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October 16, 1997
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'It has not been easy for Sachin...'
The Cricket Interview/Robin Singh
Sometimes, you wonder just how good Ravindra Ramnarayan 'Robin' Singh is at cussing.
He must be pretty good, you tell yourself -- for if ever anyone had a reason to cuss, and fluently at that, it's Robin. For life -- or more specifically, cricket -- has handed him the mother of all lemons. One big enough to sour a man for life.
It was in the West Indies that Robin was born and raised, and learnt the essentials of his cricket. In the West Indies that he in fact made his first class debut, aged all of 19, when he turned out for South and Central Trinidad in the 1982-'83 season.
Robin then came over to India and joined the Guru Nanak College in Madras, making an immediate impact in collegiate competition and the first division leagues with his bustling right arm medium pace, aggressive left-handed batting and electric fielding.
Robin burst on the big time in the 1987/88 domestic season, when his 555 runs (average 69.37 with four centuries) and 17 wickets (at 18.17) played a major role in Tamil Nadu's Ranji Trophy win. That performance more than any other put him in the national reckoning, and he was picked for the Indian tour of the West Indies in 1989.
Sometimes, you wonder what his feelings must have been as he set foot on the soil of his birth, aged 26, having found the cricketing pinnacle in India.
You wonder, too, what he felt after that series -- in which he got to play just once with the national team, a one day international in, ironically enough, Trinidad. And found himself, for no reason he could see or anyone could explain to him, out in the cold.
For the next seven years, he continued to play for his state with distinction, became its captain, played league cricket in Scotland during the off season here and, for all practical purposes, ceased to exist as far as the national selectors were concerned.
The 1996 Challenger Trophy series provided him a sliver of a chance -- and he grabbed it with a good all-round performance that, finally, got him back into the national squad for the Titan Cup triangular against Australia and South Africa.
Today, he is among the first names the national selectors ink in, at least for ODIs.
So what does Robin Singh think about? The wasted years? The irony of making it big just when he is approaching what, for a cricketer, is retirement-time?
Or does he think about just the next over to be bowled, the next ball to be faced?
Just what goes on in the mind of Rabindra Ramnarayan Singh? Saisuresh Sivaswamy in an exclusive interview. Excerpts:
Born in West Indies, playing for India, how did that happen?
My folks have been in the Caribbean, for the last three, four generations. In fact, I am Rajasthani by origin, came here to study in 1984. I had
no intentions of playing cricket here, it sort of happened. I
did not think of it when I came here, since there was no scope
at all, I was not a citizen.
I had to struggle in those days, everything was totally new to me. In the West Indies, people are a lot more outgoing, life is more relaxed
there, the day starts at 6 and ends at 6 and after that you do what
you want, that sort of thing. I guess here it is much more competitive,
there are many more people, all looking for better opportunities. It is not like there aren't too many people in the Windies -- just that the competition is not as intense as it is here. In India, people are always trying to better themselves. There, they just get on with living. Some, like me, go abroad to study and sometimes, they never come back.
Do you miss the Windies as home, or is India home for you?
Yeah well, this is home for me. Right now I treat Madras as
home, I don't think of the West Indies as home. Yes, it is the home where
you were born, but I have been living here for 12 years. I don't
think I really miss anybody much there, most of my friends are
not there anymore. Actually, I have picked up a lot of the local customs here, but I don't speak Tamil much.
How does it feel, with your origins, to be playing for India -- with all the uncertainities, off field and on, that it implies?
You can't think of the uncertainties. I mean, you gonna
think I am going to be dropped or like that, think negatively,
then you can't play well. You have to think positive every time
you go out there, think I am going to do better than what I did
yesterday. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work.
As you
know, one-day cricket is all about situations. Sometimes you get
25 overs to bat, sometimes you get 5, but those five overs may
be more important than 25 overs in context of that game. In five overs you got to win a
game. So it really depends, you know, on the situation. As I said,
you gotta be really positive, you cannot think of negative things,
no point.
But you did get a raw deal, dropped like a hot brick..
That's totally different, I am not bothered about all that
now, that's gone. I am not even thinking of the past. Playing
today, playing well, giving it all I have -- that's what I am into.
'On flat tracks, there's not much the bowler can do...'
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