The Three Musketeers Of Indian Cricket

By Gaurang
July 6 2007

Like the immortal Athos, Porthos and Aramis, Indian cricket has its Three Musketeers of the willow, namely Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly. And like the three heroes of Alexandre Dumas’ classic, each has an individuality that when taken together adds up to more than the sum of the whole.

Sachin Tendulkar, like Athos, is the most important of the Three Musketeers, and is something of a father figure to the rest of them. He is older, at least in experience, if not age, than his comrades, although with still quite a bit of cricket left in him. He like the fictional Athos, is distinguished in every way, in character, stature, bravery, and batsmanship, though of late, he seems afflicted by a deep melancholy, the source of which is hard to fathom. Is it the passing of his close friend and mentor in the business world, Mark Mascarenhas? or is it the realization that he will never achieve the dream of winning the World Cup, a dream he probably nurtured since taking to cricket as a ten year old after watching the exploits of Kapil Dev and company on TV? or is it the burden of an aging body unable to heed the commands of a mind still scalpel sharp? or is it something else altogether?

Whatever the source of that melancholy, it has introduced a note of darkness to his batting, that early in his career was as bright and sunny as a summer day in Bombay. But that touch of darkness is no more than a sunspot on a career that in its totality is as radiant as the Sun itself. This tour of England may be the last chance for his fans in England to experience in-person that brilliance. It is a chance not to be missed.

The second Musketeer, Rahul Dravid, like Dumas’ Aramis, is a handsome youth, quiet and somewhat foppish. And like Aramis, he constantly protests his extraordinariness, and claims that he is not really a musketeer, or just only a temporary one. Yet his skill is as great as any of the other Musketeers’, though he does not command the awe that Athos/Tendulkar does.

Dumas’ Aramis is also known to be a Machiavellian par excellence, and yet contradictorily loyal to a fault to his friends. This in a way Describes Rahul Dravid quite succinctly. He had no qualms siding with Greg Chappell, when the time came, in order to fulfill his ambition to lead the side, and yet throughout the period when he used Chappell to achieve his aims, he maintained a strong and mostly friendly relationship with everyone with whom he basically remained on good terms.

As a batsman, Dravid, like Aramis is a technical genius, who is constantly seeking greater challenges, and though he seems to be a bit weighed down by the added burden of Captaincy, so far it has not significantly affected his effectiveness as a batsman, maybe because he takes it as yet another technical challenge to overcome. One thing is certain when Dravid takes the crease, he will not be vacating it anytime soon, unless he can absolutely not help it. In Test cricket today this is a rare quality, that only a few embody, and it is absolutely crucial for India if they are to do well as a team. Every Indian fan will be looking for him to occupy the batting crease for hours on end, providing a solid wall to thwart any English assault.

The third Musketeer, Sourav Ganguly, most resembles the fictional Porthos. Like Porthos, Ganguly can be characterized as loud, brash, self-important and a bit vain, but for all that he is still a valiant fighter and a courageous friend. He brings to the trio a bit of the mongrel and the street. He is not afraid to mix it up with anyone and is not overly concerned about the reputation of the opponent, nor with propriety of his tactics. Ganguly like Porthos is also a bit superstitious in outlook, and has a neck full of amulets and vermillion wrist threads from various temples, dargas, etc. to help him vanquish foes.

Dumas’ Porthos, is a man of legendary appetites, who likes the finer things in life, and he seems to grow in stature throughout the book, by overcoming many obstacles, until his final comeback is that of a titan. Ganguly too has made comebacks through out his career, returning even stronger each time. From being dropped from the Indian team for four years after playing a solitary ODI, to coming back after spending fourteen months in the wilderness after circumstances first saw him dropped from, and then blocked from returning, to the team.

Ganguly now seems no longer interested in exercising any ownership of the team, and is comfortable playing under Dravid, while looking to end his cricket playing days as a senior pro, ready to contribute, guide and even lead, but not captain the team. His batting since his comeback has been very reliable and solid, and he now is one of the batsmen the team looks to in a crisis. He has once again, it seems, reinvented himself and it would be a shame to miss out on this version of the man, so different from the silken stroke maker of 1996 or the brutal punisher of 2002.

Team India, thanks to the incompetence of the BCCI, has arrived in England without a main Coach, and with the burden of leadership squarely on the shoulders of the seniors. “All For One, And One For All” may thus indeed end up being the rallying cry of the Three Musketeers of Team India as they take on England in their bid to achieve an Indian Summer in Old Blighty.

Posted by: Indian Cricket Fever (IP Logged)

Date: 06/07/2007 19:47

The Three Musketeers Of Indian Cricket