Should each be to his own?

Individual milestones shouldn’t be celebrated if the team doesn’t get the right result.

Can we have a law to ban celebrations of individual milestones? Mind you, there is a law, a loose one, to keep bowlers in check. Applied at the discretion of the umpires, the bowlers can be reprimanded, even fined, for over-the-top expressions of joy upon taking a wicket. But batsmen get away with prolonged, fatigue-inducing celebrations, especially when they reach a century.

The Pakistanis, not chary of wearing their faith on their sleeves, are perhaps the most demonstrative. You would remember any number of them, upon reaching a century, taking off their helmet and gloves and kneeling, right there on the pitch, and touching the forehead to the ground, as in a prayer. Younis Khan, whose career is destined to remain unfulfilled because he does not seem to think that all his goals lie on the cricket field, has expressed himself in myriad ways. Once he bench-pressed his bat after reaching an ODI century, in reference to the Pakistan team trainer David Dwyer's efforts. He did some press-ups when he reached another, again a nod to Dwyer’s training regimes. On a third occasion, he pulled out a note from his pocket and showed it to the camera. “Moti, I miss you,” it said. Was it public acknowledgement of love for someone? Actually, it was meant for fielding coach Mohtashim Rasheed, who had recently been relieved of his duties.

Curiously, every player claims to put his team’s interests first, and says that personal milestones do not matter if they do not take the team to victory. Yet, the most desperate of situations, even certain defeat on the horizon, do not ensure that a batsman would face the ball after the 100th run in a manner that would suggest that it did not matter because the team was not going to win.

Football players are given to wild, sometimes ingenious, celebrations on scoring a goal. But that is more vital. At a time when most matches are decided by a margin of just a goal or two, the individual achievement is more aligned to the team’s goal. But should Sachin Tendulkar, on reaching his century in the second innings of the first Test against South Africa, have done his usual routine of taking off the helmet, walking down the pitch and looking skywards in gratitude. In the context of the team having a mountain to climb to stave off innings defeat, his 100th run was insignificant. And it is difficult to shake off the feeling that he may have gone on to score many more but his concentration may have been broken by the little ritual. He was out on an even 100, though, till then, he did not look like getting out.

Sunil Gavaskar, one of Tendulkar’s two childhood idols (the other was Vivian Richards), has maintained that he did not keep track of the scoreboard. He thought it could induce injudicious shots to know that he was on, say, 96. Tendulkar has been out in the nineties 25 times in international matches, against eight for Gavaskar.

(suveen.sinha@bsmail.in)