Nick name
noneBiog
Suresh Menon is a highly regarded and widely read cricket writer from India. He currently lives in Bangalore.Favourite team/sport
India CricketDid you know?
Suresh is married to the sculptor, Dimpy MenonProgramme credit
Cricket ColumnistWhile the IPL with its Kohlis and Warners and Pandeys provides a glimpse into the future of cricket, some of the tournament’s charm lies in the fact that it gives the Twenty20-obsessed a chance to see contemporary greats in action.
Shane Warne and Anil Kumble, for example, have retired from international cricket, yet for a generation brought up on the shortest format of the game they bring with them the varied skills and experience associated with its other, more complex forms, particularly Test cricket.
There is something here of Tolstoy writing a limerick or Chopin doing an advertisement jingle. You know they can do it if they put their minds to it and so enjoy it as a peep into their range. In the case of the Warnes and Kumbles, there is the added pathos of knowing they will never (to mix our metaphors) write a novel again or sit down to compose a study on the piano. Let us enjoy their appearances on the field while we can.
A great delivery is a great delivery in any form of the game, just as a pleasing cover drive is a visual treat no matter whether it is lunch around the corner or the strategic timeout. And those who succeed in the shorter game without compromising on the skills garnered over years of playing Tests bring with them something special – both history and the future are contained in their efforts.
Sportsmen do not go on forever. That we are given a chance to cherish the uniqueness of players like Adam Gilchrist and Sourav Ganguly and Matthew Hayden after their retirement is exciting. It extends our relationship with them, a relationship built over years of watching them in the flesh or on television (which is rather more intimate, but that’s another story).
Sooner rather than much later we will be bidding farewell to Muttiah Muralitharan, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, V V S Laxman, Daniel Vettori, Makhaya Ntini, Jacques Kallis, Sanat Jayasuriya, and many more with their incredible records. Their impact on the modern game has been powerful; the fortunes of their respective teams have risen and fallen according to their own form and performances.
One of the stated aims of Twenty20 when it was invented was to attract the younger fans to the game so that they would support Test cricket. It might be too early to decide whether that objective has been achieved, or if, as is more likely, Twenty20 has become an end in itself. Or if the conversion is proceeding in the other direction with Test fans singing praises of the shorter game and supporting it.
The format will throw up its own heroes. Early in his career, for example, Yusuf Pathan emerged as that rare creature, a Twenty20 specialist who was not part of a Test team and continues to be in and out of the one-day squad. But it is the all rounder – the player adept at all three forms – who will help convert those chary of taking Test cricket to their bosoms. Players like Mahendra Singh Dhoni or Virendra Sehwag.
The balanced side will have a mix of the golden oldies and fired up youth. For the fourth season, it is not some new star on the horizon that is causing excitement but the arrival of Brian Lara, now keen to give the IPL a shot. He hasn’t played one-day cricket since 2007, but that hardly matters. He will be 42, but is younger than Michael Schumacher who returned to Formula One this year. Back to the future can be exciting.
