Greatness comes cheap
One just witnessed the words, Greatness and Dilshan, come together, in some other article on this website, during the just concluded SL / New Zealand ODI series and one decided to take the bull by its horns. TM Dilshan may be a good entertaining player. He may be the origin of the scoop. BUT he is NOT 'great' by any stretch of imagination.
When India visited the Kiwis in early 2009, Jesse Ryder was termed as a 'genius'. One, who could rule the cricketing world. He was declared as one of the most talented guys going around on the circuit. Currently, he is mostly famous for his drunken ways. And his average of 15. The pressure on the media to create a buzz and hype around any success story is immense.
One of the most devalued terms in the sports world today is either 'genius' or 'one of the best ever'. Easy to use, easier to discard.
Take Dilshan. All he has done in his life is flashing. On flat Sri Lankan pitches, that too!! A lot of people have done it on the England Cricket grounds and caught a few raised eyebrows and a few raunchy claps. A few have tried at Wimbeldon as well to be flooded with the the popular green towels. One poor soul tried to do it in Australia, where he met up with a ramapaging Andrew Symonds.The inherent weakness in flashing is that it's supposed to last for a very short time.
Many words have been wasted in comparing him to Sehwag. To reach that pantheon, he has to score a few more runs against better opposition on more difficult pitches. Till then, one would rather want to place him alongside a K Srikanth more than a Sehwag. Actually K Srikanth can himself be called the pioneer of 'carefree' cricket. Even this comparison can be made with Cheeka, only if one was feeling really generous.
A flash in the pan, Dilshan maybe. One can't say too many things against him today, because he is going through a purple patch and anyone attempting to doubt his 'greatness' will be laughed away as an ignoramus.
Human psychology tends to always go with the trend. Especially in one's business where trend is always one's friend. It's easy because the majority is siding with you when you follow a trend. But big money is made only by standing against the trend. At the right time though.
So why is Dilshan being hailed as a GREAT or one on the verge of achieving greatness? Inflation may be one answer. A million Dollars today fetch you far less than what a million would fetch you 10 years back. One can't think of any other rationale.
He scored a scintillating century against New Zealand in the latest Test series and he was instantly compared to Sehwag, it seems. On the fast bouncy/swinging Sri Lankan tracks that too. And then he has got an average of 54+ in the last 12 ODIs he has played in the last 12 months. He has scored 3 hundreds in 164 ODIs played till date. In 57 Test matches, he has scored 9 centuries at an average of 43.03. Three out of them coming against Bangladesh, out of 9 matches played against them, at an average of 77.10.
The only point tried to be made here being, 'Great' is a cheap word. Even a Mark Greatbatch ruled over the cricket field for a few months. Lance Klusener was the ultimate killer machine on a Cricket ground for a year or two. One never hears of them as being geniuses any more. Even Jayasuriya used to score freely in test matches as an opener. So an aggressive opener is not really a novelty in Test cricket any more. And to even match Hayden/ Sehwag/Jayasuriya, Dilshan has a long way to go.
We shall see if Dilshan comes even close to the 'Greatness' tag. My money will be against it.