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Journalism of Courage
MUMBAI, JANUARY 5: The Chandu Borde-chaired selection committee gave the expected green signal in asking VVS Laxman to continue as an Indian team member for the Carlton and United triangular one-day cricket series commencing on January nine.
Board of Control for Cricket in India secretary Jaywant Lele conveyed to mediamen the official announcement here on Wednesday after an informal decision on the matter was taken on Tuesday by the selection committee. Laxman, who hit a heroic 167 in the third and final Test at Sydney, will stay back as an addition member of the Indian side.
The selectors had decided on retaining Laxman even before skipper Sachin Tendulkar and coach Kapil Dev requested the BCCI to retain the Hyderabad opener for the tri-series featuring India, Pakistan and Australia.
Laxman was one of those dropped when the selectors met on Dec 30 –Sadagoppan Ramesh, Harbhajan Singh, Vijay Bharadwaj, T Kumaran and MSK Prasad being the others.
Australian media ignores Laxman’s heroics
SYDNEY: Australian newspapers on Wednesday gave front page headlines to hail “Waugh’s Warriors” but amazingly did not have a word of praise for Laxman, who struck a classy 167 at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
The Telegraph, in fact paid a back-hand compliment to Laxman when it said the Indian opener scored his runs only as there were vacant spaces because of attacking field placements.
It said: “Laxman muscled the ball through vast open spaces through an attacking field.”
There were no headlines or pictures of Laxman though the double century of Justin Langer — he thrived on shocking umpiring decisions by Ian Robinson of Zimbabwe and Australia’s Darrel Hair — and Australia’s beaming cricketers after the 3-0 series win made front page news.
The only picture on Laxman, again in The Telegraph, showed the batsman ducking into a Glenn McGrath delivery and being hit on the helmet visor. The captain read: `Chin Music.”
Laxman’s tremendous assault on rookie paceman Brett Lee on the third afternoon also found no mention in the newspapers.
The Sydney Morning Herald gloated over Lee mentioning his performance in the Test as “super show”. But there was no word that Laxman smashed the pace bowler for 52 runs in just five overs.
Though most newspapers mentioned that as many as 482 runs were scored on Tuesday, not a line was written on Laxman scoring 121 runs in the final session. It was the highest in a single session by an Indian surpassing Mohd Azharuddin’s 103 against England.
The Australian said the Man Of The Series Award to Sachin Tendulkar was shocking, adding it must have disappointed even Steve Waugh.
Even though it imagined on Waugh’s behalf, the newspaper did not take the trouble of either confirming with Waugh or admitting it could be presumption on the writer’s part.
