And he toils alone...

Faisal Shariff in Madras

At the M A Chidambaram, the spotlight shone bright -- and the rising stars revelled under it.

The Hemang Badanis, the Dinesh Mongias, the Harbajan Singhs and Balaji Raos and their ilk, aware that the eyes of the selectors were on them, put their skills on display, glorying in the attention and the applause.

Meanwhile, a few kilometers away in terms of actual distance, but many light years away in another, metaphysical, sense, a young man toiled alone.

In front of him stood a single stump. At his feet, rested a bucket filled with cricket balls. He picked one, he rubbed it against his trouser front, he paused a moment to focus, he ran in, and he bowled.

And then he picked up another ball, and he rubbed it against his trouser front, he paused a moment to focus, and he ran in...

Again, and again, till the bucket stood empty. And then he picked up the bucket and trudged the length of the pitch, picking up all the balls he had bowled, filling the bucket again, then going back to the other end to start the process all over again.

For four hours every morning, he has been doing this. And then returning in the evening, for another four-hour stint. He is relentless. Tireless. And completely, utterly, alone.

He is Thiruvanakarasu Kumaran. Remember?

The dark, unassuming lad first captured our attention when he picked up 48 wickets in a domestic season. Dennis Lillee, after watching him go through his paces at the MRF Pace Academy, picked him along with Zahir Khan to go to Australia, and play for Rod Marsh's Australian Cricket Academy XI. A call up for India's tour Down Under was natural, it was expected, and he got it.

In the tour game building up to the first Test, he was the most successful bowler, taking five wickets (as it turned out, the only five-wicket haul by an Indian bowler on that ill-fated tour). Coach Kapil Dev told him to keep himself mentally prepared to play in the Test.

He didn't. In fact, he hasn't played a single Test. His CV boasts eight ODIs. And once he was pummelled by Yousuf Youhanna in the Asia Cup last year, Kumaran was consigned to ignominy. To oblivion.

"He doesn't have true class, he is not cut out for the international scene," a senior member of the Indian squad commented, dismissively. "He is at best a stock bowler."

The opinion is voiced by one player, but shared by many others. And endorsed by the selectors. And thus, yet another career is consigned to oblivion. Without a thought spared for the man himself, for his feelings, his emotions, his aspirations, his deep hurt.

This is about Kumaran. But at another level, it is about all those Indian players who have been picked on a whim, and discarded without ado. Never, ever, is there an attempt to interact with the discarded player. Never, ever, is he told what is wrong and more importantly, what he can do to make it right. Never, ever, does the board, the selectors, or even the senior players attempt to spare the time, the trouble, to help the player become better.

He is chucked aside, as you would throw out yesterday's garbage. It can break you, this kind of treatment. It can collect your ambitions into one large pile, and set a match to it. It can leave you with nothing to dream about, nothing to aspire for, nothing to work towards. It can leave you with no tomorrows.

Which is why I think Kumaran is no ordinary man. He was discarded -- but he was not broken. Rather, he decided to prove his detractors wrong. And so, every morning, he goes to the MRF Pace Academy and bowls at a single stump -- concentrating on every ball, practising, perfecting, with the single-minded dedication of a monk.

The academy is not in session, so the place is deserted, he is all alone. But keeping him company is his burning desire to prove his point. Not, mind you, to his detractors -- Kumaran says that he only has to prove a point to himself.

"It is very hard to live with a dream, to work towards making that dream come true, and then to be told that I do not deserve to have that dream, that I have no right to dream," Kumaran says. "I want to prove to myself that I have it, that I have the class. And to do that, I will do whatever it takes."

The M A Chidambaram Stadium, where the Indian probables are going through their training, and playing the Challengers, is his home ground -- but he hasn't set foot inside those premises since the Indian team landed there. He prefers to plough a lonely furrow.

When he is not bowling at that single stump, he reads. And listens to music. And dreams of the day he will validate himself, where he will walk out onto an international arena in the company of those who dismiss him today.

"Dennis Lillee was here recently, he helped me with my action a bit," Kumaran says. "Now, my dream is to get back into that team, to get back into that dressing room. Things didn't go my way the first time I was picked, but that is no reason to give up. If there is a problem, then I have to figure out how to solve it, and do what it takes."

Kumaran says he knows his time will come. When you dig down to bedrock, it is all, finally, about self-belief. Anil Kumble made the point best when, the other day, he told me, "There are more talented bowlers than me in the current list of probables -- but I am better than them because I believe in myself, I believe I am the best."

I wandered up to T A Shekhar, the selector representing South Zone, to find out what the deal was with Kumaran -- after all, both hail from Tamil Nadu, and Kumaran is an MRF Academy alumni, while Shekhar is head coach. "Kumaran had his chance and he let it slip," says Shekhar. "And after the Australian tour, his performance dipped sharply, he has slipped badly."

Shekhar admits that simple arithmetic -- "You can only accommodate fourteen players in a team, right?" -- but adds cautiously that perhaps the youngster didn't really get the chances he deserved, on that Australian tour.

"We thought he wasn't quite cut out for the highest level," says Shekhar. And then he adds: "But he has been trying hard to prove us wrong."

We -- Shekhar and I -- sit in the pavilion of the M A Chidambaram Stadium, discussing Kumaran's all too brief international career. Meanwhile, a few miles away, a lonely, driven young man picks up a ball from the bucket at his feet, he rubs it against his trouser front, he pauses a moment to focus on what he wants to do, and then he runs in and he bowls....

Illustrations: Uttam Ghosh