"You won’t have a huge bank balance, but you’ll get genuine respect": Sanjay Manjrekar on Test cricket

Sanjay Manjrekar. Pic/Shadab Khan

Former Test batsman Sanjay Manjrekar reckons cricketers will get loads of money while performing well in white-ball cricket, but if they succeed in Test cricket, they will get "genuine respect." "There's no harm in excellence of any kind. If you seek 50-over or T20 excellence, that's fine. And anyone who has special fondness for Test cricket, remember one thing… you may not make as much money, and won't have a huge bank balance, but you'll get genuine respect as a performer from your fellow cricketers and peers. So, if that's important to you, maybe that is the motivation to play Test cricket [for you]," Manjrekar said during his speech as chief guest at the 77th Police Shield prize distribution function at the Police Gymkhana on Monday.

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Manjrekar, 59, who scored 2,043 runs in 37 Tests and 1,994 runs in 74 ODIs from 1987 to 1996, feels Test cricket is like a heritage building. "It's [Test cricket] something that we have to make peace with. Test cricket will be like one of these heritage structures like your [Mumbai Police] offices and the CST Railway station. Now other formats, especially T20 cricket and the IPL, will have to keep a fund aside to keep Test cricket alive like we do for a heritage structure," Manjrekar remarked.

Manjrekar, known as a technically perfect batsman during his playing days, felt performances in the longer format always provide motivation to excel further. "There is also some motivation to do that because if you remember the [recent] India-Australia series [Down Under], if you ask anyone here, even the younger players, they will know exactly what happened in that series. So, [there's] something about Test cricket… maybe people don't watch every ball, but they remember what happened in a Test match. The results, performances resonate much longer than you would think in a T20 game, where you see great performances, but like the format, the effects of that performance are also [remembered] for a very short time." PJ Hindu Gymkhana beat Victory CC by four runs in a thrilling final on Monday to clinch their 12th Police Shield title.