Date-stamped : 19 Jun96 - 22:16 20 June 1996 Azharuddin ready to resume love affair with Lord`s MOHAMMAD Azharuddin is a very, very good cricketer. Not a great one - his batting is too frivolous for that, too full of inaccuracies - but one who can be cherished and who will be remembered for his dignity in the rougher modern game and for his exciting, attractive play in the most attractive of all games. When Azharuddin first played Test cricket, a hopelessly modest 21-year-old against David Gower`s English tourists of 1984, he made three hundreds in consecutive matches. No one had done that before or has done it since. His batting was mesmerising, all wrist and eye, all dare and dash. It can still be but he is older now, is scarred by public life and is beginning to understand its dirtier tricks. His cricket, though no less keen, is more likely to be exposed. He is exposed at present all right in such a way as to make one fear for a good man who has a job, the captaincy of mighty India, which may have grown beyond him. They whisper that his neck is in the noose and that the prodigy, Sachin Tendulkar, is able and in waiting. Perhaps only his team can save him now and those who are close to his head and to his heart who must lift his weary manner and recall his easy smile. Azharuddin will tell you it is all baloney, says he is fine but short of runs and that his team have not played well, which happens. They might, he says, play well today and that will be the end of this scurrilous chat. It is appropriate that Lord`s should be the setting for Azhar`s riposte. He played his most breathtaking innings on his favourite ground in 1990 after he had sent England in to bat and watched Graham Gooch make his monumental 333 and Gooch`s team make 653 for four. India blazed their guns and blazer-in-chief was Azharuddin, who scored 121 breathtaking runs and then left the great stage to his second-in-command, Kapil Dev, who hit Eddie Hemmings for four consecutive arrow-straight sixes to avoid the follow-on. The Indians like Lord`s, the very same Kapil was in charge when they won the World Cup seven years earlier, beat- ing the unbeatables, Clive Lloyd`s West Indies, at the home of the game. India`s world fell apart after the embarrassing defeat by Sri Lanka in the World Cup semi-final On that last tour to England, Azharuddin had plenty of batting on which to hang his hat but no bowling with which to hang England. This time it is the opposite. "If you don`t make enough runs in Test cricket you cannot win the game," he says in his gen- tle, apologetic way. "We have some young boys who are over-cautious. It would be better if they relaxed to play their own way. Apparently I am under pressure but I do not feel it and do not want us to talk negatively, especially at this moment. We must look forward to our matches and stay in the right, positive frame of mind. I am hitting the ball well enough myself, perhaps Lord`s will change things for us and for me." No pressure, no kidding. India`s world fell apart after the em- barrassing defeat by Sri Lanka in the World Cup semi-final when Azharuddin chose to bowl first on a pitch which would clear- ly spin. Since that calamitous day in Calcutta in March, India have barely played decently. Moreover, Azharuddin has been ridiculed for abandoning his family for an affair with an ac- tress and recently heard of his effigy being burnt in the Punjab because Navjot Singh Sidhu didn`t think much of team selection, so packed his bat and pads in his pram and got on the first plane home. "No, no pressure. Sidhu was dropped on cricketing grounds as was Sanjay Manjrekar but he is still here. You can`t just walk out if you don`t agree with the team, you must fight it out. The management was shocked, we did all we could to keep him here. He said I was against him and humiliated him - do I look like a man who would do that sort of thing? "Obviously people are talking behind my back about my girlfriend. I expected it but it is not true that I am living with her in Bombay. I am still in Hyderabad though not at home. It is magnified because I haven`t played well so my critics search for reasons. If I was making many runs I could come home at four each morning with whomever I chose and no one would notice. It is an old story. His most triumphant time as captain of India was against Eng- land at home in 1993 "No, I am not worried about the captaincy. I want to do well and am doing the job to the best of my ability. If I lose it then so be it. Yes, I believe Sachin is ready. Yes, he and I are very good friends and nothing has come between us." How good is Sachin by the way? "The best now, better than Lara on all types of pitches. Alongside Viv Richards and Greg Chappell, who are the best batsmen I have seen." They say Sachin is ruthless and you are too kind. "It is not in my nature to be ruthless. I don`t show myself to the public, I don`t believe they have to see that much of me. Being aggressive or being in control does not have to mean showing emotion in your face or throwing your arms around to at- tract attention to yourself. I`ve been through this before and will come through it again. Of course I`m tough. How could I have played for so long at this level without being tough?" Azharuddin remembers being nervous in Calcutta before his first Test match 12 years ago but not for long because Sunil Gavaskar only told him he was playing 10 minutes before the start. If it was left late on purpose, it was a master stroke, he reckons. His most triumphant time as captain of India was against Eng- land, his favourite opponents and against whom he averages 65, at home in 1993 when he got his own back on Gooch and won all three Test matches. His 182 in the first Test in Calcutta set up the series from India`s point of view. When you watch him today, all lean and lithe and ever so slightly bowed, you will see an honest and kind man with an envi- able gift. He is an entertainer who has no place in politics and no time for cynics. He has made his mistakes and they are part of his charm. One cannot help but think it would be better for him if soon he was not the boss. Source :: Electronic Telegraph (http.//www.telegraph.co.uk) Contributed by Shash (shs2@*.cwru.edu)