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The lives and journeys of 26 Indian cricketers from ‘Tiger’ Pataudi to Ravindra Jadeja

Ours is a world of endless technological advances. And the accompanying innovations have given rise to multiple storytelling ways. Stories are told through numbers. Stories are told through charts. There are even stories told in as low as 140 characters, popularly called Twitter fiction, which even eminent authors such as Geoff Dyer and Jeffrey Archer tried their hand at.

So, in such a rapidly changing landscape and ever-decreasing attention spans, intelligent storytelling becomes all the more important. As much as numbers, charts and little nuggets help tell a story effectively, the ones that stay in the mind are often the ones rich in anecdote and involving great personal detail.

This is what author Makarand Waingankar sets out to do in his book Guts & Glory which sketches the lives and journeys of 26 Indian cricketers starting from Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi to Ravindra Jadeja.

And thus we learn that Ajit Wadekar was initially studying to become an engineer, but the promise of a sum of Rs. 3 as pocket money for being the 12th man of a college match made him a cricketer.

Of how Dilip Sardesai, who “didn’t like cricketers having girlfriends”, fell in love and exchanged 90 letters with his fiancée when he was away in the West Indies for three months in 1962.

‘Colonel’

Of how Lala Amarnath nicknamed Dilip Vengsarkar ‘Colonel’ because he reminded Amarnath of C.K. Nayudu. And of how a statement to the tune “There are no fast bowlers in India,” by the then Cricket Club of India secretary Keki Tarapore in reply to a young Kapil Dev who asked for better food since he was a “fast bowler” drove the latter to become the best in the business.

The narrative isn’t usual. Rather than writing straight profiles, cricketers are grouped into chapters based on the qualities they embody. Then the story goes seamlessly back and forth between the players.

For example, Mohinder Amarnath and Dilip Vengsarkar are pooled together courtesy their tough persona, Rahul Dravid and V.V.S. Laxman for being men of stability and so on.

Though the clubbing together of Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja, who still have a lot to prove, on the grounds that they “reiterate the fact that the good days of Indian cricket are here to stay,” seems a tad premature.The author’s strongly held opinions —  acknowledged by those who read his columns in leading dailies including The Hindu — is visible through the book. At one stage he writes, “When in the mood, and form, he [Yuvraj Singh] can match every Sir Garfield Sobers shot for shot.”

He goes onto to try and substantiate this by eliciting a quote from the great man himself. “I tend to agree,” was the response after Yuvraj had clobbered six sixes off Broad at the T20 World Cup in 2007.

But the author fails to do that at a few other places. One such instance is while he talks about M.S Dhoni’s initial selection to the national cricket team. “The East Zone representative in the national selection committee was more concerned about a wicketkeeper from the powerful state of Bengal,” he writes; something that was avoidable or best expressed with an element of doubt.

Sans technicalities

 

While the portraits of yesteryear cricketers are etched sans the technicalities of the game — though it would have been greatly enriching to know the variations a Bishen Singh Bedi employed in “buying” wickets — the stories on present-day cricketers have former India coach Greg Chappell’s expert views as embellishments. In addition, caricatures by Austin Coutinho of all the 26 cricketers add a nice touch. Particularly the ones depicting Sunil Gavaskar rolling up the pitch into a mat and saying “I am staying for the night”, Dilip Vengsarkar with the Lord’s balcony in the backdrop, Dravid like a literal wall and Laxman getting his wrists examined by an Australian cricketer.