How long a rope?

From Koushik Biswas, United States
Wondering about the relative balance in the patience accounts of selectors regarding our superheroes, I cannot help this warm and fuzzy feeling inside my heart about what happened to Dravid. Everybody stuck with him for what seemed ages, the media was not crying for his head, every praise from Dhoni sounded equally honest, no efforts were made to replace him at No 3. Of course he is a champion player, and now he knows he has the love of the people along with his list of records. With so much support, only time was needed. And the small battle with a big bad patch was won. It was not only Dravid's alone, it was our battle as well.

What is Sachin falls in such a patch? Dravid scored a 9 out of 10 in his "public patience account". What is Sachin's score? 10 out of 10? Actually no. I think Sachin will have more impatience to deal with than Dravid. More people will cry out for his head sooner. That is because of the public perception of his records: what more has he to achieve? And due to the expectations all of us have from him. A cricketer is measured with what is expected of him - so the yardstick is not really the same for everybody. A 5 match series where Sachin averages 30 will be seen as a disastrous series for the little master. I would keep Sachin at 7 out of 10. Laxman? 8 out of 10. Again low profile is the key. I mean level of expectation.

One common thing in all the above three is a warm feeling of gentlemanliness, polite down-to-earth perception of these pillars that we have, which they truly are. That is exactly the thing that Ganguly lacks, he is the aggressor with more enemies than the rest of the Indian team (in his time) put together. I would put Ganguly's patience account score at 3 out of 10. Whatever the patience account score is, one thing is sure: if all of these gentlemen, by some miracle is given 10 out of 10, they will come out of any bad patch, and rule the world again. So a small point to ponder is: when they are not playing well, it is we that matter, not them. They will keep on trying anyway. It is up to us really how long a run we are willing to give them. The ball lies in our court, not theirs.