Heroics don’t always fetch rewards

Virat Kohli was no fence sitter when he admitted to being surprised at his pace bowler Shardul Thakur not getting the man of the match award in the serieswinning ODI against England on Sunday Thakur scored 30 off 21 balls with three sixes and a four before claiming four wickets in a tight finish under the Pune floodlightsThe India captain also felt Bhuvneshwar Kumar ought to have been given the man of the series honour Sam Curran who very nearly won the game for his country with his 83ball 95 claimed the award for the match while teammate Jonny Bairstow walked away with the prize for the series Award winners are picked by the television commentatorsAs for Thakur he had also put himself into contention for the man of the match award after his allround heroics seven wickets and an invaluable 67 in Indiarsquos first innings before Rishabh Pantrsquos blistering unbeaten 89 helped India to a threewicket win over Australia in Brisbane It was here in January when the BorderGavaskar Trophy became the property of the visitors yet again So Thakur shouldnrsquot be grudged if he believes he has missed out on two man of the match awardsI spoke to West Indies pace legend Andy Roberts on Tuesday night to ask him how he felt when the man of the match award went to Sarfaraz Nawaz as himself and Deryck Murray pulled victory from the jaws of defeat against Pakistan in a 1975 World Cup match at Birmingham Chasing 267 for victory the eventual World Cup champions achieved the target with one wicket to spare with Murray and Roberts staying unbeaten with 61 and 24 respectively ldquoTom Graveney the man of the match adjudicator had decided that Sarfaraz would be the man of the match and headed to the barrdquo said Roberts implying that the former England batting great of the 1950s and 1960s did not watch the West Indian revival once they were reduced to 203 for nine However the Antiguan agreed with the decision to award Curran on Sunday ldquoLook I donrsquot see anything wrong in that decision because the impact and not result matters Curran got England back in the game from nowhererdquo he stressed something that he and Murray did on June 11 1975 when Sarfaraz sent back the West Indiesrsquo top three mdash Roy Fredericks Gordon Greenidge and Alvin Kallicharran before Vanburn Holder became his fourth victimRoberts also did not agree with the choice of Viv Richards being declared man of the match in the 1979 World Cup final against England at Lordrsquos ldquoA fellow Antiguan notwithstanding the award should have gone to Collis King 86 off 66 balls and not Viv although he scored a century unbeaten 138 off 157 balls It was Collis who transformed that finalrdquo Roberts told meAlthough the choice of Richards for the 1979 World Cup final was not embarrassing Dilip Vengsarkar not getting the award for his masterly 166 on a Cuttack minefield in the third Test of the 198687 series against the Sri Lankans was stunning The Indians led by Kapil Dev earned an innings victory and the man of the match award was presented to the skipper for his innings of 60 and five wickets in the match ldquoVengsarkar played in an exemplary manner to make 166 The sevenhour vigil by Vengsarkar helped India make 400 Vengsarkar had reason to feel that he should have been the man of the matchHe was disappointed when the prize went to Indiarsquos skipper Kapil Devrdquo wrote R Mohan in Indian Cricket annual 1987 And the occasion where a threefigure score mattered for an award despite it being in a losing cause was when Manoj Prabhakarrsquos ODI hundred earned him postmatch honours against Pakistan at Jamshedpur Wonder what Javed Miandad felt about that adjudication because he stayed unbeaten on 78 to guide the visitors to a win in the final over the game which had been reduced to 44 oversasideNine years earlier in Adelaide Gundappa Viswanath was presented the man of the match award for his 89 and 73 in the fifth and final Test of the 197778 series which Australia won 32 According to Brian Bavin who reported the engrossing Test series for World Cricket Digest those two knocks were ldquogreat innings and he well deserved the honour but this game had heroes aplentyrdquo Australiarsquos skipper Bob Simpson and future captain Graham Yallop scored centuries in this memorable TestMore recently Sanjay Manjrekar revealed to sportskeedacom how Geoff Boycott the adjudicator of the man of the match award for the 1990 India v England Texaco Trophy at Leeds came to the dressing room to tell him that he played a ldquovery importantrdquo innings of 82 to help India win by six wickets but the award would go to Anil Kumble The rookie India leggie had dismissed Robin Smith and David Gower to return with figures of 112292The last ODI at Pune reminded me of the fifth India v Sri Lanka ODI which I witnessed as a spectator at the Wankhede Stadium in early 1987 Sri Lanka were chasing a massive target of 300 set by India thanks to Mohammed Azharuddinrsquos 94ball 108 not out The Lankans could have pulled off an incredible victory had opener Roshan Mahanama not been run out for 98 and Asanka Gurusinha kept up the tempo in his 34ball 52 in the 40over game They fell 10 short and I can never forget Mahanama walking back to the dressing room utterly dejected his Fred Perry shirt wet with perspiration Like Curran on Sunday he claimed the man of the match prize despite ending up on the losing side And like we felt of Mahanama then we expect Thakur to be a true asset to the Indian cricket teammiddayrsquos group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance He tweets ClaytonMurzello Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper