NEIL HARVEY ON THE WAUGH BROTHERS AND TENDULKAR

NEIL HARVEY ON THE WAUGH BROTHERS AND TENDULKAR

In 2002, Harvey called for Mark and Steve Waugh to be dropped from the Australian team, claiming that they were a waste of space. He stated:

"Money is the only thing that keeps them playing...If they earned the same money as I did when I was playing they'd have retired at 34 as I did, and Australian cricket would be the better for it." [Source: Wikipedia]

[Addenda by Sugata Bose:

Harvey's observation was most pertinent as this is the modern-day reality of professional cricketers, their undue greed for money, their clinging to their caps even when past their prime and, so, denying the next generation of players from stepping into their shoes and building the future prospects of the national team.

We have had in our midst one such prime example of an illustrious performer who would not relinquish his spot in the team to a future player for the sake of crawling to his landmark of a century of centuries. In 1999 when the Australian press was making a huge fanfare of this batsman, comparing him with Sir Donald Bradman, Harvey came down heavy on them and rubbished such a comparison. He had said that Tendulkar, unlike Bradman, seemed never quite set even when he was on 80 runs, making rash strokes and getting out which was unbecoming of a set batsman and certainly not indicative of such supreme greatness as to be compared with the Don. Don, once set, would invariably move on to making a big hundred which Tendulkar could never be relied upon to do. Moreover, Harvey went on, Bradman, if he played with the modern inordinately broad and heavy bats that were available and with the protective gear that batsmen wore, would have averaged 200 runs per innings instead of the 100 that he did. Neil Harvey thus dismissed the undue comparison of Tendulkar with Bradman on solid grounds of reason and put the matter forever to rest, stating that Bradman was but a unique phenomenon in cricket, nonpareil and unapproached thus far by any.

However in 2004 when Tendulkar revisited Australia and scored an unbeaten double hundred at Sydney, Harvey was effusive in his appreciation of the Indian batting maestro but, for sure, never compared him with Bradman as other journalists and cricket writers were so often wont to doing. To Harvey that would have been sacrilege as the Don remained in his eyes unapproached by any in batting excellence, the boy from Bowral forever remaining Harvey's idol as the god of batsmanship. Indeed, Neil Harvey idolised Bradman as none else did. But his estimation of his hero was not based on blind adulation but on actual experience of having played with him on that 1948 Ashes tour of the Invincible Aussies when he had the rare privilege of witnessing at close quarters the functioning of this batting genius.

Photo: Neil Harvey, considered by many ex-players as the best post-war Australian batsman after Bradman. He was later national selector from 1967-79 and Chairman of Selection Committee from 1971-79.]