SACHIN TENDULKAR
The Man Cricket Loved Back
ESPN Cricinfo, Viking
262 pages; Rs 599
The 1980s saw the rise of what socio-anthropologists call the "corporate athlete". If Tommie Smith could climb the Olympic podium in 1968 and raise the Black Power salute, you would be loath, however, to see, say, Michael Jordan doing something political in 1984 after winning the Olympic gold. You see, unlike Smith, Jordan couldn't afford shenanigans that could put his corporate sponsors in a spot. After all he needed the sponsors as much as the companies needed the endorser. Sachin Tendulkar, in that respect, is India's first true corporate athlete, and, for 24 years, remained the inscrutable human being while being the most feted sports personality. He steered clear of controversy, and that implacable baby face revealed nothing of his approvals or opprobrium.
That is why we have questions when we consider the man God. Was the halo over his head a genuine one and was he incapable of ever losing his temper? Was he superhuman and never feared bowlers? Did he ever succumb to the arrogance of being the best of his generation? Was he capable of feelings or was he a mere run-making automaton? No writer tried to plumb the man in Tendulkar because his game trapped them into penning paeans and platitudes.
But here we are now, knowing that there were times when the great Tendulkar actually wanted to avoid facing a bowler. "He didn't mind telling me if he didn't fancy a certain bowler, leading up to stumps on any given day," says Rahul Dravid, his partner in innumerable partnerships. "Sachin came over," recalls Sourav Ganguly, his teammate on the tour of Australia in 2003-04, "and said to me that he really didn't want to bat that evening… I said, yeah, not to worry, I'll go."
So, Tendulkar did fear, like other mortal beings, having to play out some overs in fading light. All this while we thought that whenever he told his interviewers that so and so was the best bowler he had faced, he was only being courteous, for how could a man like him admire someone whom he had so imperiously punished in the field! Now we know better.
He was also, as Yuvraj Singh testifies, the purveyor of "utterly horrible music" in the dressing room, somebody who would resist the demands of team members to change his antediluvian melodies with, "This, guys, is real music." And the same Yuvraj Singh makes fun of the maestro's dress sense. "Let us say he is not a fashion natural," jibes the sixes man, who then recollects how Tendulkar was close to tears when they first met after his cancer treatment and saw him "worn out, bald, eyebrow-less". Yet this fashion disaster was also someone who could poke fun at someone else's sartorial shortcomings. "Once, in Pakistan, when I stepped into the team bus wearing leather pants, he [Tendulkar] announced that the rock star had arrived and photos must be taken," remembers Ganguly.
And what about this fabled discipline? John Wright, his coach in both the Indian team and Mumbai Indians, says the batsman was never ever late for practice, and is humbled that at the age of 40, Tendulkar actually approached him for permission to leave Jaipur during the Indian Premier League for his son's birthday in Mumbai. And yet take the bat away from him and hand him a ball and all his self-control disappeared in an uncharacteristic display of wanton joy. As a bowler, he didn't have discipline, says Sanjay Manjrekar, though he puts down the unshackled display to his greater passion for bowling than for batting. Really? So if he had been taller, Tendulkar would have been a chart topper in bowling, huh?
Yes, these and other little nuggets bring Tendulkar down from his celestial heights to his rightful place on earth. He played pranks on teammates, confessed to being overconfident (or could this be a gentler term for arrogance?), had pangs of anxiety, even lost sleep when not scoring well, and wasn't averse to using the F-word to tell off opponents on the pitch. Finally, we see Tendulkar who doesn't look unflappable like a kung-fu fighting panda who has found inner peace.
For this, we have to thank Sachin Tendulkar: The Man Cricket Loved Back. The book, a Festschrift of sorts, brings together the thoughts of Tendulkar's teammates, commentators, corporate executives and sports writers. Many of the articles constitute, naturally, a breathless homage to his genius, and page after page you will find references to his bloodied nose in Pakistan in 1989, to his centuries at Manchester and Perth later, to his manifold acts of on-field excellence. These we have read before, even if the current ones are written more crispily, more engagingly. But to me, the greater value of the book lies in the tiny insights - Tendulkar is yet to open up and bare his soul for anyone to have but microscopic peeks into his being - into the human side of the cricketer. As Ed Smith, perplexed at the transformation of Tendulkar from man to icon, says, "I try to understand men; gods leave me cold." Absolutely.
