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 …
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