Laxman -- Highly overrated!

[GermanShepherd]

I really hope Laxman scores some runs in Bangalore.
I wouldn't say his spot is under immediate threat, but runs will quieten the growing chorus of discontent with his batting this season.

 

[krishneelz]

laxman has had it rough but i just cant believe ganguly is batting above him

 

[krishneelz]

laxman cant turn it on down the order they need to stick him up atleast above ganguly

 

[krishneelz]

one feels hes due for a big one

 

[LongHopCassidy]

What, 178 and 148 at No. 6 not good enough for the Bob-like grammatist?

 

[SJS]

Well, despite the 281 in Calcutta, and many of his other 100s I feel VVS Laxman is a highly overrated player and for some reason I don't like him. Illogical I know... but well some people just irritate !! I mean have any of you noticed how shocked Laxman looks when he gets out even if its bowled.. Like hes never been out before. Anyways point of this thread is check out some interesting statistics :-

This is a letter from a friend of mine

For some reason you dont like him....you know it is illogical but you still dont like him ?
Well that explains the main motivation behind your post and letter of your friend doesnt it ? It explains the "illogic" of the "arguments" presented" by your friend.

He is one of those persons who just irritates you !
Yes i understand the feeling. Its like I think very poorly of all tennins players who wear the baseball caps with the peak pointing backwards. I find it very irritating and I dont(therefore??) think they are good enough tennis players. I also dont think much of my managers who sit in conferences and slurp their coffee. somehow, they seem so..so..incompetent ! Yes i know what you mean !!!

You just dont understand how he looks shocked when bowledWhat perfect logic ! I mean, how can a batsman be bowled and not look as if he always knew he had it coming ?? By the way, it must be terrible for you to watch all those bowlers looking shocked at appeals being turned down, no ?? I mean how can they ? havent they been refused before ?? ridiculous. I agree with you, wholeheartedly !!!!

NOW COMING TO YOUR LEARNED FRIEND

Reasons why we HATE(emphasis mine) Laxman
Your friend makes it very clear at the outset that his feelings towards laxman are nothing but objectivity personified.

(By the way, did you and your friend see the leg before decision which sent Laxman back to the pavillion for zero. Did you feel that it might, just might have been going down the leg side ? Just asking)

1.>vvs has scored less than 10 runs in 31 test matches, in which his
average is...you guessed it,a miserly 3.45<83 runs from 25 innings>

Wow. What a remarkable piece of research !! Just imagine in all those single digit innings he manages just a single digit average..atrocious !!!

I decided to check how some of the greats of all times faired in their single digit innings amd I started with the master himself, The Don and guess what ?? The man who is a whisker away from averaging 100 per innings actually averaged 2.21 per innings in innings under 10 in test matches !! I was scandalised.

I decided to check closer to home and here are some of the figures i unearthed.

Dravid : 4.1
Sachin : 4.2
Gavaskar : 3.4
Vishwanath : 3.9

I dont get it. So I called up my nephew and told him of my strange discovery and that cheeky youngsters started laughing in my face calling me senile and what not. Can you imagine the chhek of the youth to tell me that it is impossible to have a double digit average from a bunch of single digit numbers !! Do you really think this might be true ???

But then I thought, a bright young guy like you couldnt have made such a bloomer so you were trying to say something else. Maybe Laxman scores single digit innings more often that others.

Yes that must be it. So i went back to figure hunting to prove you right. Here was the sorry result

PLAYER......Single digit innings as a % of total innings played

Laxman .......25.2
Tendulkar..... 27.3
Gavaskar......27.1
Vishwanath...29.7

So I gave up on the point #1 and went to #2

2.>in those matches , india has only won 7 times.Evidently, ol vvs is
the reason why we lose matches.

Aha. So this is it. We lose because of VVS. I called up my nephew and triumphantly told him of my ( I hope you dont mind my stealing some of your limelight) great discovery. To my great surprise he started laughing again saying

"Swaranjeet uncle, you better give up analying cricket stats. You think Laxman's failure in Indias losses proves he is responsible for Indias losses ?? Hasnt it stuck you that it might mean that if Laxman doesnt score, India finds it difficult to win !!"

I beat a hasty retreat. what do you think my dear..whatever ?

Do you think you might have got your hatred, your dislike, your irritation with everything Laxman does a bit mixed up with your stats and analysis thereof ??

My nephew told me, by the way, that while Laxman was forced to open against his wishes for most of his early career, since he refused to open, he has averaged around 48 in positions other than opening ??

Actually he averages above 45 at number 6/7, 48+ at number 4 and 53+ at his favourite number 3. Do you think this is a factor to be considered ??

Laxman cant score in England

Having burnt my fingers (and reputation as the family's cricket expert), I decided to look at all the other stuff said on this thread about Laxman a bit more carefully and decided never to try and show off my "CW-forum" acquired knowledge with my mart alec nephew.

Guess what i found about laxmans alleged failure to score in England. VVS averages a miserable 40 in the old Blighty.(39.7really) Not too bad is it ? Not a disaster surely. I remember a guy from Australia, Ricky something, who hardly seemed to be able to get into the 20's in india. i dont recall his countrymen going up screamimg that he couldnt play !!

By the way Laxman scores less in the subcontinent and more on lands where others find the going tougher. Here it is

England : 40
SAfrica : 48
Windies : 54
Australia 60

Really ??

He averages 42 in India, 31 in Pakistan and 18 in the only test in Sri Lanka where he opened in both innings.

His real bad trip was to NZealand 2002 but I dont remember many Indian batsmen doning well singly or as a team on that trip. Do you ?

Other than those two test matches, i wouldnt bet on Laxman being found wanting on foreign land and different surfaces. Would you ??

Yes he hasnt had a great year, these last twelve months but has it been a disaster ? Do you remember the year 2003 and one Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar's plight that year. Laxman at least played one remarkable knock against the Aussies at home this winter which resulted in our only test win of the series.

Maybe, you would have felt better if he had gone to Bangladesh and scored a 250 plus !!

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Classic.

 

[SJS]

Classic.

 

[chekmeout]

Nice post SJS... I do apologise for the previous statistics (as I mentioned before).....

Sorry guys!!

But SJS you still think he deserves to be in the team over Yuvraj & Kaif?

 

[honestbharani]

Nice post SJS... I do apologise for the previous statistics (as I mentioned before).....

Sorry guys!!

But SJS you still think he deserves to be in the team over Yuvraj & Kaif?

I think he is better than Yuvi and Kaif.

 

[dudeurfriend]

Well laxman is a better batsman than yuvi or kaif... I guess he should be used at no5 rather than no6 to provide him more chances... No 3 could be ideal but in current form Rahul is better... So Laxman should be persisted at no5... I guess he would then prove all the critics what he is capable of......

 

[Anil]

But SJS you still think he deserves to be in the team over Yuvraj & Kaif?

laxman is a much, much better batsman than either yuvraj or kaif...both are good one day players and have the potential to develop into competent test batsmen but they don't have 1/10th the talent of laxman...if v.v.s is let loose in domestic cricket, he will probably score more heavily than either yuvraj or kaif....

 

[SJS]

Nice post SJS... I do apologise for the previous statistics (as I mentioned before).....

Sorry guys!!

But SJS you still think he deserves to be in the team over Yuvraj & Kaif?

Yes he does, in test matches. Reasons :-
1. He is a far better batsman than either of them. As on date, there is no comparison between them and him in the longer version of the game.

2. He is a brilliant slip fielder, a position that comes in very handy in test matches but not in the limited over game. He is not a great runner in the outfield where these two score over him which reduces his limited over utility.

3. He is capable of, and has played long innings. This is a special characterstic and not many batsmen, even the best, have this. The difference in the Waugh brothers is a case in point. Mark was a much more gifted stroke player but could not play the long innings that Steve could. Laxman seems to get better as his innings gets bigger. By the way, he is one of the few Indians with two first class triple centuries.

4. He is not known for any specific weakness against a particular type of bowling. Fast to spin, pitched up or dug in short, in coming or leaving him he handles them all with aplomb. Thats why when he gets going its difficult to set a field for him. Not many of us realise but he has one of the highest boundaries per hundred runs proportion in world cricket.

 

[C_C]

I am a believer in the 'kick on the backside' philosophy.... If Laxman doesnt perform soon, i would advocate dropping him for a series or two, just to put him under some pressure to regain his form and touch. I think one drawback with Ganguly-Wright's philosophy of maintaining the 'core' and 'stability' is that players can be prone to take their spots for granted.

One thing about VVS is that he doesnt practice in the nets NEARLY as much as a specialist bat does.... infact he practices batting in the nets as much as Harbhajan or Giles does...
He is a big believer in meditation and he thinks that any form slump/error is mental and therefore meditation can be the answer.
While i dont wanna debate the philosophy, i certainly think it wouldnt hurt VVS to practice a lot more in the nets to go with his meditation.

If VVS/Gangs doesnt perform against the next credible opposition(SL), i would recommend dropping Laxman for a couple of series and making him EARN his way back while extending Ganguly's captaincy to the next series ONLY.

 

[C_C]

.

 

[SJS]

Some lesser known facts about Laxman.

1. Other than Sachin Tendulkar(for whom figures are not available) and Sehwag, Laxman scores faster than all major Indian batsmen in tests !!

Here are the respective scoring rates per 100 balls.

- Dravid : 41.9
- Ganguly : 49.5
- Laxman : 50.1
PS : He does it without hitting sixes. I dont think he has hit more than a couple of sixes in his entire test career with none in his seven century innings. No wonder, to the six-smitten public, he appears to be batting slowly !!

2. In one dayers too, Laxman is not as slow as he is made out to be.
The difference between his strike rate and that of Ganguly or even Kaif is not great and , of course, he is better than Dravid.

- Kaif : 74.3
- Ganguly : 74.3
- Laxman : 71.6- Dravid : 69.5

3. Laxman is the most difficult of all Indian batsmen (in Indias test history) to dismiss once he gets a hundred !

He has 7 hundreds in test matches but the lowest three figure score for which he has been dismissed is 130 and 148 is the next lowest !! His average for his century innings is 232. Here are the century innings averages of the top Indian players

- Viswanath : 158
- Ganguly : 159
- Azhar : 163
- Sehwag : 165
- Gavaskar: 178
- Dravid : 200
- Vengsarkar : 200
- Tendulkar : 216
- Laxman : 232


4. He is one of India's greatest ever slip fielders !
With 70 catches in his 63 tests till date he is the sixth highest (other than keepers) catcher in the history of Indian cricket. Of the 5 above him, 4 played over a hundred tests and Azhar played 99.

Only Dravid, of those above him has a better catches per match ration than Laxman's 1.16. Again the obsession w9ith limited over play and its totally different emphasis on fielding and field placings, this important aspect gets ignored in these times. In test matches this is THE most crucial place in the field after the keeper.

As with his batting he makes this most difficult of fielding skills appear like child's play.

 

[C_C]

I am not a laxman hater but i am not a big fan of his either.
However to answer your points.

#1 : Unless you are scoring stupendously fast ( Gillchrist/Sehwag) or stupendously slowly( Darren Ganga), scoring rate in test cricket is largely irrelevant.
It is more important to put runs on the board than hwo fast you score it-far more than ODIs.


#2: Again, he doesnt score as much in ODIs- Dravid's strike rate has been superb over the last 4-5 years and it is down because of his initial difficulty adjusting...for which he got ample criticism and improved incredibly.... Besides, Laxman isnt as productive as Ganguly as a batsman( one year means zilch really) and as far as ODIs go, he is a SIGNIFICANTLY inferior fielder to Kaif/Yuvraj who score about the same # of runs at a better clip. While Ganguly has gone down a few notches in ODIs as well, he is definately a better fielder than laxman and still has produced more than laxman.

#3 Again, its superflous. Ave. 100 score is relevant only with how many hundreds you score. Player A can have 5 hundreds averaging 185 per ton and player B can have 30 averaging 120...i neednt tell you which one is better.

#4 Laxman is a decent slip fielder...one of the greatest from IND ? i doubt it.For one, Dravid is CONSIDERABLY better ( his recent butterfingers bout notwithstanding) and players like Gavaskar, Vishwanath,Azhar, Solkar, etc. were better slippers than laxman as well...besides, IND hasnt produced as many good/great slippers as OZ/ENG so it is a rather shallow pool and empirically, laxman is no more than an average slipper...
and since when is fielding callibre judged on # of catches held ? going by that ideology, Gilly is a better glovesman than Healey and Ridley Jacobs a better gloves man than Jackie Hendrix.....i find that ridiculous.

 

[Jono]

LOL SJS! Where do you get the energy? I've argued for Laxman ever since I stepped on this board, and its one of those never ending topics. If he fails for a little while, he's always under threat, and its then quietened again when he scores. *shrugs*

He definitely deserves a place over Yuvraj in the test side, there's no question of that. I believe Kaif warrants a place at the moment ahead of Ganguly, but mentioning that is useless since that's not going to happen. So that puts Kaif and Yuvraj out of the picture, leaving Laxman deservedly in the team IMO. Firstly he should always bat ahead of Ganguly IMO. Laxman came in at the perfect time against Australia in Sydney in the 4th test. We had just lost Dravid, and Tendulkar needed a solid partner. Laxman is far from consistent, but when he is in form, and has his rhythm he's amazing, whereas Ganguly can be in fine form but the next innings will still hang his bat out like he's giving the slips catching practice.

 

[Sanz]

when he is in form, and has his rhythm

So, as you say, being in form alone is not enough for Lax, he has to be in his rhythm as well to play a good inning.

To be frank, I would hate to see Laxman dropped from Indian team and the only reason is his capability to play long innings. Except Dravid, Right now he is the only one in our team who can play long inning under pressure and I dont think Yuvi/Kaif are capable of doing that. The problem with Laxman is that it is very hard to motivate him to play a good inning. That means for Laxman to be able to perform either Laxman himself or India need to be in deep ****. A look at his test match scores and you will know what I am talking about.

What annoys most Indian cricket fans is that Laxman doesn't do justice to his potential. He has the potential to become one of India's/world's greatest batsman of his time but I dont know if he can even be called as 'Great'. For most people he is just 'Good' or 'decent'.

 

[Jono]

Lol, well whenever I talk about Laxman I use the word rhythm. Its one of those words that pop in my mind whenever I see him bat. He reminds me of like the idea Mozart or Bach classical music. It just flows well.