Laxman -- Highly overrated!

[Sanz]

Some lesser known facts about Laxman.

1. Other than Sachin Tendulkar(for whom figures are not available) and Sehwag, Laxman scores faster than all major Indian batsmen in tests !!

Here are the respective scoring rates per 100 balls.

- Dravid : 41.9
- Ganguly : 49.5
- Laxman : 50.1
PS : He does it without hitting sixes. I dont think he has hit more than a couple of sixes in his entire test career with none in his seven century innings. No wonder, to the six-smitten public, he appears to be batting slowly !!

2. In one dayers too, Laxman is not as slow as he is made out to be.
The difference between his strike rate and that of Ganguly or even Kaif is not great and , of course, he is better than Dravid.

- Kaif : 74.3
- Ganguly : 74.3
- Laxman : 71.6- Dravid : 69.5

3. Laxman is the most difficult of all Indian batsmen (in Indias test history) to dismiss once he gets a hundred !

He has 7 hundreds in test matches but the lowest three figure score for which he has been dismissed is 130 and 148 is the next lowest !! His average for his century innings is 232. Here are the century innings averages of the top Indian players

- Viswanath : 158
- Ganguly : 159
- Azhar : 163
- Sehwag : 165
- Gavaskar: 178
- Dravid : 200
- Vengsarkar : 200
- Tendulkar : 216
- Laxman : 232


4. He is one of India's greatest ever slip fielders !
With 70 catches in his 63 tests till date he is the sixth highest (other than keepers) catcher in the history of Indian cricket. Of the 5 above him, 4 played over a hundred tests and Azhar played 99.

Only Dravid, of those above him has a better catches per match ration than Laxman's 1.16. Again the obsession w9ith limited over play and its totally different emphasis on fielding and field placings, this important aspect gets ignored in these times. In test matches this is THE most crucial place in the field after the keeper.

As with his batting he makes this most difficult of fielding skills appear like child's play.

This is what I call 'Arjun' effect. Clearly your worst post ever.

 

[SJS]

This is what I call 'Arjun' effect. Clearly your worst post ever.

Thanks for the compliment

I did not want to use this post to say Laxman is great. As the heading says, there are some myths about Laxman , mainly about his slow scoring which need to be removed. A strike rate of 50 does nothing tpo prove he is a great player but seen in context of Ganguly strike rate it gives the lie to the normally brandished arguement against Laxman.

Another myth is about his fielding. as with most arguments based on likes and dislikes rather than objective analysis, we tend to move goal posts. In this case mixing ODI's with tests. Clearly for ODI's, a fielder like Laxman could be a liability when compared with the likes of Yuvi or Kaif. But it is misleading to carry this impression in your head when talking of tests, hence the stats on his slip fielding.

I am not a fanatic supporter of Laxman. In fact I am not a fanatic supporter of anyone. What really gets my goat is the fanaticsm of some of the posts either FOR or against a player. When it is for a player, at least one can , up to a point, overlook it as the enthusiasm of a doting fan. BUT, when it is fanatical condemnation as one has seen here against Laxman, Sachin, Ganguly, Warne, Murali , you name them, it is then that i , sometimes, feel a bit of "corrective medicine" is required .

You dont like Laxman do you. Well I think he is the most infuriating Indian batsman ever because he is so talented and he has so often thrown it away. He is not a great player but he is a great stroke player and is delightful to watch. He is not as bad as he is made out to be. Like Mohinder Amarnath, twenty years ago, he suffers from the charismatic-personality-deficiency-syndrome which is a big thing with the Indian fan. And just like Mohinder, he has been dropped again and again at the slightest pretext. I remember Mohinder being dropped early in his career on the pretext of being too young and later for being too old !! For being too mild against the bowlers and for being too aggressive against fast bowlers !! For being a bad player of pace to being a bad player of spin !!

Sorry my dear. While Laxman has had spells when he has deserved to be dropped, he has many times been dropped when others have not suffered similarly for similar failures. The measure for Laxman, as for Mohinder before him, seems so different than for other batsmen. He is clearly not a common man's prince. No one has invented the Wall, or the Turbanator, or the Master Blaster tags for him which excite the modern day follower of the game.

Kumble has suffered similarly for long and it is only now, after 450 wickets, people are talking of him as a great bowler. we need to ask ourselves what is it that people like Kumble, Laxman and Mohinder Amarnath lack.

 

[SJS]

Just one more thing.To put my views about Laxman in perspective.

If India wanted to play five bowlers I would drop Laxman from the side. But not to accomodate Yuvraj or Kaif. Not yet. But if Laxman was to continue to fail, then why not.

If Ganguly was replaced as captain (which I dont think is going to happen any way), then Ganguly may be dropped before Laxman. Again that is as of now. It may change tomorrow with the form of the players.

 

[Swervy]

Kumble has suffered similarly for long and it is only now, after 450 wickets, people are talking of him as a great bowler. we need to ask ourselves what is it that people like Kumble, Laxman and Mohinder Amarnath lack.

mmm..thats quite a good question.

I think a part of the Kumble problem, is,quite wrongly, that he has never been a big turner of the ball,and so for years and years was seen as someone who could be smacked around the park easily....when the reality of Kumbles bowling is that with all his subtle variations of pace, flight etc, he never needed to turn the ball much. I feel that there may have been a slight resentment that Kumble could get all these wickets without ever LOOKING like a great spinner....I think people have realised that you dont get 450 test wickets at such a fantasic rate by being an average spin bowler. Harbhajan is a big turner of the ball, it looks mighty impressive on the TV to see these deliveries turn square...Harbhajan is more entertaining to wtach..Kumble is more the work horse..and that isnt to downgrade Kumble in anyway.

Laxman..I guess it comes down to those two innings vs Australia. The questions are asked, if he can do that to Australia those couple of times, why cant he do it all the time. A victim of his own success i think...and unfairly probably.

when i have watched Laxman play, he always dissapoints me..and that is probably because I am expecting him to play inning sof the quality of those two huge ones vs Australia. The fact is no-one can play at that level all the time. So maybe people are thinking the same way as I do...so much potential and yet it rarely shines as it did on those two occasions. take those two innings away ,and maybe people would judge his innings on the merit they deserve as opposed to judging them by comparing them to those two great innings.

Amarnath: Always the nearly man..for years he never fulfilled what he eventually proved he could do. I have always felt that the indian public like their batsmen to be able to score the big hundreds....well Amarnath didnt do that for a long long time. Maybe he just got a reputaion as being a decent hard working batsman who never really pushed along for the big,reputation building score. And when he did start scoring big, along came a spell of time (was it around 1983 ish) where he couldnt score anything. Maybe that spell stuck in peoples minds (because it surely must be one of the most barren spells any batsman has had after playing so wonderfully vs teams like WI and Pakistan)....

 

[SJS]

mmm..thats quite a good question.

Did you see Mohinder play and follow his sntire career or are you just aware of his exploits and his eight runs in seven innings or whatever ?

 

[Swervy]

Did you see Mohinder play and follow his sntire career or are you just aware of his exploits and his eight runs in seven innings or whatever ?

oh I saw Mohinder play but only really towards the end of his career and probably only 'live' in ODI's, and certainly wasnt old enough to be able to follow his career (I was born 3 years after his test debut i think)....thats why my post is littered with 'maybe'....I was just trying to ask more questions really about him I guess and seeing what you were to say about the theory I wrote

 

[Sanz]

Th
You dont like Laxman do you. Well I think he is the most infuriating Indian batsman ever because he is so talented and he has so often thrown it away. He is not a great player but he is a great stroke player and is delightful to watch. He is not as bad as he is made out to be. Like Mohinder Amarnath, twenty years ago, he suffers from the charismatic-personality-deficiency-syndrome which is a big thing with the Indian fan. And just like Mohinder, he has been dropped again and again at the slightest pretext. I remember Mohinder being dropped early in his career on the pretext of being too young and later for being too old !! For being too mild against the bowlers and for being too aggressive against fast bowlers !! For being a bad player of pace to being a bad player of spin !!

It is silly to compare Mohinder Amarnath's situation with with Laxman. Mohinder and his brother Surinder both paid for their Dad Lala Amarnath's sins. I loved mohinder play and I dont know any single cricket fan who didn't like his game. It was the selectors, who had grudge against Lala Amarnath, used it against his sons.

Laxman, on the other hand, had nothing to do with politics, he was dropped because of his poor performance in first 4-5 seasons. He was a middle order batsman but when he came there was no vaccancy in the middle order with Dravid, Azhar, Tendulkar, Ganguly filling all the spots. He agreed to open the innings for India and didn't do too well thereby dropped.

As for me not liking Laxman, well you dont know that and it shouldn't really matter. I personally think his game is not suited for ODIs, but for Tests he is perfect batsman and I would not drop him for players like Kaif/Yuvraj. At times he is annoying because he often gets out to stupid shots. He is immensly talented but lacks descipline of a top performer. Talent without descipline isn't worth much, Remember Vinod Kambli, Sivarama Krishnan, Sadgopalan Ramesh etc...

 

[Sanz]

Sorry my dear. While Laxman has had spells when he has deserved to be dropped, he has many times been dropped when others have not suffered similarly for similar failures. The measure for Laxman, as for Mohinder before him, seems so different than for other batsmen. He is clearly not a common man's prince. No one has invented the Wall, or the Turbanator, or the Master Blaster tags for him which excite the modern day follower of the game.

I dont know about past, but from the present team can you point one player who has not been dropped ( or left out) ? There must be a reason, If tags like 'wall', 'turbanator','master blaster' have not been invented for Laxman. Since the series in Australia, India has played 4 series and playing 5th one, his avgs are 31.00, 17.57, 23.50, 20.50, 27.33* and I am not even saying that he should be dropped.He should be glad that he doesn't have the tags of a 'Wall' or a 'master Blaster' because those tags come with lots of strings attached, I can't Imagine Dravid/Sachin failing for 5 series in a row and getting away with it. They haved earned their tags and laxman is yet to earn his.

Your post was really 'too much rhetoric, too little substance'.

PS:- Kumble's criticism is somewhat justified considering he didn't get much success outside Indian subcontinent for years.

 

[Jono]

It is honestly my belief that Laxman is loved here in Australia more than in India. Kind of ironic.

 

[Dasa]

Some lesser known facts about Laxman.

1. Other than Sachin Tendulkar(for whom figures are not available) and Sehwag, Laxman scores faster than all major Indian batsmen in tests !!

If I remember correctly, I remember seeing a figure that Tendulkar scored at 57/100 balls.

 

[SJS]

It is silly to compare Mohinder Amarnath's situation with with Laxman. Mohinder and his brother Surinder both paid for their Dad Lala Amarnath's sins. I loved mohinder play and I dont know any single cricket fan who didn't like his game. It was the selectors, who had grudge against Lala Amarnath, used it against his sons.

Laxman, on the other hand, had nothing to do with politics, he was dropped because of his poor performance in first 4-5 seasons. ...

I did not say Laxman was dropped due to poiltics. I am aware of Mohinders career in detail and all that went behind the scenes in his case we played a lot of cricket together since our college and university days.

I compared them since both Mohinder and Laxman got dropped much more quickly than the "stars" of the day would for similar performances.

I know people talk of Mohinder reverentially today but there were a whole lot of people in the game and among the followers (almost everyone outside the North Zone) who felt he was not good enough and repeatedly cricised him. If you want I can go into as much details of the history of that as you can stand. Lets not fool ourselves into believing that Mohinder was treated the way he is treated today, in his playing days.

According to Raj Singh Dungarpur, and I heard this from his own mouth at a get together , the fellow cant bat for nuts and has no guts to face fast bowlers like his brother Surinder.

There have been similar talk about Laxman and his footwork and his shot selection and his temprament. While footwork doesnt deem to matter for Sehwag, Sachin's shot selection(I hope you saw the way he chased a wide delivery from Afridi the other day to be caught behind) and the temrament of Ganguly.

The point I am making is not that Laxman is a great player. I have never said so. But to call for him to be replaced by Kaif and Yuvraj on such specious grounds is ridiculous.

As for me not liking Laxman, well you dont know that and it shouldn't really matter. I personally think his game is not suited for ODIs, but for Tests he is perfect batsman and I would not drop him for players like Kaif/Yuvraj. At times he is annoying because he often gets out to stupid shots. He is immensly talented but lacks descipline of a top performer. Talent without descipline isn't worth much, Remember Vinod Kambli, Sivarama Krishnan, Sadgopalan Ramesh etc...

I have written before about Laxman being in a net practice mode and to that extent I will agree. Its not lack of discipline. It is something to do with his game (partly) since he finds stroke making so damn easy even off the best of deliveries and partly to do with his temprament. He doesnt seem to realise that there is a test match at stake - or so it seems. I agree he could do with more circumspection and this would lead him to greater heights-and then again it may not, we wont know until he tries that. Tendulkar changed his approach and he hasnt satisfied everyone, has he. But I agree he could be a bit less spontaneous in his strokeplay.

But to compare his discipline with that of Kambli and Ramesh is ridiculous.

 

[SJS]

If I remember correctly, I remember seeing a figure that Tendulkar scored at 57/100 balls.

Yes it must be in that rangen but I couldnt find a figure.

 

[SJS]

Since the series in Australia, India has played 4 series and playing 5th one, his avgs are 31.00, 17.57, 23.50, 20.50, 27.33* .

Yes. He is in the middle of a terrible run and if he had been dropped in favour of Kaif, it wouldnt have evoked much surprise let alone protest. But how does that mean he is over rated ??

Remember Sachin's horrendous run. There were those who said he should be dropped. Some agreed some disagreed. But would it have been fair to say that Sachin is over rated ?

Laxman is rated on account of his record and it is not 1 innings.

- He is rated highly because he has played lots of very fine innings and is rated as a great stroke player. Which he is.
- He is rated highly because he is capable of, on his day, to demolish any attack in the world. Which he is.
- He is rated highly ecause he is said to have played the greatest innings ever played by an Indian in test cricket and two of the greatest innings played by an Indian against Australia, which he has.

So while I agree he is in the middle of a bad run, I refuse to accept that he is over rated because of this or that a bad run can undo the entire career of a cricketer.

PS. By the way, Does anyone know on the basis of how many innings, Stan McCabe was rated by Don Bradman as one of the greatest batsmen he ever saw ?

 

[C_C]

I feel that Laxman is a bit overrated....because unlike others, i dont rate people ONLY on strokeplay or a few innings here and there...i rate em based on overall performances....It is worth noting that despite Tendy's horrendous patch, his average hasnt dipped below 55 for years... Lara at the very lowest of low of his horrendous patch averaged 48 or so....
Whereas laxman is sitting at a pretty mediocre 41-42... i think relative to his accomplishments, he is a bit overrated.

 

[SJS]

How do we decide a player is over rated ??

Is it based on fans praising him more than he deserves ? Is that true for Laxman ?
Is it the press writing more positive articles than he deserves ? Is that true for Laxman ?
Is it the selectors giving him more opportunities than he deserves ?

I think the last is the best and more easily verifiable criteria.
So how have selectors treated Laxman ?

Since his debut he has played 63 tests and averaged 42.6. In this period India has played 88 test matches. So Laxman has missed thirty percent of matches played by india.

Should he have played more or less ?

During this period the Indian batsmen in contention today have fared like this.

Player........Innings........Runs.......Average
Sachin...........134..............7156.......59.6
Dravid.............145.............7431.......58.5
Sehwag...........54..............2840.......53.5
Laxman...........63..............3877.......42.6
Ganguly.........126..............4544.......39.3
Yuvraj...............10...............302.......37.5
Kaif..................13...............294........24.5

Does it look like he has had more chances than his performance justifies ? No, not to me.
This includes his entire career. If only the period since he refused to open is taken he averages 49.9 and the gap between him and Ganguly is over 13 runs per innings !!

Is he in a bad patch. Yes.
Should he be dropped for the next test? Yes if we want to play five bowlers. Touch and go if we want to drop him to include Kaif.

 

[C_C]

I think the last is the best and more easily verifiable criteria.

easiest to verify no doubt but the most misleading....for selecting a person has a lot more to do than just rating the person..... it has to do with the RELATIVE bench strength , injuries, etc etc.

I guessif someone started singing huge praise of Habibul Bashar and the entire media was frentic writing about the virtues of the magnificient habibul, they wouldnt be overrating him, since BD will pick him till that guy turns 45 probably...

 

[Sanz]

I compared them since both Mohinder and Laxman got dropped much more quickly than the "stars" of the day would for similar performances.

It is not a valid comparison, because mohinder's exclusion were not related to his performance of the cricket field whereas Laxman's exclusion has mostly been due to his performance on the field and due to the no-vaccancy in the middle order. Since 2000-2001 series, I dont remember Laxman being dropped for any series. He may have been rested but dropped, I dont remember. Laxman cant be compared to Stars like Tendulkar, Dravid or Kumble in the Indian team, not yet at least.

I didn't have the pleasure of watching Mohinder in his early years but but I do remember people telling me that he was not a good player of pace bowling and I dont see anything wrong if Mr. Dungarpur said that about him. I have never said that Mohinder was treated fairly, actually Laxman doesn't even come close to what Mohinder went through. I dont know what people outside the northern India felt about Mohinder, bbecause I myself lived in northern & eastern part of the country most of the time and hardly heard anyone(fan) wanted Mohinder out of the team. This ofcourse is post 83 era.

Laxman hasn't dont enough to be compared to Sachin, he just doesn't deserve that Luxury. No body says anything about Sehwag's footwork because he is scoring runs (footwork or no footwork) his average in last 5 of series are 58.00, 109.50, 42.71, 87.33, 11.50 and 76.25*, now with that kind of avg why would anyone question Sehwag ? Ganguly is the captain, and I dont know about you but everyone is talking about him in my circle and they think he has lost it.

Whatever you call it, discipline, temperament, footwork etc..there is something lacking in laxman which prevents him from being good to great. And if he doesn't make amends to that, he will always be under fire from fans, media, ex-cricketers. Why would anyone want a player in his test team who can differentiate between nets and a TEST match ? And for how long ?? He is good , damn good but throws his wicket more often than anyone I have seen.

 

[honestbharani]

I feel that Laxman is a bit overrated....because unlike others, i dont rate people ONLY on strokeplay or a few innings here and there...i rate em based on overall performances....It is worth noting that despite Tendy's horrendous patch, his average hasnt dipped below 55 for years... Lara at the very lowest of low of his horrendous patch averaged 48 or so....
Whereas laxman is sitting at a pretty mediocre 41-42... i think relative to his accomplishments, he is a bit overrated.

you gotta take in account the years he spent as an opener where he was clearly uncomfortable. I don't think Tendy or Lara had that problem.... As a middle order batter, he averages 48+ and this is a low point for him currently. Not much worse than Lara in that regard, I guess.


But, more seriously, I think he is a very good test player and that he is still better than the contenders waiting at the doors and therefore, deserves to be in the side at the moment. And you will probably see that almost all of the Indian players get over rated at some time or the other during their careers. That is how Indian Cricket is. But, currently, I don't think he is over rated at all.

 

[Sanz]

Is it based on fans praising him more than he deserves ? Is that true for Laxman ?
Is it the press writing more positive articles than he deserves ? Is that true for Laxman ?
Is it the selectors giving him more opportunities than he deserves ?

I think the last is the best and more easily verifiable criteria.
So how have selectors treated Laxman ?

Since his debut he has played 63 tests and averaged 42.6. In this period India has played 88 test matches. So Laxman has missed thirty percent of matches played by india.

Should he have played more or less ?

During this period the Indian batsmen in contention today have fared like this.

Player........Innings........Runs.......Average
Sachin...........134..............7156.......59.6
Dravid.............145.............7431.......58.5
Sehwag...........54..............2840.......53.5
Laxman...........63..............3877.......42.6
Ganguly.........126..............4544.......39.3
Yuvraj...............10...............302.......37.5
Kaif..................13...............294........24.5

Does it look like he has had more chances than his performance justifies ? No, not to me.
This includes his entire career. If only the period since he refused to open is taken he averages 49.9 and the gap between him and Ganguly is over 13 runs per innings !!

Is he in a bad patch. Yes.
Should he be dropped for the next test? Yes if we want to play five bowlers. Touch and go if we want to drop him to include Kaif.

Once again, Ridiculous stats. It proves nothing.How can you say for sure that Laxman deserved more chances ?? There were Azhar (avg 45+), Ganguly (avg 45+), Sachin (55+) Dravid (51+) so who do you think should have been dropped to accomodate Laxman and his 20 something average ?

Laxman has had more chances than any other player in India has in last 10 years, Infact using your stats a case for kaif's low average as well. He probably is going through the same thing Laxman went in the early part of his career.

 

[chekmeout]

I am not suggesting Laxman be dropped for good but he should DEFINITELY be dropped for a game or two as it will give him a jolt and probably wake him up...
Like when he was dropped from the 2003 World Cup Team he came back with a bang..
For that purpose he should be dropped for a couple of games plus it will create competition which is always good from the teams point of view...