The Underrated Conquerors !!!

What is common between VVS Laxman and Gautam Gambhir??? They have always stood in need and have played the most crucial knocks which have earned the status of "Greatness" to this present Indian Cricket Team. Be it Tests, ODIs and T20s, they have always performed when it was most needed by the Team. Ofcourse VVS Laxman plays only in test matches and Gambhir in all three formats, but both have been the underrated conquerors of the star flooded Indian Cricket team. It is beyond any doubt that Sachin, Kumble, Dravid, Ganguly, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Harbhajan and Zaheer Khan too have been the pillars of Indian Cricket and the muh overrated Man of the Match award is not the criteria of judging the worth of the contribution.

I am not writing this post based on statistics. But i am writing this post based on my memories and recoolections of those moments of glory. I do not believe that I need to remind you all about the crucial innings played by the elegant 36 years old VVS Laxman. I do not need to mention that how he has single handedly challenged the domination of Australia which has been the most powerful nation in terms of cricket. And his innings have not been crucial only in terms of wiining a match, but also in terms of saving a match.  A luxury that you have only in test cricket. I still wonder why he was dropped from the ODIs as he was required more than the then powerful and loaded names of Ganguly and Dravid.

Let us now come to Gautam Ganbhir and discuss only two match wiining knocks. Can you recall T20 World Cup final when the Indian batting collapsed and he stood tall and tamed Pakistan with his brilliant knock of 75 runs. And then in this world cup when everyone had lost hope after Malinga removed Sachin and Sehwag at the very beginning. No doubt Dhoni is brilliant and there is no match for his humility and pressure handling tactics but more that Dhoni, in my views it was Gambhir. Gambhir on both the occasions laid down the foundation of our World Cup glories. Both of them derserve  much more than what than what they have been labelled today as. This post is dedicated to both of you as an acknowledgement of your greatness which is not at all smaller than the best ones.