillip and Vanburn Holder. With the other leading batsmen dismissed cheaply, Viswanath batted with great courage, employing his own unique method of countering short-pitched bowling. He was hit several times on the body and had scars and bruises to show for it at the end of the day, but he did not flinch. He scored 124 and 33 while contributing to a famous Indian win.

Gundappa Viswanath was undoubtedly one of India's finest batsmen. He is also a perfect gentleman and a model sportsman who believed in walking when he knew he was out (and as India captain, did not hesitate to recall a batsman in a Test match, when he knew he was not out). During his glittering career, he was known to encourage younger colleagues, even standing down at the start of crucial representative matches, to provide a young hopeful an opportunity to catch the selector's eye. While other batsmen might have scored more runs or broken more records, he perhaps gave more joy to millions of cricket lovers, with his incomparable strokeplay and obvious enjoyment of batting. The Little Master Sunil Gavaskar has always been the first to acknowledge the massive contribution Vishy made to Indian cricket.

V. RAMNARAYAN

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