He may very well sing this song if he poses for Amul advertisements. Yes, I am speaking about Ramanarayan Robindra Singh a player more sinned against.
A group of people were always against him right from the day he was selected for the tour of West Indies. Somebody commented that he is not even fit to play for Trinidad where he was born. It is now well known that Indian officials and the Indian sports journalists generally think and write on the basis of zonal considerations. Soon he was out of favour with the powers that count in Indian cricket. Though that was the period in which he was scoring consecutive double centuries in domestic cricket and was an electric spring in fielding.
His second tryst came through a stroke of luck. He was in the reserves; a player in the playing eleven W V Raman, if I remember correctly fell ill on the morning of the one-day match. Robin Singh was selected in his place and made an impressive comeback with both the bat and the ball. Since that day he never looked back and continued to play in one-day cricket for India till one fine morning he found himself unceremoniously dropped for no reason whatsoever along with Azharuddin and Jadeja, who were dropped for non-cricketing reasons.
In the tour of South Africa and Zimbabwe, he was instrumental in India ending up in a thrilling tie against Zimbabwe scoring at the rate of ten runs per over in the last ten overs. A commentator said, Among all the matches I played and the matches I have seen, there was never such a pulse-beating match.
One more match one can never forget is the final against Pakistan in the Asia Cup. Robin Singh was sent at No 3 by his captain Azharuddin. Along with Sauruv Ganguly, he built up the innings methodically and accelerated at the right moment. That was the last occasion when India scored more than 300 runs to win a match before the recent final against England. However, Robin Singh, as usual, remained an unsung hero of the match. Ganguly was the man of the match and Kanitkar was hailed for scoring a boundary as the winning shot.
He also had a few five-wicket hauls, mostly against Sri Lanka. He was always a very useful fifth bowler. His fielding is exemplary and even at this age, he can teach a lesson or two to our newcomers.
He also had the pathetic experience of scoring a century and taking a few wickets in a match against Sri Lanka and then watching in dismay the match being declared as unofficial. Then came the World Cup in England. He proved his worth both through the bat and the ball. He had a five-wicket haul against Sri Lanka. Again when the top three batsmen fell like a pack of cards against the eventual winner Australia, he made a Herculean effort to remedy the situation with a knock of 75 odd runs but failed because the target was too big.
Statistics conceal more than what they reveal. This is more so in the case of Robin Singh. Coming at No 6, he was never allowed to settle down and was expected to score at a brisk rate right from the word go. Often he has to do so with the tail-enders as his partners. But like a disciplined soldier, he has never bothered about the batting or bowling averages, fifties or hundreds, but played with a purpose of only winning the match in hand. While running between the wickets, players half his age have found him too fast.
His desire to play at No 3 or to play in tests has not been considered favourably either by his captains or by his selectors.
Our selectors memories are very short. Robin Singh was among the top ten in the Ceat ratings during the World Cup. He has not shown any loss of form since then. Still he finds himself not worthy enough to be considered in the sixteen for the next World Cup.
Countries around the globe recall retired players to play for the country. Age has not been the criteria for them. Bob Simpson, Brian Close and Carl Hooper are standing examples. But in India we find a dedicated, performing all-rounder being ignored solely on account of his age. Encouraging youngsters is quite laudable, but packing an entire team with newcomers is not definitely an ideal policy for a team aspiring to win the next World Cup.
With Srinath out of the reckoning, Kumble and Laxman also being in and out of the Indian team, it seems that having experience is a negative criteria for being selected. Perhaps it has something to do with the graded payment system.
Hope wisdom will prevail and the selectors will adopt horses for courses policy for the next World Cup and select players in form, irrespective of whether they are young or old.
However, I am pessimistic about it and in all probabilities Robin Singh may find himself as a coach rather than as a player. Though he may find his name in the Wisdens Dram XI with a glorious note on his performance, he still may not find favour with our selectors.
This write-up is only a thanksgiving note by an ordinary sports-lover to this great player who worked wonders for India with his limited talents.
By the time this article was finished some more developments took place due to the tussle between BCCI and the players regarding logos to be worn in Champions Trophy. Robin Singh was tipped to lead the Indian team (an alternate XI) for the tournament. However, after al last minute compromise, the originally team played in Sri Lanka, and we had the misfortune of seeing Robin Singh as a commentator.
Our selectors have done this earlier too. During the Kerry Packers revolt, they used S Venkataraghavan to lead the Indian team and then after the crisis was over unceremoniously dropped him. The news was conveyed to him in the most despicable manner in the mid-air. The airhostess of the plane carrying the players congratulated Sunil Gavaskar sitting next to Venkat for being selected as captain for the next series.
It is really sad that dedicated players like Venkat and Robin Singh are used like curry leaves, ie to be used and thrown away, by our great honourable selectors.
Hats off to:
Vishwanathan Anand for his hat-trick of victories when he defeated World Champion Russian Pono Marinov.
HUMPY, for becoming the worlds youngest woman to grab the mens Grandmaster title.
All those sportsmen and women who enabled India to finish fourth behind Australia, England and Canada at the Commonwealth Games (30 golds, 21 silvers, and 19 bronzes).
Samarjit Singh, for becoming the fist non-Sri Lankan to win the Sri Lankan Open Amateur Golf Championship thrice in succession.
Indias Mahesh Bhupathi and Max Mirnye of Belarus for winning the US Open Tennis mens doubles title.
Ace swimmer Bula Chowdhry, for becoming the first Asian woman to cross the Catalina Channel in the US.
Boxer Shahuraj Birajdar, of the Bombay Engineer Group, Khadki, for being selected for the Gyanchand Award for lifetime achievement in Sports and Games 2002.