Seven of the 11 active members in the 100-Test club are here and that includes the top four longest-serving present-day cricketers. Sachin Tendulkar, Sanath Jayasuriya, Muttiah Muralitharan and Anil Kumble made their Test debuts in the late 80s or early 90s — that’s an era with which no other international team, besides India and Lanka, has any remote connection with. West Indies with 1994 debutant Shivanarine Chanderpaul in their side comes close, but that’s all.

Jayasuriya might have retired from Tests, but going by his recent T20 and ODI form, many here say a presidential intervention — and we aren’t talking about a cricket board official here — is on the cards, one that could see him wear the flannels again.

Add a few more 30-plus players such as Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Mahela Jayawardene and Kumara Sangakkara to the names of Tendulkar and Jayasuriya and we have seven batsmen with more than 5000 Test runs. As for the aggregate run-count of these batting stalwarts, it’s an incredible 55,035.

What makes that number looks less intimidating is the fact that these batting stalwarts will be against the likes of Murali, Kumble and Chaminda Vaas — three bowlers with a Test wicket pool of 1686. Seven plus three is always 10 and, in this case, it’s pretty much a ‘Perfect 10’. Include 29-year-old Virender Sehwag to this list of those on the wrong side 30 and there’s the look of a Dream XI to it — a World XI selected by someone with a bias against pacers.

After being on a 44-day diet of T20 ‘happy meals’ and the subsequent morsels of hastily cooked one-day mini-meals, the craving for the longer version has intensified. With the Test series starting in a week’s time — July 23 — things look promising glancing at the ingredients in the kitchen and the master chefs at hand. The cooking range is set at low flame as a mouth-watering three-course spread is planned for the next month.

Mouthwatering contest

It’s been a long wait for the ‘old school’ to savour this incredible indulgence. Injuries to aging bodies and scissor-hand selectors with flippant youth policies were the two factors that ensured that this ‘Perfect 10’ didn’t quite happen when India met Sri Lanka in the recent times.

During Lanka’s 2005-06 trip to India, Jayasuriya, Vaas and Ganguly were missing from action. Earlier, in 2001, when India toured Lanka, missing on the flight to Colombo were Tendulkar and Kumble.

While the rest of the world has lost patience with its elders, India and Lanka, reluctantly at times, have persisted with their seniors. Cynics might want to dub this as a battle between two Dads’ armies, or even a senior citizens convention, but that would just mean they didn’t get an invitation to Jayasuriya’s 39th birthday bash the other day in Karachi, where he compiled a 88-ball 130.

Even if one does a real needle-in-the-haystack kind of search, it will be tough to find a series where record-breakers will so frequently brush shoulders, where every other bat versus ball contest is a high-profile face-off with several layers of intrigue. The 55,035 vs 1686 is a kind of contest that has never happened before and the chances of it happening in the near future aren’t very bright either.

India coach Gary Kirsten relishes the prospect of watching these great duels from the dressing room and stresses the importance of the series. “It doesn’t matter if they have faced each other several times, since these guys might be facing each other for perhaps the last time in a Test series. And it is important for these greats to score over each other in their last outing,” he says.

Fitting absence?

Call it great timing or twist of fate, Tendulkar wouldn’t have found a better series to overtake Brian Lara and be the highest run-getter in the history of Test cricket. Just 171 runs away, Tendulkar is expected to bring Test cricket back in the news by reaching the milestone in this series.

With his old mates around on a serene Island, and with the first and third Tests being played at the SSC — a venue that’s is about 150 years old — Tendulkar will have a fitting audience and a conducive environment for the big high.

Under the circumstances, the absence of the ODI captain and vice-captain from this series suddenly seems apt. Dhoni and Yuvraj, with their unbridled aggression, might just have sullied the serenity of watching these great men in whites clash for one last time.