Friday 9 January 2015

Score-cards, Statistics and Sachin Tendulkar’s autobiography




Sachin Tendulkar is one of the most written about, and the 486-page title “Sachin Tendulkar: Playing it my way - My Autobiography is all about how many runs he scored, the landmarks reached, how he hauled the bowlers, the injuries, how unlucky he was due to some umpiring decisions….  Feedback by now would have enlightened the cricketer that writing is an altogether different format, as the bulk of the book is a perfunctory recall of matches, prima facie has no grip or the punch. If you  believe the icon  pursued the game with impeccable passion, the life story had to be equally riveting.

The “Childhood” chapter makes a joyful read in an otherwise dozy and prosaic printed pages bound together.  The sulking child getting the bicycle he wanted from his parents by adopting  adamant pranks, …having scored 24 runs and ‘acceded’ with a reporter to make it  30 to abet his name appearing in print … all appeared to blend the reader with reality, though the bond was short-lived.

After reading his debut against Pakistan, the rest of the matches sounded more like running –commentary.  “In the Final at Wankhade on November 6 (1996), I scored 67 in our modest 220, with Jadeja adding 43, and it was all down to Anil Kumble, who took four wickets as we bowled the South Africans out for 185….”.  You are hacked when you turn page after page with something of this sort moving at a listless pace.

For youngsters, the  memoir could motivate how hard-work is key to success, amid series of injuries suffered.  A broken finger, fractured toe, tennis elbow, groin problems...  “The injection, which was pretty painful, was the first of a hundred or more cortisone injections over the course of my career”, said the cricketer of records, the excruciating details about the injury-ridden career reflecting his unflinching focus.

The normally restrained Sachin shows his other dimensions …

Greg Chappel,  Ian Chappel, Kapil Dev,   Rahul Dravid’s  declaration at Multan, how taking losses so personally that affected Sachin’s captaincy…  BCCI held in high esteem  and on administration … Shhhh…. 

Sachin will always be hated for not standing by Saurav Ganguly when ‘Dada’ spoke against Coach Greg Chappel.  All the news that Chappel came to India to destroy Indian cricket or with some motive is a far-fetched logic, as we are only too familiar that most Indian cricketers don’t retire on their own, but compelled to do so.  While some of Rahul Dravid’s  gem of the innings hardly gets noticed, the autobiographer was generous in devoting three full pages ranting about the ‘controversial’ declaration, which  provides fodder for those who say Sachin plays for numbers.   His fascination for statistics is, nevertheless, more obvious in his writing. 

The master also blasted Ian Chappel for criticising his form and urging him to hang the boots. Back in 2007, Ian Chappel had written that Sachin should look at the mirror to query himself if he is good enough to continue playing cricket. “I showed him the size of the mirror in 2008 when we toured Australia.  He should have realised that the man he is asking to stand in front of the mirror has played more cricket than him”, Sachin settled through his memoir.

While the tidbits of how he faced a particular tactic by a fast bowler, attacking Shane Warne, mastering Dale Steyn, the mind games played and strategies adopted to outthink the opposition … makes up interesting reading, he doesn’t reason why his attacking instincts subdued in the later side of his career and the thread that accompanied it. 

He talks about his love for cars, but  silent on the red Ferrari issue.  His relationship within his family, with his team mates, his love for food, besides very few anecdotes are broadly the highlights. There is an overdose of Anjali’s sacrifices,  and repetitions galore in an otherwise first-person chronology of his career.  The finer points of his batting technique might interest the keen followers of the game and the pictures studded can be a collector’s delight.  His ‘stint’ as a Member of Rajya Sabha does not find any marked mention.

More score cards, less substance

The bulky book is woefully thin on many intimate moments as much as the title also seriously suffers from poor narrative pacing.  Incidents like his encounters with Glenn McGrath, his IAF captain’s status, MSD’s leadership ability, 1999 World Cup disaster, …. failed to find space under the maestro’s pen, the holistic silence on “match-fixing” the most startling. Even if it is conceded that he had little knowledge of the corrupt activities of some his own team-mates, it is deplorable that he doesn’t have an opinion on it either.

If Sachin preferred to keep mum on international players, at the least, he could have shared his deeper thoughts on his relationship with his own team mates and the  dressing room aura, tone and mood. Probably, is it because nobody expects a person who has steered of any controversy during his playing tenure, to create one at this stage.  An exclusive chapter deals with the way pressure built up on him due to the evading milestone of the 100th 100.  He vividly remembers his hero Sir Viv Richards for the inspiration to continue when the trying times of retirement contemplation haunted him.

Bits and pieces
  • Arjun Tendulkar doesn’t like his father to be criticised.  When a school friend blamed Sachin for India losing, ‘Arjun punched the boy and told him not to say anything bad about his father again”.
  • A foodie, Sachin learned how to use “lettuce leaves to construct a wall so that the size of the bowl which was normally two to three inches tall increased to five or six inches.  We would then fill it with as much salad as wanted”.
  • “I was hurt when BCCI sacked me as a captain”.
  • Kapil Dev’s thought process was limited to leaving the running of the team to the captain, and hence he did not involve himself in strategic discussions that would help on the field”.
  • “Every time I look back at the footage of my first century, I realise that celebrating was not something that came naturally to me”.
  • Sachin reveals how an IPL team owner lets his priest decide which players leave the hotel rooms first on match days, while another has dressing rooms arranged in Feng Shui style.
  • The batting hero shares that one day a stomach-upset prompted him to play with tissues inside his underwear.  Destpite (t)issues, he went on to score a patient 97 against S/Lanka.  (I hope no hardcore Sachin fans start worshipping those ‘fragrant’ tissues!).
Last word on the Co-author

Boria Majumdar failed to ferret out the best out of the life story. The what, where and when have been accorded the priority over the why and how. The ghosted autobiography read more like a flawed document, failing to escort the reader.  The historian should have enlisted the  services of a good sub-editor and trimmed the book-size to at least half, if not less.

 “Amazon” ensured their quality delivery, but Sachin …

=====

No comments:

Post a Comment