'India's ranking doesn't do them justice'

When Chris Cairns made his first Test appearance in India in 1995 he was more like the wind set lose.

With a curly mane flying back, he ran in hard and bent his back on unyielding tracks.

With bat in hand, he was even more maniacal, clubbing long and hard.

The tags 'rebellious' and 'troublesome' were a fine fit; so was the anticipated talent.

Ten years on, when he made another commercial appearance in Mumbai, on Wednesday, April 20, none of that legend was obvious.

The tags and the locks have been shed to suit age.

At 35, Cairns is more at peace with himself and the world. Nothing remains to be proved.

He has achieved the Test double of 3,000 runs and 200 wickets and developed a fearsome reputation -- that of one of the best all-rounders of his generation. He is happily retired from Test cricket and has announced plans to draw curtains on his  one-day career too.

The New Zealander spoke to Cricket Correspondent Deepti Patwardhan about being a jack of all trades and the injuries that defined him as much as the beefy sixes.

Is the lack of a genuine all-rounder the missing link for India?

Having an all-rounder is important from a team balance point of view. New Zealand has been lucky. Daniel Vettori's batting is coming around; Jacob Oram, Scott Styris are very good all-rounders, and even Nathan Astle is bowling some good overs. We have a good mix of players who are able to do that.

It is someone India has tried to find for a long, long time. You need some overs from your batsmen. You need someone in the top six to bowl full ten overs. Tendulkar can bowl some, Sehwag and Yuvraj can bowl some, but nobody is a genuine bowler. They need somebody who is a very good batter but can bowl good overs.

But, again, India's ranking doesn't do them justice. They are a very good team, but they are just going through a tough period.

How do you develop all-rounders?

There's the problem; all-rounders are born.

What India is trying to do is, they are trying to make all-rounders. You can't make them. They are people who have come through the grades and they bat and bowl just as well. But if you try to manufacture them when they look like they can get a few overs in, it does not work. It's got to be genuine.

But it's hard work. Because of the amount of cricket that is played you don't see as many all-rounders around. It's very hard on the body if you're bowling overs and doing well with the bat, it takes so much out of your body. So it's very difficult; it's something that is very tough in the modern game.

Pathan's come in. He looks like he could be an all-rounder. He can bat, but he needs to be given time. He is still a young man, and often if players in India show a little bit of excitement then everybody is putting them up on billboards and lifting them up before they have done anything. The accolade that's bestowed upon him is that of someone who has taken 200 Test wickets. But he's taken only 30-odd wickets.

It takes time to get experience. It is not something you can buy. You need to be given that space. Unfortunately, in India, they don't give time.

Is it tedious being a fast bowling all-rounder?

Definitely. The ideal one is being a spinning all-rounder -- someone like Andrew Symonds -- and he will be around for a long time. Andrew Flintoff's just come in and he's got an injury now, and Jacques Kallis doesn't bowl as much as he used to, and Shaun Pollock's been injured recently.

Also, if you are successful, you actually become a victim of your own success. It takes so much out of your body that you can't recover fast. If you score a hundred or you do well, you got to go straight out and bowl 30 overs. And if you are bowling well then you are given the bowl more often and then you go and bat again. So within the game you don't get any rest.

That's the main reason I had to cut my Test career short. I would've definitely liked to complete 100 Test matches. (He retired after 62 Tests).

You had a lot of injuries during your career. Did you at any point in your career think of giving up either batting or bowling so that you could play for a longer time?

No, because I get bored. See, I am a bowler at heart and it's important for me that I am always doing that. I have tried to be only a batter, but I couldn't. I felt like I am a man with one arm. Things didn't work the same. So when I am bowling I am happy.

Bowling has always been my passion and batting is my enjoyment.

Your mentality when you are playing only as a batsman is so much more serious. You have only one chance in the game. But when you are an all-rounder, if I fail in batting I can go and bowl. I don't enjoy just batting; I need to be bowling. Also, you take the confidence when you've batted well into you're bowling. So it helps both sides.

Now that you have announced you will retire after the 2007 World Cup, are you looking for quality one-day games to keep up the motivation?

It is a difficult situation, because for me to keep up to the international level I have to have good competition. 

Now that I am not playing Test cricket, I am not around international cricket so much, so it can be a bit awkward.

I need to keep healthy and keep strong, but the difficulty is making sure that my mind stays strong.

New Zealand were seen as tough competitors for Australia but were comprehensively beaten in both the Test (2-0) and ODI (5-0) series.

The Australian team is very experienced. Almost nine of their playing 11 are over 30. That is a lot of experience. And they have so many match-winners. They can beat you in all the departments. They are a complete team.

But in four, five years they would've lost probably most of their side. So they will still be on top, but they'll come back to the rest of us. Right now they are up there and the others are too far down.

In time they will come back down and the competition will be strong again.

Whose shoulders does New Zealand's future lie on?

Hamish Marshall is an amazing player. He's very, very good -- plays the ball very late, can bat for a long time, very fast between the wickets, capable of hitting the ball very hard and a brilliant fielder. Most of all, he's a very nice man, down to earth and humble. He's a very exciting player. He has a very big future ahead of him.

He has a very simple technique. If you keep it that simple, less can go wrong. Most of the very good batsmen have a simple technique. Even Tendulkar, his batting is so simple and yet so effective. Not that I am putting Marshall on the same platform as Tendulkar, but the way he's started out, if he can achieve even half of what Tendulkar has achieved, he'll be all right.

Chris Martin is a good Test match bowler.

James Franklin will also have a big part to play in New Zealand's future. He's what we call a wicket taker; he may go for a few runs but he can take wickets.

Daniel Vettori is already being groomed as the next captain.

Vettori is going to take over. Fleming's been a great captain, but he'll finish at the end of the World Cup. He has been a great leader and will be very badly missed. But Vettori will do a good job. Daniel's played with Stephen all the while and he is a very quiet, mature man; does things his own way. And he'll be a very good leader for New Zealand.

Photographs: Getty Images