Battle Of Unequals

The whole sporting fraternity was so caught up by the race to host the 2012Olympic Games that many seem to have missed reading a cute little story aboutSri Lanka off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan lamenting the absence of Brian Larafrom the West Indies squad now touring the Indian Ocean island.

Lara has been in wonderful form, making four scintillating centuries in fivehome Tests earlier this year. He made more than 600 runs in the last Test seriesin Sri Lanka and will surely be missed by the West Indies team, fans in SriLanka and elsewhere - and by the home side as well, not the least beingMuralitharan and captain Marvan Atapattu.

"We were looking forward to the challenge this time but it is a bitdisappointing now that he is not here," Atapattu has said. "I wouldlike to think when I finished my career that I had played with the best teams.So obviously with Lara, (Ramnaresh) Sarwan and (Chris) Gayle not being here, Iwill be thinking that I didn't play the best side that I've heard of."

Indeed, it is a shame that the West Indies Cricket Board and the West IndiesCricket Players Association did not find a meeting ground over the tourcontracts, resulting in skipper Shivnarine Chanderpaul being given a team thatfew outside the Caribbean will recognise. As many as seven players were roped infrom the West Indies A squad to join Chanderpaul's team in the two Test-series.

To say that this side is the weakest to have flown out of the West Indies isto state the obvious. Till now, that dubious honour was with AlvinKallicharran's team that visited India in 1978-79 in the wake of the big gunsbeing kept out due to their involvement in World Series Cricket.

The most optimistic fans of West Indies cricket will be tempted to see thisas an opportunity for the youngsters to entrench themselves in the West Indiesside. Of course, Malcolm Marshall, Larry Gomes, Foud Bacchus and SylvesterClarke were some who served West Indies for a long time after that tour butthose were days when West Indies cricket was healthier. I believe that thepresent mess could drive the West Indies deeper into the morass that it hasslipped into over the past decade.

Lest this sound only like a lament of West Indies cricket, let me focus onMuralitharan's statement that bowling to Lara was always a big challenge and hewould miss that on his comeback from injury. "Brian batted well and scoreda lot of runs against me in the last series here. When someone scores so manyruns he has got to be very good," Muralitharan has said.

It is a sign of great competitors that they want to pit their skills with thebest in the business.

Tennis legend John McEnroe drew pride in beating Bjorn Born and said hisprofessional life was never so much fun again after Borg retired, MartinaNavratilova enjoyed her victories over Chris Evert more than any other. AlainProst's F1 rivalry with Ayrton Senna and Bobby Fischer's chess duels with BorisSpassky were stuff that legends are made of.

Even if we occasionally hear cricketers say that 'runs are runs, wickets arewickets, no matter the quality of opposition' and even if we ourselves sometimesecho such sentiment, cricketers realise deep down that they must perform wellagainst top notch rivals. Such realisation comes not so much because they wantto be counted among the best but to be able to draw satisfaction that theymatched their skills against the best.

Yes, London may have won the bid to host the 2012 Games from under Paris'nose but Muralitharan and Atapattu seem to have little choice but to motivatethemselves and their team against a young bunch that may well represent the WestIndies in the time to come.