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99, and all that...
R Mohan
There must be some kind of Murphy's Law operating in cricket.
The game's equivalent of Murphy's Law must read something like
this: when a batsman is on 99, if anything must go wrong, it will.
Both Greg Blewett and Saurav Ganguly will vouch for it. They were
the batsmen who both contrived to bring about their own dismissals
within a few minutes of each other, on two continents, in late November.
Greg Blewett did it in Hobart and Ganguly in Nagpur.
Greg "Blew It" (predictable wit of a young banner writer
at the Bellerive Oval) has created a niche for himself in the
record books by becoming the first Test batsman to be bowled on
99 on two occasions. Considering that Tests have been played
for close to 120 years, this must rank as a difficult achievement.
Blewett might derive some consolation from the fact that he is
not the only batsman to be out twice on 99. Among contemporaries,
he is in the distinguished company of Mike Atherton, the England
captain who, when not making news, is probably getting himself out
when on the threshold of landmarks. Among those still in the game,
Salim Malik has the honour of twice getting out on 99. So too
John Wright and Richie Richardson who, of course have retired.
Cricket has such a strong statistical orientation that it makes
a bigger fuss about a century than, say, snooker would. It is
as if everything is centred around whether a batsman would attain
a certain landmark or not, be it 100, 200, 300 and then, on very
rare occasions, whether he can get to Brian Lara's 375.
The "99 Blues" is a disease that derives from the importance
attached to the century. Those who have made at least one century
in any class of cricket, be it in the junior school match or in
the heat of a Test match, will know how an immense feeling of satisfaction
floods your mind when you know you have got there -- to that precious
hundred.
The "99 Blues" can, however, strike you down without
so much as a warning. A tensed up batsman is particularly vulnerable
to this syndrome. The Aussie opener Matthew Elliott has the unique
record of being twice out on 199, while Don Bradman and Martin
Crowe are the only ones to have got to 299, the former of course
being unbeaten on that score.
Blewett, who played on, was a victim of nerves in the classical
style. Ganguly, who was playing to the sharp deadline of lunch,
by when the declaration would be effected, may have had an excuse.
He was under greater pressure to get the much desired hundred,
which would have been his third in successive Tests, when he played
his most paying shot, the square drive, too far from his body
and became a strange victim to a catch to fly slip, a position
not normally employed in a Test match.
Bradman, the most wily batsman as well as the greatest ever, was
foxed on 299, stranded there as the tail gave way to South African
bowlers before he could notch up what would have been his second
triple ton.
Being the canny sort, he was looking for a single off the last
ball of an over but his partner, H M Thurlow, could not make his
crease. Bradman made his second triple hundred only in England
in 1934, and remains the only one batsman ever to have got past
300 twice in Test cricket.
The most cruel 99 in the history of cricket must, however, belong
to Geoffrey Boycott. He was left on 99, not by the tail depriving
him of company at a crucial time, but by a declaration made by
a captain who may have wished to drive home the point that cricket
is a team game.
It is not as if batsmen are unaware of the fact that their contributions
must be as relevant as possible to the game situation. It is just
that they pay so much attention to this particular landmark of
a century that sometimes, they forget everything else or even lose
their way and give in to the "99 Blues" as Blewett and
Ganguly did so very recently.
The Nervous 90s is a term statisticians love to use. There must
be something to that, too, as there are so many instances in Test
cricket of batsmen being stricken by heebie-jeebies when they
are close to a personal landmark.
Take the case of Rahul Dravid, one of India's very successful young
Test batsmen. He has been dismissed four times in the 90s. Having
crossed 50 as many as 11 times, Dravid has got past the century
mark only once and that was in the Johannesburg Test early this
year.
It is ironical that the celebrity who endorses a soft drink with
the line "You've got to keep a cool head" fails to
do just that when he gets into the 90s. Maybe, if batsmen did
not pressure themselves so much when nearing a century and get
ultra cautious and then foolishly adventurous, there would not
be so many falling in the dreaded 90s. But that is easier said
than done.
(Ed's note: After Mohan wrote this column, one more batsman went in the nineties, when Atapattu fell two short of the 100 in the Sri Lankan first innings at the Wankhede stadium. That makes four for the series, two of the places in the list claimed by Dravid, one by Ganguly, and Atapattu completing the line-up.)
R Mohan
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