Cricket is supposed to be greater than the players and this adage
has been proved more than once. Most of the celebrated cricketers have just faded out or retired without a popular hurrah. This is perceptible especially since the 70s when it became a money-spinning game.
Take the case of Sir Vivian Richards. Considering the immense contribution he had made to the game at all levels, it was unimaginable that he played his last test in England. He wanted to play his fifth World Cup in 1992 as a farewell song to end a illustrious career but alas it was not to be. With his compatriots such as Greenidge, Dujon and Marshall supporting his plea it was unthinkable that the West Indies Board could turn it down without batting an eye lid. They did and Richards, no worse for it because his contributions were etched in history, quit a little discontented. There are many, some losing their captaincy in flight back home, like Venkatraghavan did after the
series in England.
Another instance is the Australian fast bowler, Jason Gillespie. From 1996 he had established himself in the Australian team as a magnificent bowler and soon had an enduring and rewarding partnership with Glenn Mcgrath. He has taken 259
wickets, the fifth highest in Australian hierarchy, from 71 tests and 142 wickets from 95 ODIs and his strike rate in both was 25. The tally of wickets he had shared with Mcgrath was amazingly over 550 over a span of 8 years before the fateful Ashes series came in 2005.
Every player has a lean patch and obviously Gillespie was below par. Even Lillee commented that Australia lost the Ashes because Dizzy was in poor form. After all Brett Lee was out of reckoning for a year because Sourav Ganguly''s team plundered in the series played in Australia. Suddenly he was not in the selectors'' scheme of things and they dropped him for more than 10 tests in a row. And then picked him for the Bangladesh tour only because Mcgrath and another key bowler were not available. Dizzy did remarkably well in Bangladesh as an unlikely allrounder, collecting 8 wickets and scoring an unbeaten double hundred - the only bowler to have done so.
And then, he was cruelly dumped. Till date there is no valid explanation for it when everybody knows that Shaun Tait or Bracken or Stuart Clark is no patch on him. He is still world class and had taken 26 Pura Cup wickets last season.
It is strange that a match-winning bowler, who on his own could send shivers up any opposition, is no longer under consideration. If that is the way the game goes it is really sad and untenable.