Untamed bravado.

Willpower:

Pronunciation:'wil-?pau?(-?)r\
Function:noun
Origin:1858

-The unwavering strength of character to carry out one's wishes.

Graeme Smith born.1st February,1981 will have gone to sleep on 2nd August,2008,perhaps with the most satisfied smile on the face of a test captain ever.No,not to permanently leave a legacy with many a void yet to fill,but with the knowledge of the fact that he will perhaps be remembered as the bravest skipper to have ever lead his nation on a cricket field.

In the process of leading his side to be the first South African team to have registered a series victory in England after 4 long decades,Smith has minted a new synonym in the dictionary right next to the word 'willpower'.That of his own name.Resolution of such irrepressible proportions was never before witnessed in test cricket and will take more than a special outing to ever surpass.Arguments may fall out of that particular assumption of abundant magnitudes,but the truth will remain.Graeme Smith has led his team in a battle not of the mind,of soul,of character,of power or of pride.He has finally been able to make peace with his own self and achieved for his team what no one else has before in their long and contentious past and has made immortal sound frugal inside 341 minutes of taking to the field with a bat,in a scenario of pressure which would have made a chowder of most batting captains in present day cricket.

Pain is associated with mortals if Smith was to be believed on the day of the triumph.To think of it,he was actually contemplating pulling out of the match for a back strain and yet stayed on the crease for more than 6 hours at a stretch and when most of his peers would have wanted to come back afresh and finish the game a day later,Smith remained glued to his resolve of finishing the task at hand by taking the extra half hour to complete the formality within 30 balls.Procrastination and Graeme Smith are two sides of a magnet.And if it was ever possible for victory to be more satisfying,the winning runs came off Kevin Pietersen.

This is not a story about the journey of a 22 year old hefty lad being the youngest man to ever lead his nation.This is not about an individual striking unremitting back to back double centuries not fully aware of the politics of international cricket in a land which refused to admit his ancestors into the realms of normal civilization.This is certainly not just about the man holding on to otherwise humane factors like hope but obstinate resolve and a imperiously stanch drive to set himself and his team apart from the world.This is about the making of a test cricketer,a leader,an extra ordinary sportsman of nerve wrecking patience and fortitude who has succeeded in not merely overcoming but superseding his demons and murdering with frightening fatality,a legend kept alive for almost half a century.

South Africa's evolution since the post apartheid era has been overwhelmingly harrowing to say the least.People have put on the skipper's cap and have worked their soul off to make a team out of 10 other men unsure of landing themselves in controversies in issues least pertaining to cricket.It is not to say that Smith is the greatest cricketer the country has ever produced.No.That would not only be unjust,it would be ridiculing the stature of greats like Shaun Pollock,Cronje or Kepler Wessels.Just like Smith,every one of them or for that matter any other captain of a team at the highest level has displayed the size of their hearts at various stages of their cricketing lives.But Graeme Smith does not set himself apart as a class batsman or just an emotional and passionate team man.

What does set him apart is his aptitude to have been able to construct a team which refuses to die down under circumstances least known to the human mind as cataclysmic.Smith has been able to make each one of his team mates deliver at some or the other stage of them being part of the team,whether it be the cool headed Amla,the ever dependable Kallis,sucking out the best possible from the hastily evaporating sting of Ntini,the bone shattering pace of Dale Steyn or the ambiguous talent of the Morkel brothers.Smith has been able to sap every ounce of the resources handed out to him and the recent victory over the Englishmen in spite of the absence of the unswerving and the defiantly consistent Steyn only reinforces that fact.His knack of excavating the best talent in the country was manifest in his decision to support the return of his opening partner Mckenzie,previously considered to be a superfluous blockage in the squad and using his comeback to aid his team time and again with double century partnerships manufactured at considerable ease.

With chapters that have haunted him and his country men for decades been finally closed and sealed for good measure,Smith's next assignment is the upcoming encounter with the Aussies in December.A month which will see many cricket lovers consuming all of their sick leaves to catch up on a duel which promises the best the world has seen in recent times.It is sure to be bigger than an Indo-Pak encounter or for that matter an India-Aussie clash or even the Ashes.The cause for intrigue is not how Smith and his team respond to what is expected of them.Because the Protea's attitude,quite simply,is going to be,play to win.

What does interest the world is how soon are the mighty Australians going to have a run for their money in the ICC rankings?If the prospect of Nadal taking over the emperor's crown this month has brought a few frowns on the faces of tennis lovers worldwide,Smith and company are only going to be applauded and cheered on to the throne if ever such a likely situation does arise.The reason for that is not awfully complex.

Success has always won friends.Failure-only enemies.And Graeme Craig Smith has never needed to make friends.They have always created themselves for him.South Africa is a team on a roll.On a roll to be the best in the world.And for the man who has taught them to dream and then achieve,it must be anything but lonely being on top of the world.

A team of 10 cricketers and one individual.

Statistics can be compelling.Statistics can be misleading.Statistics may lead one to
form biased opinions.Statistics can be agonizingly untrue.Statistics may only describe a very small part of a real character of a test cricketer.But sometimes,even statistics cannot take away from a person the approbation he might deserve.Virender Sehwag is one of such rare paradigms.

Virender Sehwag's time has come.Not just as a batsman in a team of over achieving batting geniuses,but as a person the captain could hand a bat and go to sleep peacefully on the last day of a test match,assured that at the end of the 90 overs of the day,the result would either be a match saved if need be so,or ultimately giving him a standing ovation along with every single person present at the stadium to receive him back into the dressing room,after watching him reach a triple century inside those same 90 overs.If his stoic veneer towards reaching milestones,very few other batsmen would dare to give up,fails to touch your heart;his inability to run for a single being a run short of a double hundred batting with a number 11 batsman,2 balls into an over,is sure to make you stand up and salute him.Yes.Virender Sehwag's time has come.And how.

Far from just taking over the mantle of being the backbone of the Indian batting order in Test cricket for the last many months from the ever dependable Rahul Dravid,Sehwag has come back to the top level after a prolonged slump in his form,a renewed person.A person,with a mission on his mind.A cricketer who doesn't just rashly bully the opposition bowlers into succumbing to his demands anymore.A cricketer who doesn't only entertain people with stroke-making of such extra terrestrial abilities,that it sometimes becomes difficult to digest that someone can make a bowler with more than half a thousand wickets in test cricket break down on his knees and beg for mercy. A human being who believes in his abilities to turn a match on its head,and one who could achieve it with nonchalance of inhumane proportions.

Sehwag has come to be the mainstay of the Indian batting line up in a manner in which only he can.Absolute belligerence packed with sophisticated artistry.A man who sometimes single handedly scores 3/5th of his team's score and walks away from the field completely oblivious of being only the second Indian to watch all 10 wickets fall in front of his eyes while he scores a double ton at a strike rate which would ashame Gilchrist and Jayasuriya on their best days.This is not about the 1st innings of a test match at Galle,the first day of August,2008.This is about the maturing of a cricketer from a flamboyant but effective gully cricketer into a test batsman.A title held by owners with alarming desperation.Sehwag knows when to score.When to stay.When to tighten the noose.And when to kill.And he has learnt to do it in a manner in which the opposition cannot decide whether to hail his laurels or pass out in utter disbelief.

It also seems a matter of disgrace or inopportune co-incidences that whenever Sehwag goes on to make a huge score(and that is every time he has hit a ton consecutively the last 11 times),India fail to cash in on a destroyed opposition and make the most out of it.That is probably the reason why only 2 of his 15 brilliant tons have resulted in victories.Sehwag may not be a match winner in test match cricket.But that is only because of the few terrible ironies of life.Or in this case merely a painstakingly bundled up pack of statistics.So out of some of the times that figures do snatch away magnificence,Sehwag has had to give up on his dreams of seeing his genius put to constructive purposes and see all his hard work being donated generously. Statistics-1,Sehwag-well, he has already won.

There is also the verdict on people arguing about Sehwag's penchant for throwing away wickets and playing brash,abrasive shots when things were only about to get better.If certain cases such as having scored the most number of double tons for your country in the least number of matches at sickening paces with two triple centuries also gets to be included in that argument,then Sehwag could rather well break Lara's record tomorrow and be crucified in the market square of Najafgarh for doing so.It takes more than just flamboyance to carve out the shots that Viru manages to manufacture out of his amazing "crictionary". Besides flair,such shots need amazing cricket acumen and thinking.And he has more of it than all of his mates combined when he gets going.But if his innings coincides with the other members ensuring that he doesn't run away with the match by playing poor cricket themselves,Virender Sehwag has no one to blame but life itself,which has given him more than he could have dreamt of.Such is the irony of test match cricket.

His attitude today of not going for the easily available single to reach his double ton exemplified the human being that Virender Sehwag has forced himself to become.A team man who refuses to see anything but the bigger picture.A man with grit,determination and nerves made of titanium and cased with carbon fibers.A character which cannot be explained with a pen or a keyboard for that matter.

It would be a matter of great sorrow and regret the day when Anil Kumble would have to step down as captain of the Indian test team.But it would be the entire country's loss if anyone but a man wearing the Indian tricolor on his sleeve,heart and soul is made to step into his shoes.