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Foreword
by Sachin Tendulkar
I had heard of Vikram’s cricket stand-up acts through common friends but
I actually got to see him perform only in 2006 in Sri Lanka during the Asia
Cup. Since then I have seen him perform at various cricket functions and
have loved his observations on the lighter side of the game along with his
true to life impersonations of so many cricketers across the world.
What also comes across from his humourous perspective on the game is
the fact that he is a genuine cricket fan and is quite knowledgeable about the
game as well. You will discover when you read certain chapters where he
interprets the various skills and insights many good cricketers possess. While
doing this he is also able to define the characteristics and personalities of the
players and people he has interviewed in his own humourous style.
Cricket is more than the players we see on the field. There is a world
outside the ground which includes the support staff, media, commentators,
touring parties and Vikram has covered those aspects beautifully through
many interesting anecdotes. I am sure the reader will really enjoy his theories
and his take on this wonderful game of cricket.
I would like to wish my dear friend Vikram success on his journey and
request him to keep making us and the world laugh in the years to come.
Sachin Tendulkar
P.S. Vikram I may have destroyed your initial life but you recovered pretty
well after the follow on.
Contents
Author’s Note
Foreword by Sachin Tendulkar
Acknowledgements
his was the typical rant of every middle-class mother in the late 80s.
T Before Sachin Tendulkar made his debut at the age of 16 in 1989,
everything was fine. We went to school, behaved like irresponsible teenagers,
achievement was something to be tackled later. You could even score 30 not
out in 50 overs and no one would say anything - life as we knew it, was great.
However, after Sachin’s debut, things completely changed. All of a sudden
we had a benchmark in our lives.
Gandhiji, Nehruji, Vikram Sarabhai and Kishore Kumar probably didn’t
do anything significant when they were 16 so my parents’ generation lived a
great life. It was OK to gain maturity at 40 because that was the age Gandhiji
returned from South Africa. Our lives, on the other hand, had become
miserable because of this one boy Sachin Tendulkar!
My mother used Sachin’s name to drive home her point almost on a daily
basis, whether it was completing my homework or polishing my shoes. It was
a great victory for her as she knew that a cricketing reference would hit me
deep in the gut and let me know she meant business.
She was a quick learner and realised that benchmarking me against a 16-
year-old Chemistry genius would have had no impact on me. It was a
peculiar situation for me because I played a bit of domestic cricket around the
same time Sachin did and was completely besotted by his genius. However, I
also started hating him as he was beginning to damage my self-esteem. The
genius of a young Sachin Tendulkar made my entire generation of wannabe
cricketers in the 80s look like genetic garbage.
India is a peculiar country when it comes to cricket. Every person you
meet claims to have played cricket for his school, college or at least his co-
operative housing society at some stage in his life. How the entire Indian
male population fitted in a school cricket team is something we will never
understand, but that’s what we are made to believe. The Indian male believes
that by claiming to have played cricket for his school it will improve his
image in the mind of the listener.
I also played cricket for both my school and college in Pune and while
Sachin was trying to impress selectors for a spot in the Mumbai Ranji Trophy
team I was trying to convince my parents to at least buy me a new cricket bat.
Middle class parents in the 80s tried to justify their miserliness by saying
philosophical things like, “the bat is not important, it’s the mind that matters,
so first score the runs and then you will get the bat”, which basically meant
‘tough luck’! Years later when I brought up this topic with my mother, she
shut me up by pointing out that even Lance Armstrong was on record that
“It’s not about the bike.”
I remember that day distinctly, February 24, 1988, the day I took my
decayed furniture of a cricket bat and went to play an under-15 cricket trial
match where I scored 74 runs. I was ecstatic. However, as fate would have it
that was the same day Sachin scored 326 in a school cricket game in
Mumbai. My father didn’t even congratulate me because of this. I don’t
blame him, my 74 in comparison with Sachin’s 326 looked like Maninder
Singh’s batting contribution to Indian cricket. Sachin was destroying me
slowly but steadily. Inspite of my awe for him, my hate quotient started
increasing exponentially every day. He was robbing me of my glory with
every passing day.
I once had the opportunity to play against him but ended up as the 12th
man. I was watching him bat along with a teammate from the dressing room.
He had made an unbeaten 70 which comprised some stellar on-the-rise shots.
Everytime he hit one over the bowler’s head we looked at each other and
acknowledged our feeling of inadequacy. A feeling similar to what Abhishek
Bachchan must be having everytime he sees his dad’s scenes from Deewar.
After watching one such Sachin shot, which I couldn’t have even
imagined hitting in my dreams, I came to terms with the fact that I was better
off pursuing middle-class India’s dream of completing graduation followed
by an MBA. The shot he played was a slash over the slip cordon for a ball
that was of chest height. For a young cricketer like me at that age, who even
tried to hit full tosses in the V region because that was the correct thing to do
this shot was like watching Basic Instinct with your parents — Pure Scandal!
I mentally quit cricket that day because I realised I could never play shots like
these. The demoralisation was now almost complete.
The one thing I thank Sachin for is that because of him, I at least realised
very early in life that this is not a sport one should consider as a career
option. While we were discussing how to keep the square cut low by closing
the blade of the bat he was playing inside out shots over the cover point
region.
Years passed in the realm of mediocrity. As a typical student in the 90s,
on finishing my graduation with a BSc in Geology (yes there is a subject like
that) I enrolled for an MBA in Marketing. Strangely, instead of trying to
focus on Kotler and Buffet my mind was still focussed on Greenidge and
Haynes. Hours were spent trying to justify to friends how Sachin Tendulkar
and Vinod Kambli got the right breaks and how I didn’t get the
encouragement at the right age. My focus had now shifted to discussing the
game with my colleagues. One-upmanship on the basis of who knew the
statistics to Sachin’s 100s and his exploits was a regular pastime including
endless arguments on whether he was the greatest ever. Some of my
colleagues had made it a habit of taking an anti-Sachin stand based on his
2nd innings average. These people were important in their own way in
society because if not for them, conversations on cricket would not have
lasted more than 30 seconds. Even after quitting the game, I was still
discussing Sachin. He was sub-consciously haunting me everywhere.
Despite my mental disintegration, I somehow still held on to the notion
that I had a career in sports. So when I got my first job offer after completing
my MBA with the Professional Management Group – a sports marketing
company, I found some solace.
My first salary was Rs 8,000 and I was quite happy with it. However my
joy was shortlived and I didn’t share it with anyone because it was also the
same day that Sachin signed his multi-crore deal with World Tel. There was
absolutely no way I was going to let anyone know my salary. Sachin had
slowly killed my sporting self-esteem and was now doing the same
financially.
A career related to sports still was at the back of my mind. This was also a
time when Jerry Maguire was my favourite film and it inspired me to believe
that I had it in me to make “Kho Kho” a global sport. Market realities soon
hit me and very soon every client I met told me, “Bhai aise phaltu proposal
mat lao, Is desh me sirf Sachin Tendulkar bikta hein.” The ghost of Sachin
Tendulkar just wouldn’t let go, he was now chasing me in my corporate life
as well.
A year later, I gave up on my “Kho Kho” dream, much like my cricketing
aspirations and I joined MTV India. This was at a time when MTV was
actually a music channel and as they say, music is amongst the best ways to
distract you from your woes and has the ability to heal damaged souls.
Time went by and I spent the next few years surviving as a lowly
marketing professional who took life one day at a time. My arch nemesis
Sachin was now replaced by two species called MS-Powerpoint and MS-
Excel. I soon realised that these were the only tools one needed to survive in
the corporate world and unfortunately for me, I struggled with both.
Apart from Sachin I had started hating another man called Bill Gates for
creating this piece of software and damaging my self-esteem all over again.
It was one of those boring days at work when India was playing a match
against Sri Lanka on a placid wicket. My mental state was like that of
Geoffrey Boycott playing a 100 ball 28 innings while I personally wished this
was the Sharjah game where Sachin hammered the Aussies and Tony Greig
went ballistic with his commentary praising Sachin. It was at this moment
that I started impersonating Sachin Tendulkar especially in the context of him
giving an interview to Tony Greig.
Whilst I was at it, my colleague Jiggy George noticed it and said,
“Awesome.” He gathered 3 more people and told me to do the imitation all
over again. To my surprise they loved it too. I used to imitate commentators
and cricketers as a student and here I was doing it in front of adults who
seemed to like it and were having a ROFL moment. For the next seven days I
had done this piece in front of all the departments within the company
making me rise on the MTV popularity charts and even improving my
relations with the HR department whose existence I always abhorred.
I started noticing the gravity of this incident unfolding over the next few
weeks. The environment around me seemed to be changing. People at MTV
stopped questioning my marketing skills and my appraisals were no more
about how ineffective I was in utilising our marketing budgets. The canteen
boy started serving my lunch much before anyone else’s, even my colleagues
who once feigned ignorance about my existence now insisted on offering me
a ride in their cars instead of letting me get smashed in the crowded local
trains.
One day my boss actually made me speak to his wife in Sachin’s voice as
he was running late for her birthday party and she forgave him because she
thought he was actually sitting with Sachin for a business meeting. This was
just the beginning.
From then onwards, from the streets of Mumbai, to corporate conferences,
board room meetings and even while salvaging client relations for my bosses,
all they wanted me to do was imitate Sachin.
It was an ironic situation. The man who had consistently shattered every
aspect of my life over the last 10 years was now turning out to be my biggest
asset. There was a somewhat sublime and heavenly feeling to all of this. My
self-esteem which had hovered around 0 for a long time had now reached
double figures. That 2-minute imitation of Sachin Tendulkar and Tony Greig
was changing my life. Sachin slowly started becoming an intrinsic part of my
life in a much more positive way.
News of my skills started spreading outside the office too and one day
another colleague of mine, Ashish Patil, asked me if I could meet a diamond
merchant as he was looking for an entertainer who could do cricket jokes at a
party. For that I would have to meet them in their office. After having gone
through a body search and having had my bag scanned, I was lead through a
long corridor by a mean looking security guard into a big white room. There
seated across a big round table were 3 elderly diamond merchants.
Incidentally one of them was bald like me and dressed in white, unlike me.
As I was asked to take a seat, I felt momentarily transferred into that scene
from the film Shaan and thought that my wrists would soon get locked on to
my seat. Just when I thought the diamond merchant would ask “Maal kaha
hai”, I was pleasantly surprised to hear him say “Beta suna hai Sachin ki
nakal acchi utaarte ho, kuch karke batao.” Here I was behind closed doors
being asked to imitate Sachin. My life was at ransom once more because of
this man. Fortunately 10 minutes into what I now remember as a blur, the
expressions on Shaakal’s face seemed satisfied enough to grant me my first
paid event, performing along with the King of Bhangra – Daler Mehndi. I
was absolutely ecstatic on being offered a platform where people beyond my
office could finally see and hear me. News spread far and wide, slowly but
surely. I was now getting invited to parties purely because of the fact that I
could imitate Sachin well. The Mumbai glitterati started respecting me, it was
quite strange because being a shy person, I was pretty uncomfortable with all
the attention I was getting. Strangely, I wasn’t getting it for who I was, but
rather for who I was imitating.
I just failed to understand why I was suddenly becoming the toast of every
party after being a non-entity all my life. Then I realised that at some level
my imitation of Tony Greig’s interview with Sachin had struck the right
chord to such an extent that people for that moment started thinking that
Sachin was with them, which in turn gave them a tremendous sense of
satisfaction and me a whole lot of respect. In a way they were subconsciously
experiencing some sort of proximity to Sachin through me. The entire
experience was very strange. Punjabi aunties would hug me. I was being
invited for meals at farmhouses, felicitated by the teachers who hated me in
school. It was bizarre! Such was the power and the mystique of a man called
Sachin Tendulkar and here I was wielding that power. But as some of you
Spiderman fans know – “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility”.
As time went by, I thought I was turning schizophrenic. I started living 2
lives – one moment I was the ordinary Peter Parker-like Vikram Sathaye and
the next moment transformed into a Spiderman-like superhero – Sachin
Tendulkar.
Strange as it was I was beginning to enjoy myself being Sachin and in
doing so I started discovering a unique relationship that the people of India
had with Sachin. In this process I was also discovering that my impressions
and jokes came under a genre of performing art called “Stand-up comedy”
which till that time I had no clue about.
My big break came when I was invited to do a 15-minute cricket sketch at
the prestigious CEAT Cricket Awards where the entire Australian and Indian
teams were seated in the first row. This was my opportunity to impress
Sachin, which I knew would be a tough job considering I had competition
from stars like Priyanka Chopra, Urmila Matondkar and Akshay Kumar.
Despite being scheduled to perform in the middle of the show, being the
weakest link amongst a string of stars, I was pushed from the middle order to
the tail end. I had a great event, but by the time my performance started,
Sachin had already left.
I was disappointed to say the least. The wait to meet him turned out to be
longer than I had expected. Inspite of having started doing a few cricket
events, it took me a good year and a half before I got my first opportunity to
meet Sachin. I was invited by the Sri Lankan Cricket Board to perform at the
Asia Cup banquet in Colombo in the presence of the Indian, Pakistani and Sri
Lankan teams.
By then I had heard from a few sources that Sachin was a serious kind of a
guy who didn’t like being made fun of. I was sure of one thing, that no matter
what happened I wouldn’t do anything to upset him because making God
unhappy doesn’t fit well into the Hindu scheme of things. My friend and ex-
Mumbai captain, Sameer Dighe suggested that I go say “hi” to Sachin before
the show. I did that and it worked like magic. I had the entire Indian team
congratulating me after the show. Even Inzamam came up to me and said,
“Sabke samne pant utarne mein maja ata hein?” I just smiled…. Nobody
wants to mess with Inzi bhai!
The next morning I was having breakfast at the Taj Colombo coffee shop
before boarding the flight back to Mumbai. Seated on the next table were
Sachin, Bhajji, Yuvraj and Muralitharan. I was about to leave but somehow
despite my nervousness I gathered enough courage to go and say hello to
them. As soon as I did so I got a compliment from Murali on my Inzamam
impression which made me relax a bit, then a few smiles from Bhajji, Yuvi
and finally an acknowledgement from Sachin himself. This entire episode
lasted not more than 10 seconds. I knew it would look bad if I stayed any
longer, I wanted to wait, ask questions about everything under the sun but I
had to leave. Just when I was about to turn and leave a thin voice said, “Why
don’t you have coffee and go.” This was it, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar had
asked me to sit and have a coffee. Period! There was no way I would refuse
even if I missed ten flights in a row. Well, the next 20 minutes I was listening
to Murali and Sachin discussing the intricacies of the Doosra with a few
inputs from Harbhajan Singh. Those words to me were as important as all the
words that Lord Krishna told Arjuna though I didn’t have to fight any war.
There couldn’t have been a bigger day for a mediocre cricketer like me to
be sitting and discussing the finer aspects of the game with some of the
greatest cricketers in the subcontinent. Finally, I felt a sense of acceptance
from the cricketing fraternity and a feeling of being considered of some value
and importance.
One of the most important things that happened at that show was that
there was a certain sense of endorsement from one of the most important men
in world cricket at a very prestigious event. It’s like if Narendra Modi has
decided to approve your proposal then the local BJP corporator would not
even bother to check your credentials. The moment word spread that Sachin
enjoyed the show the doors of the world of cricket opened up for me in a way
that I could never even imagine. All the other cricketers, Indian or
international who I was doing my material on stopped worrying about my
next moves and started accepting my craft and more importantly sharing all
their wonderful stories with me. A treasure trove of knowledge from the
world of cricket that I love dearly, was coming to me right from the horse’s
mouth. It was like being an insider.
Time went by and over the next eight years I developed a friendship with
Sachin which I will always cherish. During the time I spent with him I learnt
more than what I would learn in my entire academic career. Having done
over 1,200 corporate shows and even the occasional stints with Sony and
ESPN, I jokingly told him one day that I’ve had an unwritten rule that I’d
never imitate Sachin if he was a part of the audience. I would never take the
risk of irritating the bread winner of my family.
That rule was broken once. I was invited to Sachin’s party to celebrate
India’s long awaited World Cup victory. Amidst all the wild celebrations and
cheering I was put in a spot once again when out of the blue, Sachin’s
fabulous wife Anjali walked up to me and said, “Vikram, you have to do a
Sachin imitation tonight.” There was utter silence and I said to myself, “Aaj
to mar gaye, sabke saamne bajegi.” That silence soon turned into loud
cheering with everyone at the party egging me on with a “Sachin! Sachin!
Sachin!”. The approving nod from the master himself helped me gather
whatever little courage I could. Having never suffered stage fright, I was now
being put to the ultimate test and was soon about to break that long held self-
imposed rule. I finally took a deep breath and went about business as usual,
doing my Sachin imitation — covering everything from his batting stance to
that interview with Tony Greig and this time, for a change in front of him.
This was the moment that I had dreaded all my life, but had also eagerly
awaited.
I had finally repaid my debts to the Master. Here was the man to whom I
owed my apartment, my bank balance, match tickets and whatever little
prosperity I had built over the last ten years. I was ready to offer him
everything, but like all Gods he didn’t accept my offering.
Well in a strange way while Sachin initially destroyed my life, he later
recreated it by opening the doors of the world of cricket for me which I am
sharing with you in this book. Over ten years of following the Indian cricket
team across the world and chatting with the boys, I figured that cricket has
the ability to not only entertain you but also give you some tips that could
change your life.
2
I think that there are only two entities that get unconditional love in India,
our parents and Sachin Tendulkar, and if there was ever a choice between
looking after one’s father in ICU and watching Sachin bat on 99, we know
what option the nation would prefer to choose.
When will you ever see Bhogle at forward short leg while Sachin’s batting!
Playing gully cricket at a vineyard in Australia.
Even with his family Dravid gives his 100 percent. A true champion.
Yes, Sehwag is Superman and for him the surface of the earth called the
“Pitch” is irrelevant.
Nice khichdi dinner with sports journalist Mr Lele, Harsha Bhogle, Suresh
Raina and MS Dhoni.
MS Dhoni’s bat on the left is double the size of Barry Richards’s bat on the
right. Now you understand why the “helicopter shot” takes off with such
speed.
During the next Test in Chennai he was still carrying the burden of the
Kolkata dismissal when he went in to bat. His mind was constantly thinking
about what to do to actually figure out how the ball was going to play. That’s
when an idea struck him. He decided to just follow the ball from the time it
comes on the field and not take the eyes off the ball even after the over
finishes and just go on. This gave him a photographic recording of the
condition of the ball enabling him to judge how it would behave the entire
day. So from the point the umpire handed the ball to the bowler, to the bowler
running in and bowling the ball, followed by it reaching the wicketkeeper and
then the fielders and then back to the bowler—he just constantly watched the
ball. Even during the drinks interval he was watching the ball go into the
umpire’s pocket. This even made the umpires a bit nervous but it became an
obsession. Well, the results were there to see, he scored a magnificent 126
runs in the first innings. Sachin says, “It was obsessive behaviour, but I had
to do it. I only realised the gravity of it when I reached the dressing room and
realised that I was completely drained, I barely reached the hotel and
immediately dozed off because of the sheer fatigue.” One thing was clear, if
one has to get extraordinary results and overcome challenges one needs to
think out of the box.
The one lesson that I always took away from my numerous interactions
with Sachin was the level of attention he paid to every single detail. I
remember once driving from Pune to Mumbai with him after an event in his
BMW SUV. Those 2 hours, yes 2 hours, that we took to reach our destination
were like a complete lesson in driving for me and an insight into his
knowledge of cars and Formula 1. I personally am not a great fan of cars and
speed so I did not understand half the technicalities but I have heard from
friends that even Narain Karthikeyan believes that Sachin is an excellent
driver. This obsessiveness is what makes a champion and that is something
Sachin reflected in abundance, in whatever he took up.
To me the most outstanding moment of the drive was the shocked
expression of the toll attendant when he saw Sachin hand him the toll money.
At first he took the money but nearly threw it back in shock when he saw the
Master in the driver’s seat.
As a cricketer, I have never carried a bat for my team, but I did it once for
Sachin. I remember we were leaving for the 2009 New Zealand tour a week
later than the Indian cricket team. Just before I was to leave I got a call from
his wife Anjali saying that she wanted me to carry Sachin’s bat for him to
New Zealand as it was just made by the bat manufacturer to suit the New
Zealand conditions. The bat was packed in the box with his name on it. From
the time I entered the Mumbai airport to the time I landed at Auckland, at
least fifteen people asked me about this parcel. It was simply crazy but the
power of that box was such that the airline even allowed me to carry excess
baggage. I had become a kind of VVIP because of the parcel I was carrying.
The authorities were considering it their moral obligation to ensure that the
bat reached the Master safely and on time, because in case it didn’t and he
didn’t get runs, they would not have been able to forgive themselves forever.
That’s what you call Impact.
It was a rainy day in Wellington before the first match when I went to his
room to deliver the bat. When he opened the room I saw something unreal
and I thought I had entered a carpenter’s workshop. Apart from the India
colours, his kit bag and clothes, there were an insane number of glues, tools
and apparatus lying there. Every time you met Sachin in his room during a
match, you would see something that would intrigue you. I’ve seen a
carpentry box which had an entire tool kit which would make even the best
interior designers proud. Just like a warrior who would test and service his
weapons, Sachin would sit there trying to do various things to his bat to get
the right balance. He says, “It would be difficult to find a manufacturer while
on a tour who could understand your needs and fix a problem so it was better
to carry your kit. I am like a carpenter of the team, I would carry sand-paper,
superglue, bat tape, steel wool, and the whole team depends on me for this. I
spend hours to ensure the bat has the right balance and weight distribution.
The final test of any bat is the sound it makes when you tap it with your
fingers in a manner you would hit a carom striker with your finger. I know
that sound since school and till the time I do not get that sound I would work
on the bat day and night.” Legend has it that once Dwayne Bravo had
misplaced his bat in the Mumbai Indians dressing room. When he found a
few bats which looked like his bat it left him confused. Well in a few minutes
the Master did the sound test by tapping the blades with his fingers and to the
surprise of Dwanye Bravo he got his bat and they lived happily ever after.
“Yes, I took a little extra time because I believed that unless you find the
perfect balance you should not start your mission. It’s about finding that
moment of complete control over the controllables that get you ready for the
battle. Unless you are in the right frame of mind and in harmony with the
surroundings it’s not worth starting. Remember you don’t get a second
chance. Each one has to find his or her right frame of reference before they
go on to do their task. I used to change my stance in the middle of the match
to suit myself. It was about that moment. After years of practising, your
instincts are honed to feel that comfortable position. I knew that standing at a
particular angle against Dale Steyn would help me get comfortable. Likewise
one has to find that for every bowler.”
Every ground is different when it comes to the light factor. Sachin always
preferred batting in Australia as the brightness was superb for sighting the
ball. In India, it varied. In Kolkata the seats were dark in colour and that also
had an impact on the overall lighting. Many a times the dressing room is dark
and as you step out and walk to the pitch your eyes need to acclimatise to the
light really quickly. That’s why Sachin purposely took a few extra seconds to
face the ball because he knew that unless he was comfortable and balanced it
wasn’t worth beginning the innings.
The quantum of reserve energy in the body is way more than what
one expects it to be. The harder you push the easier it is to tap into
it.
— Sachin Tendulkar
“Bhaisaab spinner ko spinner batsmen banata hein! Agar usse aap ball spin
hi naa karne do, aur pehli hi over me usse bahar pheink do woh zindagi bhar
spin nahi karega.”
his was his response to a question I had asked Virender Sehwag about
T how he was the only batsman who could dominate the wily Sri Lankan
bowler Ajantha Mendis during the Sri Lanka tour.
On further probing he replied, “I don’t consider a spinner as a bowler. I
never did.”
Sehwag belonged to the new generation of cricketers who were naturally
aggressive and build their own logic for survival. We grew up listening to
stories about how Indian players in the 70s and 80s were often intimidated by
their English and Australian counterparts. The results of liberalisation and a
resurgent India were beginning to show not just on our economy but also in
the way we started playing our cricket. Virender Sehwag or Viru as they
fondly called him was one who most exemplified this change.
For me Viru was a man who knew no fear and showed no emotion. He did
things not because he was meant to but because he liked doing them. Viru
never got out because of any super bowling skills, he did so because he got
bored with the state of affairs. The last time Sehwag moved his feet was
when he was 2½-years-old. But on the whole, he has done more for Indian
cricket by not moving his feet than many people have done by moving their
entire bodies. Experts have always recommended that batsmen should get
their feet to the right position but his philosophy was a little feudalistic—“the
bowler has to bowl at the right place, as a batsman I will not move”. Who can
argue with whether or not his feet moved; the ball certainly did once it left his
bat.
For Viru, batting was an outlet for the frustrations he used to gather while
not at the crease. His facial expression when he scored 0 or a 100 was more
or less the same. It didn’t seem to matter much to him either way. I have
always wondered how a man playing international cricket could remain this
unaffected. Even if he raised his bat after a 100 it was as if it was a ritual and
something he had to do and given a choice he would do it even if he got out
on a duck.
Sehwag redefined the job of an opener. Years ago, when we were learning
to play the game we were told by our coaches that an opening batsman’s
main task was to see off the early overs when the ball swings a lot and reduce
the shine of the ball for the middle order batsman. Sehwag’s philosophy was
to make the ball old himself so he could enjoy the fruits of his own labour.
Over the years of knowing Viru one realised the method in his madness.
He always mentions that his aggressive game was a role he defined for
himself, he knew if he had to make his mark among the Sachins, Rahuls and
the Gangulys he had to take a different path for the same goal. Thanks to
Sourav he was given a clear mandate for which he feels indebted all the time.
’m sure, like me, most men have heard this line a million times from their
I wives or girlfriends. Being someone with an attention deficit greater than
our country’s fiscal deficit, I suffered immensely because of this. It’s not easy
to give something which you do not possess. Though I was never clinically
diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) I still suffer from it and am
unable to focus on any task for more than 3 minutes.
My student days are a blur, thanks to my concentration or rather the lack
of it! How that phase flew by, I have no idea whatsoever. My trauma can be
gauged from the fact that even after 14 years since my last exam as a student,
I still have nightmares that I have a Chemistry exam pending from my first
year BSc and if I don’t clear it I will have to be reborn as a tripod or Bunsen
burner in my next life.
When you scored not-so-respectable marks as a kid everyone around you
would insist that you needed to focus and concentrate harder on your studies.
At that age one had no idea what “concentration” was because no one
explained this concept to us. So what did concentration mean and could it be
developed? Was it staring at your book a little longer? Most kids in India
were unable to interpret it right. They thought concentrating was another
word for memorising and therefore the kid who memorised geometry
theorems the best was considered the brightest in class. Interestingly this
process was called “by-hearting” or “learning by heart”. The fact that India is
the cardiac capital of the world is perhaps not because of our love for
samosas and aloo tikki but possibly because of the years we spent “by-
hearting” which ought to have added immense pressure on the heart.
Over the years I have come to realise that the ability to focus on a
particular task one moment at a time is the only philosophy worth following
in life, though the toughest to execute. Most relationships fail because one
can’t focus on the finer aspects. If men were to give the same quantum of
attention while shopping with their wives or praising their looks as they did
when watching Sachin bat, they would never get into trouble. Unfortunately
most men are busy worrying about EBITDA margins instead of concentrating
on dinner conversations with their wives and that’s where the problem arises.
During my youth, I was always enamoured by the women I’d see at
discotheques though it’s a different story that I invariably went home alone.
The reason, I later figured out was my inability to take a call on which girl to
focus on. Even during my corporate job I realised that guys who could
engage longer in negotiations were the ones who came out trumps and that
was a direct result of their ability to concentrate. I, on the other hand, was
more interested in quickly finishing the task at hand and knocking it off my
checklist, which to me was more enjoyable than doing my job. With the
proliferation of technology, concentration levels are at an all-time low, which
is visible in any meeting where most people are mentally never in the
meeting as they are busy with their devices.
“Why don’t you try meditation?,” was the most common advice I
received. But the problem is that everytime I close my eyes, I feel sleepy. I
even tried out Art of Living classes but got distracted by the heavy breathing
of the beautiful women around. In places like Bandra and Juhu, some of these
classes can be expensive and to pay that kind of money to learn how to
breathe which I had been doing for free all my life, just wasn’t in tune with
my middle-class Maharashtrian upbringing. If I were to trace the reason of
my mediocrity as a batsman, I guess it would boil down to the inability of my
mind to focus and that resulted in throwing my wicket away after having
scored 30 odd runs.
In all my experiences watching cricket I have realised that great batsmen
have a tremendous ability to be “in the moment”. In sporting parlance it is
also called “The Zone” and is best described as one in which your mind is in
a state of harmony and where every stroke is played out as one would
imagine. While every batsman aspires to try and enter this zone, these gates
are not open all the time.
Of all the batsmen that I have watched, the one who possibly spent a
considerable amount of his life in this zone was Rahul Dravid. He epitomised
the theory of one ball at a time. This was amply demonstrated on the cricket
field especially on that disastrous tour of England in 2011. On a tour where
nothing was going right, he pushed his concentration to the limits defying a
top rated English bowling side, scoring three back to back hundreds against
the likes of Broad, Bresnan, Finn and Anderson. That is why when I saw
Trott and Swann leave the 2013 Ashes midway I was quite shocked, as in my
opinion the pressure on an Indian player on an overseas tour is relatively
higher than what an English player would face.
Rahul is now a total family man and his wife Vijeta has also started
practising again. Medicine, not cricket. Most great batsmen have had great
relationships with their wives because they have mastered the ability to give
their 100 percent in every aspect of their lives. One moment at a time! Rahul
and Sachin were smart because they ensured that they married doctors who
took it upon themselves to manage all aspects of the family and kids, which
helped them concentrate on their careers. Good concentration also results in
good decisions. But as good human beings post retirement, I have heard that
Rahul is helping out in the kitchen while Sachin is looking after the kids.
The clincher was when Rahul was asked about his choice of jersey
number at an event. He quickly replied, “The number is 19 not because of
any superstition but because it is the best way to remember my wife’s
birthday.” No wonder he is such a great batsman and husband.
“The mind has the ability to focus on only one thing at a time. You have
to decide whether it is the past, present or the future,” said Martina
Navratilova, one of the greatest tennis players of our times making a point
about focus and being in the moment, in an event I was attending in Pattaya.
I was floored by her clarity of thought and instantly became her fan as she
took us through her glorious tennis journey. Every middle-class Indian in the
80s hated Martina because she was the reason they had to see Chris Evert-
Lloyd lose day in and day out. It’s a different issue that most men in their
hearts actually wanted Gabriela Sabatini to win. My grandfather and me used
to watch women’s tennis for hours without knowing the score unless it was
Martina. But the Martina I saw was elegant, insightful and emotional. She
said in her speech, “Chris and me are very close now and the nice thing is
that we can both be happy at the same time because when we were playing it
could be only one of us.”
Being a performer at the same event, I got to spend some time with her
back stage. I asked her to explain to me the concept of “being in the moment”
because I have had a chat on this issue with a lot of sportsmen. She said the
toughest thing to achieve is the theory of one ball at a time. One has to try
and master it during practice sessions and only then would you be able to
achieve being in the zone in the big games. There are moments in a game
when you can hear the sound of the plane go by, screaming spectators and
that’s the time you know things are not going too well. It’s the ability to
effectively block these out which could be the difference between victory and
defeat.
There are two kinds of people, those who can concentrate on one thing at
a time and those who can concentrate on various things, more or less with
equal intensity. That is why I believe that women will rule the world because
of their ability to multi-task. My mother can negotiate with the subjiwali with
a lot of intensity and at the same time advise my sister on marital issues. In a
game like cricket, only a person who can do this well can become a good
captain. I have always been of the opinion that the best option is to get a non-
playing female captain for the Indian cricket team so she will not only be able
to handle Srinivasan but also motivate the Indian fast bowlers to bowl faster
by 10 kmph.
“A captain has to be a good multi-tasker and the more organised one’s
mind is, the better it is to lead a side,” said Ricky Ponting in an after-dinner
interview. He went on to add that conditioning and thinking about the game
needs to happen before the match begins. Therefore, he makes a checklist the
night before which helps him cover all the areas he needs to think of before
the game. Once he has thought through them, he is on auto-pilot on the field
because if he doesn’t do that, then his mind will remain cluttered and he will
not be able to focus on his batting. At the time of batting he doesn’t think of
anything but the ball and the important thing is that he delivers. He says that
the walk from the dressing room to the pitch is when you distill your thoughts
to the point of extreme concentration while facing the ball.
Greg Chappell also mentions that you have 3 levels of concentration. The
first level is when you are inside the dressing room. You are aware of what’s
happening, it’s not active involvement. The second level is when you go out
to bat — the walk where you think specifically about conditions, field
placements, and who the bowler is. The third level is when you are facing the
ball, that’s when the whole world shuts up.
Once your focus is on the bowler, you zero in on his face and try to get all
the information possible. Apparently bowlers reveal a lot of infomation on
their faces. Abdul Qadir carried a grin on his face when he bowled a wrong-
un. Studying the bowler’s body language also helps. I have heard that
Malcolm Marshall actually pulled his pants up as an indicator before bowling
a snorter.
Sachin once mentioned about how he cracked Murali’s action when no
one could pick the Doosra. After studying his action carefully, he went up to
team members and said, “FOCUS on nothing except his thumb, if you see his
thumb go down it’s the doosra, if not it’s an off-spin.” It’s amazing how such
minute observations can have such a dramatic impact on the end results.
The mind has the ability to focus on only one thing at a time. You
have to decide whether it is the past, present or the future. —
Martina Navratilova
unjabis are naturally aggressive. At least 4 hormones will fall off if you
P touch them accidentally. Aggression is the backbone of their existence
and chewing gum is their weapon of choice to show those emotions. So if
you ever wondered what motivated those beefy Punjabi boys with apples in
their armpits at discotheques to chew gum, you know that it is their way of
underlining their presence. It’s quite similar to how lions mark their presence
in a jungle. A “Singh is King” kind of a message.
The fact that the Indian Army consists of so many Punjabis makes one
feel safe. The beauty of the aggressive vibe is that it is directionally
proportional to the love and affection you get from them. The long and short
of it is that their mere presence is intimidating to many.
Australians are to the world what Punjabis are to India. Yuvraj Singh’s
presence on the cricket field signifies the power of a Punjabi. His swagger,
stance and the way he takes strike is his way of showing his presence on the
field. The one person who effectively did this before him was Sir Isaac
Vivian Alexander Richards.
Many people who don’t know Yuvi are intimidated by him and try and
stay away from him. I was also a little wary because with people who have an
aggressive demeanor, one is not sure what to expect. The fact that I used to
imitate his walk and stance at cricket events all the time didn’t help either.
The last thing I wanted was to be roughed up by him. Yuvi and Bhajji have
the reputation of even throwing Sachin into a jacuzzi and once both of them
wore scary masks and barged into the room of the Indian team’s video
analyst who almost fainted with fright.
The ice was broken when he and his team invited me to perform at the
Yuvraj Singh Foundation fundraiser event in South Africa which was the
beginning of a long friendship. His only feedback to me was, “Saale meri
nakal jab tu utarta hein toh ek change kar le, mein chewing gum kabhi nahi
khaata batting karte samay.”
Despite this in-born aggression and never-say-die attitude, the one thing
that truly intimidates a native North Indian is his inability to speak English
fluently. Kapil Dev is full of stories about the many times when cricketers
from his home state Haryana would approach him for English speaking tips
rather than fast bowling skills. To address this inadequacy, Yuvi recounted an
incident when he as the captain of the Punjab team had introduced this rule
that on every Sunday, the entire team would speak only in English. This was
his way of ensuring that the language was learnt in a more interesting way.
On the first Sunday of this language project, he realised that the entire team
was listening to music on their headphones and no one was talking to each
other. What was worse, during the game there was no communication
between the bowler and the fielders or the wicketkeeper till it came to a point
where a fielder dropped a catch. Yuvi was livid. But what happened after that
made him burst out laughing because the bowler and fielder were talking to
each other in sign language with the bowler enacting the dropped catch like a
mime artist. They were more comfortable doing this than saying a few words
in English which probably would have made Yuvi drop a few catches
himself, unable to control his laughter.
Yuvraj had done the impossible: Stuart Broad looked like Stuart
Little by the end of the over.
Over the last 10 years since I followed his career, I have never been able
to get any nuggets of cricketing information from him as I realised that he
doesn’t like to talk about cricket at all. Unlike other cricketers who love
chatting about the game, Yuvi prefers playing the game and utilising his extra
time in leisure activities with his buddies. So whenever I tried starting a
cricket related conversation with him he would quip, “Yaar mujhse kuch
sawaal mat puch! Mujhe bhi nahin pata kya ho raha hein!”
If a cricketer of the calibre of Yuvraj Singh says something like this, you
are bound to laugh it off. But if you go deeper into the statement you will
realise that there is more to it. If one was to ask Pandit Jasraj how a certain
taan came out of his vocal chords or if you were to ask Amitabh Bachchan
what was the cause of his intensity during the dialogue delivery of Agneepath
you may not get a satisfactory answer. The reason being unlike idiots like me,
they never spent time deconstructing what they did. They just did it naturally.
It’s the people who are enamoured by their craft who actually try to
deconstruct their genius by using complex words and theories.
Despite meeting him over drinks on several occasions, I’ve still not been
able to get any pearls of wisdom from Yuvi. Yet, the next day he would go
out and hit 64 runs off 32 balls. It made me realise that even Yuvi doesn’t
know what he is capable of and his biggest challenge is to get himself out of
his own way.
The one programme on television that he probably doesn’t watch is
“India’s Got Talent”, because I can see that he hates the word talent. He has
been a victim of the word talent much before Rohit Sharma did. Somehow I
feel that both of them, in their mind probably want to shout out loud from the
rooftops saying, “No I don’t have any talent, just leave me alone.” Sometimes
being extremely talented has its flip side especially when you are going
through a rough patch in your career.
Yuvi has an amazing topsy turvy story. He had a great start to his career;
then he had multiple injuries before he made a successful comeback. An
unforgettable Natwest partnership with Mohammed Kaif in 2002, struggles in
Test cricket, 6 sixes in 2007, Man of the Series in the World Cup, cancer, loss
of form again and finally a Rs 14 crore IPL deal to bounce back with. The
one common line that every commentator and critic has said throughout
Yuvi’s entire career is, “He’s got so much talent, but then why the
inconsistencies?”
I was there when he hit Stuart Broad for 6 sixes in the 2007 World Cup.
This was divine intervention. Who hits a fast bowler for 6 sixes when half the
time batsmen are trying to open the face of the bat to get a single and go to
the other end? Stuart Broad had started looking like Stuart Little by the end
of the over. I thought Yuvi was as surprised as Stuart Broad was. I’m sure, no
sane man will attempt to do this ever again in the history of cricket. I have
still not recovered from the various angles of the sixes that he hit that day. It
has probably had the same impact on me as when Madhuri kissed Vinod
Khanna in Dayavan, albeit on the positive side. I asked Yuvi what was going
through his mind and he replied, “I was hitting the ball and they happened to
land out of the ground. Also I was hurt that 2 weeks back I was hit for 5 sixes
in an over against England.” Come on! This couldn’t have been revenge.
I guess it is difficult being Yuvraj because at one moment your career is
on a high and the next you are suffering and the ball is not even touching
your bat. How does one live with such uncertainty? Is life seeking a balance
from Yuvi because it gave him a lot of things that normal people didn’t get?
How does one stay sane when there is chaos in the mind? It’s like getting a
100/100 in Math in your prelims and yet failing in the finals. This is bound to
immerse you in fits of depression and that is the reason Yuvi can’t
deconstruct himself and his abilities like normal cricketers can. He is truly a
Miracle Child.
Angad Bedi, actor and son of the legendary Bishen Singh Bedi and one of
Yuvi’s very close friends said, “Iski problem hein ki isse sab jaldi aa jata
hein. He was a top skater when his dad threw away his skates, he was a
superb tennis player, he is a superb cricketer, every girl in the city wants to
date him, when he hits the dance floor girls will take their eyes even off
Ranbir Kapoor.” This I have seen personally. Such is the rustic charm of
Yuvi that once I saw 30 girls from 15 countries at Yuvi’s party. 80 percent of
them were from non-cricket playing countries like Latvia, Estonia, Germany
and France. He has made cricket popular in countries which even the ICC
was unable to break through.
Yuvi is a child and everything he does has a child- like quality.
Circumstances made him into a cricketer and the talent that he had, made him
into a champion. Angad recounts that once during a low phase Yuvi had
decided not to touch the bat for 2 weeks. When one day he entered Yuvi’s
house during this period he saw Yuvi looking at the TV screen and making
sounds which replicated a ball hitting the bat on the sweet spot. He was
actually visualising the sweet spot in his mind. This might sound bizarre but
that process was helping him get his mind back to the playing field.
Recognising Talent
One of the most important things about talent is its acknowledgement and
providing it the support it needs. Here is where the captain of the team plays
an important role. The person who cracked Yuvraj Singh was Sourav
Ganguly. Yuvi says that Sourav Ganguly backed him and Viru and that gave
them enough confidence to feel secure in the cricket team. Yuvi still recounts
that it was in 2000 that he started feeling confident enough to say that he
belonged in international cricket but the confidence to perform abroad came
at the Natwest Trophy in 2002. He and Kaif had no idea that they would be
able to achieve England’s score of 325 runs as India was already 120-5. The
stadium was empty and everyone thought it was all over. The victory was
snatched out of the jaws of defeat and that’s what made it special. What is
clear is that when a team has talented individuals like Yuvraj Singh who are
not sure of what they are capable of you need a good leader to handle them.
MS Dhoni’s greatest strength was to actually recognise and manage the
abilities of his players. This is evident from his recent success with CSK and
the Indian cricket team. Interestingly, MS Dhoni’s talent was recognised by
Greg Chappell. Kiran More, who was then the chairman of selectors, recalls
an incident about how Greg recognised MS Dhoni’s abilities. During a
practice session, Chappell was having a discussion with Kiran More about
the future of Indian cricket. At that stage, MS had been in the team for less
than a year. Whilst the discussions were on, both of them saw MS do his
drills and he seemed the happiest to do all the tasks that were assigned to
him. At one such moment when MS did something spectacular Greg looked
up to Kiran and said, “I know one thing for sure, that boy there is going to be
the future captain of India.” Despite his personal man-management flaws, he
did recognise a future leader.
I mentioned this to Rameez Raja and he said this trait of identifying talent
was something their captain Imran Khan had in plenty. Recognising talent in
a person is one thing, backing him during tough times is another. Pakistan
went into the 1992 World Cup after a string of average performances and
Inzamam who Imran had picked from nowhere, he also had not been in the
greatest of form. In one of the team meetings Imran said that Inzamam would
play all the games. This didn’t go down well with Rameez who eventually
confronted Imran during a jogging session. He said, “Imran bhai I know Inzi
is a good player but I think you are overstressing his importance and that is
affecting the senior players.” Imran ran for a bit and looked at Rameez and
said, “Mark my words…Inzamam is the man who is going to win you the
World Cup.” Rameez was stunned by his statement and when it actually
happened he realised the greatness of Imran’s leadership.
In God We Trust
Over the years one common trait I saw among people who were very
talented was that they were more superstitious than the less talented ones. But
generally, I have found that sportsmen are religious and spiritual and I have
corroborated this fact with many of them. I think uncertainty and insecurity is
what brings God into the picture. Praying to a force boosts confidence while
chasing impossible targets and the thought that someone beyond this realm is
supporting you gives you the strength to achieve those goals. Praying as a
concept also gives you the feeling of being in the moment. The problem is
when you are an atheist, in times of trouble you tend to feel alone or helpless.
I’m sure if the likes of Holding, Marshall, Garner and Roberts were bowling
at you in the 80s, even if you were Einstein you would have turned into a
believer.
Paul Collingwood told me a story about South African batsman Neil
Mckenzie which gave me an idea about how superstition can actually make
sportsmen do irrational things. In one of the matches Neil’s colleagues played
a prank on him and hid his bat before he went in to bat; they actually taped
the bat to the ceiling of the dressing room. Suddenly a wicket fell and Neil
had to go in to bat and he realised that his bat was missing and amidst the
commotion he found that it was taped to the ceiling. After a lot of fretting and
fuming he managed to get it and went into bat. Interestingly he got a hundred
that day. Can you believe it, for the rest of his career he ensured that his bat
was taped to the ceiling of the dressing room before he went in to bat. This
may sound irrational but that’s the way it goes.
The other thing we observe are the emotions sportsmen display on the
cricket field all the time. Even the nonexpressive Rahul Dravid threw his cap
when the Rajasthan Royals lost to Mumbai Indians in IPL 2014. Over my
years of research, and talking to cricketers and sportsmen in general, I
realised that the sheer physical and mental investment one makes in sports
coupled with the need for victory makes you do these things. If as a cricketer
you have not eaten dessert for 10 years to remain fit and you drop a simple
catch or get a wicket then when you express yourself it is far more visual than
what an accountant would do after getting the balance sheet right. Also a
cricketer facing a mediocre day in office can cause national ignominy which
never happens to commoners like us.
The standard advice I have seen senior cricketers or commentators give
players is “Enjoy the game”. Over the years I have tried to figure what that
means, do people not enjoy the game? Do they hate the game? What is the
essence of this statement? So here is the answer for all sports lovers to
understand. It means that one must try and discover the joy of playing the
sport, the reason why you started playing the game—that very emotion. It
could also mean that one must stick to the basics. The moment you start
playing anything competitively, the whole universe starts complicating your
mind and in this process negativities and bad manners seep into your system,
thereby confusing your brain. Therefore to deactivate yourself from this web
is possibly the meaning of “enjoy your game”. So easy but yet so difficult,
especially if the recipient of this is a young emotional player who has been
saddled with advice. Dinesh Karthik once said, “The only thing under your
control is your technique and what you can do, the rest you leave it to the
Almighty.”
As a true blue Punjabi kid Yuvi shies away from showing his softer side,
but we saw that candid moment once when he hugged Sachin after winning
the World Cup in 2011. It was Sachin who had advised Yuvi, when he was
going through the toughest moments in the dressing room, to do his best to
win the Cup for that “one special person” in his life. Little did Sachin know
that, that special person was Sachin himself.
6
f 20 years back someone had suggested that Elizabeth Hurley would date a
I spinner, I would have roared in laughter even as I rolled on the ground.
Don’t forget that Sharmila Tagore married a batsman, Amrita Singh dated
Ravi Shastri only after he hit 6 sixes, Reena Roy married Mohsin Khan
inspite of him being a Pakistani batsman. Would Neena Gupta have ever
dated Larry Gomes instead of Viv Richards, despite his Lionel Richie like
looks? I doubt it. If Shoaib Malik was only a spinner there was no chance
Sania Mirza would have even glanced at him. These were the stark realities
of life as a spinner.
The “turning point” in every aspiring fast bowler’s life is when he realises
that inspite of doing everything that his coach has recommended and doing
most of the drills mentioned in Dennis Lillee’s The Art of Fast Bowling
things are not shaping anywhere close to being one. I was forced to realise
this when a kid two years younger than me thrashed me for 4 boundaries in
an over. I did some introspection to find that though my running speed was
like Imran Khan’s, my bowling speed was barely a yard faster than Laxman
Sivaramakrishnan. Yes he was a spinner in my time who bowled well and
sometimes spun the ball more than the length of his name.
It was difficult to accept this reality that was staring me in my face. Lord
Krishna had said to Arjuna in the Mahabharata that you can’t leave the
battlefield so there was no question of me leaving bowling altogether.
However I was not able to figure out what to do next. The only option
available to me was to become a spinner.
Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined that a day would come when I
would have to take this decision. It was like settling for a BA when all your
life, you wanted to be an engineer or doctor. Like most Indian kids of my
time, I idolised Kapil Dev and there was no chance that I would let him
down.
While spin bowling might be considered cool today, thanks to the likes of
Shane Warne and Muralitharan, it wasn’t so back then. With all due respect,
one never visualised Bedi, Prasanna or Venkataraghavan with hot chics on a
bike, but Kapil Dev or Imran Khan, definitely. So spin was never in my
aspiration list. But I had to come to terms with my limitations and kill my
ego, which was tough for a hormonally charged 16-year-old.
As a mediocre student, cricket was a kind of a safety valve for the
frustrations one experienced in the classroom. When one got bad marks,
which in my case was quite often, I could justify it by claiming to be a part of
the school and college cricket teams. My mother always saved me from my
dad by saying “he is bright but he couldn’t study because he was playing”.
The most horrific thing for any middle-class family was to accept that their
child was average in all aspects because that would dash any hope the family
had in you and make your parents look even worse in front of their friends.
So from my perspective it was important to be in some sports team. Also to
justify my mediocrity in class I had to be a batsman or a fast bowler. I would
never want my mother to feel embarrassed at her kitty party by having to say
that her son was an off-spinner. I still got away because my parents didn’t
care much, but in today’s competitive environment, parents would accept
nothing less than their child breaking every record Sachin has held, before he
has even turned 16. My neighbour actually believes that his son is an alloy of
Viv Richards and Sachin even though he can barely make it to his class team
and I can see that child buckling under parental pressure every day.
The only problem Abdul Qadir had was that he spun more than the
ball.
Back in the 80s, there was a bowler from Pakistan who was making huge
inroads in our minds as a spinner and that was Abdul Qadir. The only
problem was that he spun more than the ball. A great bowler, but his action
would make Johnny Lever’s facial contortions and mannerisms look very
normal. I felt for Qadir. He probably was just trying to do funny things to get
attention to his craft because otherwise spinners would never get noticed or
even stand a chance in the endorsement market. One realised the value
created by the drama of Abdul Qadir only years later as now every spinner
who is making a mark is creating his own theatre and performing art. Paul
Adams with the head inside the knees action, Muralitharan with the popping
ghost eyes which can make Kathakali dancers look like novices, and the
latest additions being Sunil Narine and Ajantha Mendis who even added
inputs from another game called carrom board in their bowling. It was a
matter of survival, get noticed or die.
After a lot of deliberations I finally came to terms with the fact that I was
going to be a spinner. In my mind, a spinner was essentially a bowler who
started his career as a fast bowler but because he was a loser and mediocre, he
had no option but to bowl slow to stay in the game. Surprisingly, Sachin also
started his career as a fast bowler and I’ve often wondered if he also went
through this turmoil.
For years if you were a spinner, you’d be embarrassed to introduce
yourself as a cricketer because for some reason even you didn’t personally
believe that you were doing anything valuable. Even in team photographs one
would be somewhere on the side. Whatever fame Ravi Shastri got was only
after he started batting up the order for India, the “Sir Jadeja” status too has a
lot of batting in it. That’s the way the game goes.
I started as a leg spinner probably the same time Shane Warne started his
career. One of the first challenges for a leg spinner is to first land the ball in
the right place. I struggled with this for a long time. Despite a run-up,
reminiscent of the greats, for some strange reason my balls landed straight on
to the batsmen’s bat or directly in the wicketkeeper’s gloves. Months later I
showed some signs of improvement but then most of my deliveries landed in
my half of the pitch which is what happens with ordinary leg-spinners.
That’s when I turned to off-spin bowling. Now, off-spinners are accorded
the same status in cricket that mopeds get in the motorbike chain, with fast
bowling being compared to a Harley Davidson. Even there, my life was not
hunky-dory. As an off-spinner, I struggled with the same problems that
Harbhajan Singh would face later in his professional career; so from that
perspective I possibly was ahead of my times. My off-spin never spun and
always went straight or the other way. Therefore everytime Saqlain Mushtaq
gets credit for the Doosra I feel hurt and distressed. My leg spin was no better
as my natural delivery was the googly and I never got the leg spin to turn
which great spinners like Piyush Chawla and Amit Mishra suffer today after
years of playing professional cricket. It was a truly challenging period in my
life.
Growing up in the pre-liberalisation era of the 80s and the early 90s, we
largely made safe and defensive choices under the influence of our elders
because of which our personalities lacked any sense of natural aggression. As
spinners, we just rolled our arm over and waited for some result which was in
tune with the Hindu philosophy of “Karma karte raho par phal ki chinta mat
karo”. Obviously with an attitude like this, there was no way we’d get any
wickets.
Thanks to Warne and Muralitharan this ignominy of being a spinner got
reduced over the years because of their sheer dominance and the way they
proved to the cricketing world that even spinners were real men. Shane
Warne ensured that he put this message across even off the field and proved
to the world that his off-field victims were more than his on-field victims
thanks to his ability to charm the maidens.
My perspective towards spin bowling changed when I first got to see
Muralitharan practise his craft from close quarters in Colombo. Watching
Murali bowl in the nets was an amazing experience because every time
Murali was at the point of releasing the ball there was this big hissing snake
like sound, which could easily reach the batsman. The rip he gave the cricket
ball was so hard that this sound was generated even before the ball pitched. If
he was bowling in the subcontinent then the snakes would definitely get an
inferiority complex. The rip he gave the ball, which felt like it went through a
million revolutions, was possibly similar to the way God spun the Earth and
then left it to rotate. When he was about to leave I overheard him telling a
colleague, “The batsmen should know how much I can turn the ball, but then
the wicket will come when I don’t turn the ball”. It was only years later when
Indian spinner Murali Karthik explained to me that I understood what
Muralitharan actually meant.
During a discussion, Muralitharan once told my dear friend Murali
Karthik and me over a cup of coffee that he used to love turning the ball, but
for years he was unable to get as many wickets as he wanted to. In one of the
matches Aravinda de Silva walked up to him and said that if he stopped
turning the ball he could get wickets. This was something Muralitharan just
couldn’t digest. Once on a flight with the legendary Kapil Dev, the former
Indian captain told him, “Your problem is that you are predictable because
you spin the ball too much, I know where your ball will be and I can hit you
all day. You have to start learning how to bowl straight.” This utterly
confused him and he just couldn’t get the plot. This was like telling Sunny
Leone that if you want to be a successful actress you need to wear a sari and
cover yourself with a pallu. That was the time he watched Saqlain Mushtaq
bowl the doosra and was amazed by his success. Once he got his inspiration
it took him four years of daily practice and it was only in 1997 when he
started getting it right. His first victim was Steven Fleming and it was only
then that the Murali magic started in its true sense.
Wow! The best spinner in the world is saying that unpredictability is the
reason you fox your victims. No wonder I never made an impact with
women. I was just too predictable, I didn’t do different things. I just did the
right things and that just doesn’t work with either women or batsmen.
Women like surprises, now I know why. Whether in life or in cricket how
consistently unpredictable you are is what makes you great.
Its not about how many deliveries you have, its about how many
deliveries the batsman thinks you have. — Shane Warne
It didn’t stop there, he went on to say that the mantra for a spinner to be
successful is to create an illusion, then bowl the line and length and then
finally let the wicket do the rest. What does “creating an illusion” mean in
terms of cricket? Illusion is what one associated with people like David
Copperfield. Ironically, David Copperfield’s illusions not only helped him
wow audiences, but the heart of a super model called Claudia Schiffer.
When it came to Murali, I wondered if the big popping eyes at delivery
and the wicked smile created the illusion. According to him Shane Warne
was the master of creating a reputation and taking the batsman’s wicket even
before he bowled the ball and that’s the most important thing that he had
learnt from him.
“The only option for a spinner is to adapt and be brave enough to even get
beaten up once in a while. Don’t be defensive even if things go wrong. Take
fast calls and remember that a delayed decision is a lost opportunity. Even if
it’s a bad decision it’s better to take it rather than allow someone else to take
it.”
I remember my elders telling me that the best way to understand any
concept was by trying to explain it to someone else. Ashwin said this worked
beautifully for him as he had started coaching tennis ball cricket players at
the age of 20 and learnt a hell of a lot from it. He mentions that being a coach
made him realise that there were a lot of basic things even at the international
level he was forgetting to implement. It was through these coaching sessions
with the players that he found out through experimentation and observation
the correlation between pressure and performance.
He says, “A spinner bowls well when there is no batsman. Then when you
keep an ordinary batsman, he bowls two bad balls in an over and when there
is a good batsman he automatically bowls 4 bad balls including 2 full tosses.
This is how the mind of a bowler works, so it’s important in a way that one
should focus on the process.” Very similar to what great batsmen say, “Don’t
play the bowler, play the ball.”
Spinners these days are everywhere and are having a whale of a time
making their own style statements. England had Graeme Swann and Monty
Panesar. Monty kind of represents the old-school spinner like me who has
somehow managed to hold fort by increasing the quality of his bowling. He is
one of the most uncoordinated human beings on the planet. Inspite of having
the longest fingers in the business he misses high fives by a foot.
I recently read Monty’s autobiography, yes he has already written one and
I can understand where he is coming from. He’s probably thinking, “I don’t
know much about my future, let me get the book out of my bucket list or
years later I may not even get that deal.” The one thing I was really proud of
Monty was that while his teammates peed on the pitch, he peed on a bouncer
in a night club. This is such fast bowlerish behaviour. This is the attitude I
like, for he just might be the first and last person of Indian origin to take on a
bouncer.
7
Self-Analysis
As a bowler, you discover your bowling abilities and chinks during match
situations. Therefore it is imperative that bowling in matches remains the
focus supplemented by the gym and strengthening of core muscles. In 2006
Zak realised that when bowling over-the-wicket, the ball swung way too
much and would go out of control. That’s when he first decided to try coming
around the wicket. With a slight change in his wrist position, he discovered
the now successful round-the-wicket strategy which he uses so effectively.
Zak realised his run-up was too long and by the time he reached the
bowling mark he was falling apart. A shortened run-up also helped him get
the incoming delivery going. He says that if you can’t bowl consistently at
145 kmph then at some point in your life, you’ve got to decide your optimal
speed and focus on the skills instead. When you are young, you should bowl
as fast as possible and over a period of time, add different deliveries to your
armoury. Build your house with a strong foundation and you can always
modify and add your showpieces later.
According to Zak, even using your armoury is a skill. A chance discussion
with a few leading batsmen in the midst of a rough patch provided him with
one of the most shocking insights that he had become predictable as a bowler.
After his first two deliveries, batsmen were able to predict his bowling
pattern. The fight between the batsman and the bowler is not only a physical
duel, but also a mental one in which the aim is to get into the other’s head
and outsmart each other.
Sometimes this happens off the field too. Zak recalls an incident when he
had got Mathew Hayden out three times in a row during the India tour and he
wanted to make sure that he played that into Hayden’s mind because he knew
Hayden would be thinking of getting aggressive soon and batting him out of
the attack. So at a function one evening, Zak walked up to him and said,
“Mate I’ll get you out once again.” The following day Hayden refused to
score a single run off Zak for nearly six overs and that put tremendous
pressure on the Aussies, needless to say, Zak had done his job.
Minimising injuries and maintaining peak physical fitness is essential for
every fast bowler. So how does one do that? He says it’s like a buffet and you
choose the dishes you want based on your appetite and your body
requirements. Some would go for salads, just starters or a full course meal.
Likewise, when formulating a work out, one would mix and match from a
buffet of pilates, circuit training, weights, aerobics and more depending on
your fitness objectives.
Gary Kirsten played a key role in Zak’s recovery from his shoulder injury.
Gary took him to the Cricket Club of India and made him bowl for over an
hour. Besides giving him inputs, he made him realise the positive aspects of
his bowling. That’s what a good coach should be doing. Observing what’s
going on in a player’s mind and then taking corrective action.
One of the other notable Indian fast bowlers who never got his due was
Ajit Agarkar. He once explained to me that swing is all about how one
maintains the ball which the Pakistani bowlers had mastered. Apart from the
designated players who do that the person who also helps maintain the ball is
the spinner. The spinner holds the ball closer to the palm, so if his hands get
moist then it adds moisture to the rougher surface reducing the swing.
Therefore a spinner who holds the ball on the rougher side to get a better
grip, has to sometimes sacrifice this and hold the shinier surface in order to
maintain the ball’s balance. No wonder they say that bowlers hunt in pairs.
One of the toughest balls to bowl is the ball which is bowled straight
because if you can land the ball on the seam, then it does what it has to but
rarely does anyone get that delivery right.
Measuring one’s run-up is the start of the bowling process. Ajit always
believed that marking the run-up a little longer was always fun because a
batsman felt a little intimidated by the length of the bowler’s run-up and only
realised the futility of this after the ball was bowled. Ajit used to measure his
run-up by the standard procedure of counting his steps. During a match
against the Aussies Jason Gillespie noticed that the run-up length marked on
the two sides of the pitch differed by almost a foot. When he checked with
Srinath, he was told it was Ajit’s marking. Ajit till then had no idea that he
had different lengths on either side. From then on, he ensured that his
bowling run-up was measured by a tape and not by his steps. One would have
never guessed that such things mattered.
Steve Waugh used to constantly mess with Ajit’s head. One day when he
came into bat he went up to Ajit and said, “You talk better than you bat.” Ajit
gave it back to Steve Waugh by nearly destroying his elbow during his
farewell series.
Ajit played for Middlesex where he had the opportunity to train and bowl
with Glen McGrath. He recalls one of the incidents when McGrath turned in
about 5 hours late for a match. It so happened that his car broke down.
Everyone knew the reason except Ajit, so he asked McGrath when he finally
appeared, “Why are you so late?” Pat came the answer, “Mate that’s what
happens when you put petrol in a diesel car.” It’s good to know that unlike on
the field, McGrath made a few mistakes off it.
But his clincher was when Ricky Ponting got in his way and tried to taunt
him. Ajit shut him up in a way that can make the best stand-up proud. He
walked up to Ponting and just said, “Mate do you have a century at Lord’s?”
For those who don’t know, Ajit has the enviable accomplishment of scoring a
century at Lord’s.
8
Dermot Reeve was asked what was his most memorable moment of the 2011
World Cup and his immediate response was, “Sidhu allowing me to speak
one line during the tournament.”
avjot Singh Sidhu is one man who has single handedly destroyed the
N life of his co-commentators.
Nowadays, most commentators working with Sidhu say that in case he
doesn’t allow them to speak for an entire over, they declare it a maiden.
My experiences with Sidhu during live gigs were always fun because he
was very clear about what he was going to say and you had to adjust your act
accordingly. I remember him once telling me, “Ask me why I’m a true
leader?” I told him that the question did not fit in the scheme of things for
which his reply was that he had a great one-liner for this question and
therefore it was imperative that I asked him that question. Needless to say, I
had no choice. When Sidhu decides to step out, you don’t bowl lolly pops to
him was a lesson I had learnt a long time back while watching him thump
those hapless spinners out of the park. One thing is for sure, Sidhu has been a
mascot for all the literary greats whose wisdom was forgotten and Mark
Twain and Oscar Wilde must be thanking Sidhu for reviving their one-liners
from wherever they are now.
Even the great Imran Khan got mesmermised by the Sardar during an
interview. The Oxford educated Imran may have even wondered if
Shakespeare was born in Patiala. I remember Imran confronting him with “I
am optimistic about Pakistan’s success” for which his reply was, “Optimistic
is the one who thinks bullshit is a fertiliser.”
Rahul Dravid had once said to me that in his entire cricketing career,
Sidhu had never uttered a word. So when I asked Sidhu how this
transformation came about, his reply was “Meditation”. What he said after
that was the clincher, “Sathaye saab, when 50 percent of the world loves you
and the other half hates you then you know that success has come to you.”
Whether you love him or hate him, you can’t ignore him.
How times have changed. My first memories of commentary involved the
duo of Sushil Doshi and Ravi Chaturvedi which was not the best of
experiences. This was not because they were bad but because for some reason
words such as “Manovagyanik dabav”, or descriptions such as “Kadee
pariksha le rahe Madan Lal”, never captured the glamour of the game in any
sense. I guess we have to accept certain things, one of it being that this game
is not fun with the Hindi language, just like swear words in English sound
like sweet nothings in Hindi. It is a different issue that often English
commentary also sounded the same. They used to say that Bob Willis’
commentary was actually used by mothers to put their babies to sleep. I guess
it also had to do with the nature of the sport because scoring 40 off 100 balls
was considered an excellent strike rate back then.
Then Tony Greig happened and an entire nation realised that cricket
broadcasting is actually supposed to add value to the sport and make it
entertaining rather than be a burden. His high pitched voice in combination
with the likes of Bill Lawry and Ian Chappell was like Pandit Bhimsen Joshi,
Jasrajji, and Mansoor Ali Khan saab having a combined concert. When Tony
Greig was commentating sometimes even Ravi Shastri looked like Viv
Richards. Such was his impact.
But the one moment that etched his voice in the Indian psyche was his
loud banter during Sachin’s famous Sharjah hundreds. One wonders that if it
wasn’t for Tony, would some of Sachin’s centuries have looked even half as
impactful as they did. Therefore I have always believed that much of the
credit for Sachin’s earlier successes should be attributed to Tony Greig’s
boisterous praising of the Master. So there was someone else before me who
made a career in India because of Sachin. And it was this very imitation of
Tony and Sachin that landed me my first assignment with Sony Max during
the Cricket World Cup in South Africa.
When I landed in Cape Town and headed to the studios, I was introduced
to the crew and because it was the first time everyone had met, even the Extra
Innings team had no idea what to do with me. They were also experimenting
with cricket programming back then, so they told me that they would figure
out what to do with me once they got there. The only stuff I had in my bag
was some 20 odd cricketers’ batting styles and around 5 voices of cricketers.
All of it untested.
Gary, who was the head of the broadcasting team, was English. I was
introduced to him by a production executive who said, “He does some
cricketers, Have a look at him.” I was as embarrassed by the introduction as
he was. Then he asked me, “I believe you do a Tony Greig?” Now Indians
enjoying my take on Greigy was one thing, but an English head of production
wanting to see my imitation was a different ball game.
“C’mon we’ll test you out now, come with me.”
I followed Gary and by this time I had started sweating because the last
thing I wanted was someone saying, “Why the hell did we get this guy here,
he is shit!.” I got my first shock of the tour when I entered the studio.
Standing against the wall were two 6 foot 8 inch men who cumulatively
could cover 22 yards of the cricket pitch if they were lying down. One was
the West Indian fast bowler Ian Bishop who apparently bowled the fastest
ball Sachin faced in his life and the other was the man who got me this job in
the first place, Tony Greig. I didn’t know how to react because it was a weird
situation I was thrown into. Even before I could recover, Gary said to Tony,
“We want to get this bloke on the show and apparently he does a good Tony
Greig.” That was it, my heart sank because I could see what was going to
happen in the next 5 minutes. We all knew this man’s reputation. After all,
the media had portrayed him as an arrogant, loud, smart man who along with
Kerry Packer started the World Series Cricket in the 70s. Suddenly I hear,
“Mate, show us what you got.” I don’t know what happened after that, but I
rattled all my Greigy lines in a jiffy and the last thing I remember is Tony
Greig’s loud guffaw followed by a baritone voice telling Gary, “Let’s shoot
the guy.” Now considering the violence in South Africa, that statement can
have very different meanings. Fortunately for me, he liked what he’d heard,
especially when I shouted “Wonderful Shot!” thrice and made a remark that
if there was a calculation done, the impact of him saying “Wonderful” would
be far greater than that of Eric Clapton mentioning it in millions of renditions
of his song “Wonderful Tonight”.
On cricket tours, Tony used to be the life of a commentary box. Before the
producer could cue him, saying “Tony you’re on”, he would be busy chatting
with his mates about the weather, the women, Kerry Packer’s influence and
then suddenly rush and take guard in his inimitable way. It might be the most
inane news, but he loved to make it sound good. I remember a gaffe that he
made in Birmingham when the Pakistani section was blowing horns like no-
one’s business and suddenly he shouted, “Oh what an atmosphere, these
horny Pakistanis are having a party.” There was a stunned silence in the box
but then it was back to business in a few minutes again.
Tony Greig and Ian Chappell were two individuals who I thought were the
epitomy of professionalism. They would know everything about the game
before it started. Tony loved the concept of breaking news and unlike the
Hindi channels who cook up breaking news, he worked hard for the same.
Though he would like a bit of sensationalism, I would see him constantly
chatting with match referees, groundsmen and authorities to get some news
he could use in his broadcast. When it came to insights on the game, I think
no one can match Ian Chappell. I call him the Yash Chopra of cricket as he is
the biggest cricket romantic out there. This man is full of anecdotes for every
cricketing situation there can be. I also believe that his liver is beer and wine
proof because it is difficult to visualise him without a glass. I remember
meeting him at a bar in London at 9 am and he was having a beer. It was a
different issue that I had just woken up and he had finished 40 laps in the
swimming pool. These Aussies are made differently. Period! Ian is like your
favourite uncle who could cook up a story whenever you wanted as a child,
whether it was Spiderman or Superman.
This man could be extremely witty and sarcastic in his commentary and
could say things with a plain face which could make you smile
instantaneously. I remember an instance when Pakistan was playing India and
Javed Miandad was the coach of the Pakistan team. Abdul Razzaq was
batting and Javed, the enthusiastic bloke that he is, was making gestures to
Razzaq from the player’s balcony explaining to him how he should be
playing. Ian’s reaction on air went something like, “Razzaq is a good
cricketer which is evident from the fact that he is not watching Javed
Miandad giving all those instructions.”
The reason you see humour is because you observe beyond what
everyone does and that’s what a good commentator is supposed to
do.
— Ian Chappell
He is one of the few guys who can tell the viewer more than what he sees.
A classic example of that was when during one of the matches Dhoni had
asked for 4 bats from the dressing room and held 3 of them together and
practised a stroke. All the commentators thought that he was changing his bat
as he had managed to destroy the previous one while hitting a helicopter shot.
Suddenly there’s a voice which says, “MS is trying the bats together and
practising the stroke because that will acclimatise the hand to a heavy bat
load. So when he holds one bat while he is batting his hands would feel much
lighter after that exercise.” I was amazed at how he pointed out such a subtle
thing while the rest of the world was busy having coffee.
He once told me, “The reason you see humour is because you observe
beyond what everyone does and that’s what a good commentator is supposed
to do.”
Said Mandira: “It was the “Big occasion syndrome” for me too, amidst ex-
cricketers, suits, technical stalwarts and me wearing interesting clothes. They
said, “Don’t worry, just do what you are good at.” And honestly I didn’t
know till then what I was good at. As Shanti on TV I was given my lines but
as Mandira I had to make my lines for live TV. I was making mistakes by the
minute and was constantly telling myself that I have been selected out of so
many people and that I can’t be letting everyone down. I just could not stop
weeping for the first 7 days.”
Unlike Shaanti, here the weeping would not have helped garner TRPs so
Mandira left the ablah nari tag and decided to take on the cricket world and I
give her full credit for how she transformed herself. I remember whenever
she spoke in the studio she got a raised eyebrow. She was constantly asking
herself whether she belonged here and there was a time when she told Sneha
Rajani the Head at Sony Max that she could not do it anymore as there was
just too much criticism. That’s when Sneha told her, “We got you here
because we believe in you and if you empty the baggage in your brain of
being a woman and the bigness of the moment and it being a male sport, etc,
etc, you will be fine.”
Mandira said, “Live broadcasting taught me to be present in the current
moment and not worry about the gaffes made in the past or the anxiety of the
future. Heaven and Hell is in your own head. So with swollen eyes I decided
to throw away my baggage the next day and just go for it and things just
changed after that. A few days later my confidence came out, a little too
much, after the famous India vs Pakistan World Cup 2003 game at Centurion
which we won. We had a huge celebration that night and I came pretty
groggy the next day for the telecast. Mark Nicholas asked me live on air from
the ground about my celebrations the night after India’s win. I replied
instantaneously, “Oh it was terrific but I can’t describe it to you as we are a
family channel.” Mark was shocked by my answer. Actually everyone was
shocked including me. I didn’t realise what I had said. It was another
blunder!!! But one thing I realised after this was I wasn’t scared anymore.”
Mandira talks about the fact that she always did her homework but the key
challenge was to apply it on live TV. One good piece of advice she got was
not to load up the questions so heavy that the player had nothing to answer.
Cricketers are reluctant speakers. She says, “One has to ensure it’s not about
you and the fact that I was the only woman present meant sometimes it
became about me. So even if Shah Rukh Khan made it about me, I still had to
recover from the flattery and make it about him. Having said that, one has to
bring one’s personality into what you do, otherwise you won’t make a mark.”
If you are associated with cricket one is also vulnerable to controversies
especially when India is not playing well. When India was eliminated in the
initial rounds of the 2007 World Cup and the media had nothing to write
about, they created a controversy around Mandira’s tattoo which she had for
years. She had to issue an apology saying it was not done to hurt anyone’s
religious sentiments. She added, “Then came the saree which I wore which
had the flags of all the World Cup teams and Star News did a piece where
they interviewed soldiers in Kargil saying “The flag you are protecting is
what Mandira was wearing on her body”, I was once again under scrutiny.”
She remembers that she got a lot of hate mail from Bangladesh because
she said, “What! We got beaten by Bangladesh.” There were Facebook pages
dedicated to “Hate Mandira”. She further added that the West Indies World
Cup was just a disaster. A wrap-up show at 4 am when India is not playing
and 3 people are watching is the worst punishment one can get as a presenter.
Her 5 days in Pakistan were among the best experiences she has had. She
said, “I had one embarrassing moment there as well. I was watching the game
and Irfan managed to come to the area where we were sitting. I remember
getting excited and screaming out, “Irfan I love you”, like a true fan. As I did
it, I realised that the camera was focussing on me and it was on the screen for
all to see.”
Another ace cricket presenter on TV is Gaurav Kapur whose strength
actually lies in making all the player interactions very comfortable and
engaging whether it is a discussion with Wasim Akram on reverse swing or
with Sunil Narine on the carom ball. He mentions the importance of talking
to the players before the interview and helping them formulate answers for
the standard questions. When you do that then the interviews become
impactful. He says, “Imagine if I had to bat in a cricket match and I went
there in front of thousands I would expect my non-striker or the other
cricketers to calm me down, make me comfortable, similarly when players
are giving interviews it is not their domain and therefore one has to give them
support to face the balls on this pitch called live TV.” This is absolutely true
because I have seen a lot of presenters just rush to a player and throw the
mike at their face after they have scored a century and ask, “How are you
feeling after this hundred?” To me this is the most inane question as no sane
man would feel hurt or distraught after scoring a hundred.
The other thing he says is, never underestimate the viewer. Always
consider that he or she knows more than you and even if 10 people are
watching a show ensure that those people feel satisfied by the broadcast.
Gaurav says someone who inspired him in his cricket journey was Rahul
Dravid because of his manners and the way he carried himself. The other
thing about Rahul he mentions is his curiosity. He recounts an incident where
he and his fiancé were having dinner with Rahul and for 2 hours Rahul did
not even mention the word cricket and actually understood the nuances of his
and his fiance’s profession which was shocking because normally with
cricketers one rarely gets to see this quality. Gaurav also mentions that in the
newer generation he is amazed by the single minded focus of Virat Kohli
when it came to his diet which is probably the reason why he has those 6
packs. Even after a lot of coaxing by friends once Virat refused to have
chicken curry during an evening out. When Gaurav asked him about it, Virat
said, “Ek saal se meine chicken curry nahi khaiye hein because the curry
makes you put on weight.” Now that’s creditable. For a Punjabi lad with
Virat’s aggression to stay without chicken curry is akin to a Gujarati family
managing without thepla for the rest of their lives.
9
“I have always believed its not about me. My glory comes from making
others look good.”
Harsha Bhogle
he Indian male believes that he knows cricket better than anyone else in
T the country. He is convinced that if he was batting at Perth or Durban he
could have adjusted his batting technique better than Dravid and Laxman put
together. My uncle never played the game and was always averaging around
105 kgs during the course of his lifetime. He never got up to even pick up the
remote to change the channel but had strong views on the fitness quotient of
the Indian team and how Raina’s sliding stop technique needed some fine
tunning. Like him, my grandfather could barely lift his back but had a theory
on how Sachin should change the angle of his back lift and improve his
performance. How an Indian garners the audacity to make such statements is
an area of research worthy of a thesis.
Indians, especially Maharashtrians and Bengalis, are born theorists! A co-
operative bank cashier for 25 years, my dad’s friend had enough courage to
talk about everything from economics to cricket and quantum physics. From
the limited enclosure of his tiny cabin he could device a foolproof solution to
the Simla Agreement and in the same breath will tell you that MIG 21s were
becoming flying coffins because of the sheer negligence of the Indian Air
Force. That’s why they say that it is knowledge that creates problems in
India. Lack of it can make you an expert.
However, over the last 20 years, there has been one man who made his
opinions count in the world of cricket and that is my dear friend Harsha
Bhogle. Every Indian cricket lover has envied and aspired to be in his shoes. I
was one of them. Harsha has lived every Indian male’s dream.
Soon after I completed my MBA, which I had to do to overcome my
middle-class Maharashtrian guilt and get my family off my back, I headed
straight to Mumbai. Here I met Harsha and shared with him my vision of
becoming the Jerry Maguire of the cricketing world. I tried to impress him
with my insights about the game and how I could change the way cricket was
run in the country. I was hoping that he would notice the glint in my eye and
predict my greatness. That did not happen. He just gave me one simple piece
of advice, he said, “Your ideas seem interesting but I think you should get a
real job.”
Harsha’s advice seemed to have no effect on me and like him I went on to
pursue a career related to cricket after a corporate stint. However, neither of
us would have predicted that 9 years later we would be in the commentary
box together. Watching Harsha in the commentary box during the 2006 South
Africa series was like doing an Executive Programme in Sports Broadcasting
at a premier institute. It also made me realise the fact that commentary is not
as simple as the world thinks it is. For millions, their opinion of commentary
is that one just has to sit there, talk and then hang out with the cricketers.
Sadly that’s not the case. A cricket commentator, especially someone who
has not played the game at a certain level, is naturally looked down upon by
the cricketing fraternity and completely not welcome. So Harsha’s greatness
lies in the fact that he honed his craft braving the toughest of conditions.
People don’t realise that players also hate commentators till they become
commentators themselves. I haven’t seen a single player ever have a heart-to-
heart conversation with a commentator; even if he has played 100 Tests. The
most significant learning for me was that a sports presenter, however tough
the conditions might be, still had to endeavour to make the expert sitting next
to him look good along with executing the mandatories well. That is why he
was the only person who could handle Sidhu and Boycott equally well at the
same time. Harsha says, “Live telecast is the ultimate team sport. You have to
feel good about what you are doing, but sometimes it can be taxing during
long tours. You see everyone chilling around you while you have been told to
fill in for another hour. Sometimes I wondered why I was the only one to
come first and leave last. But then I had to make peace with the fact that I had
to work the hardest as my route to this profession was different.”
Just like the director is all-important for an actor unless you are a
superstar, the most important person in the broadcast room is the producer
who the commentators revolve around. A typical day would have the
commentators come into the box and check the roster which will tell them
their various slots. I have always felt the senior players are not worried about
what is in store because as an expert commentator they more or less know
what to expect in a game. One person though would come before the rest of
the gang and make sure he knew the surroundings well before the game
started. That was Harsha.
The commentary box is for some strange reason, one of the most
uncomfortable places to work in; whether it’s the SCG or the Centurion. It is
almost modelled on the anda cell at Arthur Road jail, possibly smaller than
Mandela’s Robben Island cell where he spent 17 years. Harsha sits there
along with ex-cricketers like Ravi Shastri, Sunil Gavaskar, Ian Chappell and
others who between them have played millions of Test matches. Besides
those physically present, he has an ear piece that helps him listen to four
different people including the producer who is instructing him on the flow of
the broadcast. Whenever his wife Anita complains about Harsha not listening
to her, I wonder if it is true because in the broadcasting room he has the
ability to listen to eight people at a time whilst watching the proceedings. To
me this ear piece is the most irritating piece of equipment because it blocks
your thoughts. But he somehow manages it with consummate ease. While the
experts are giving their opinions, the producer may say things like, “Ok now
change the conversation to Sehwag’s batting and we will follow it up with a
package on Sehwag’s boundaries”, in his ear piece. Just as he is about to cue
the boundaries he would get instruction that the tape was not functioning and
so he would need to talk about Kumble’s bowling and Harsha would ease
into the Kumble package without making the expert feel that he had been
rudely cut off. This he would do continuously for hours with a smile which
was as pleasant as Aishwarya Rai and Vidya Balan’s put together. While
doing this he would be the only one following the game at all levels and
paying attention to all the developments around the match.
What separates a great player and an average player is that a great
player knows it’s a big day, and he has to perform on the biggest
stage but pretends it’s just another day. — Nasser Hussain
I used to always wonder how Harsha would be wired all the time and how
the flow of events registered in his brain so beautifully. I remember being
nervous doing a segment once because I couldn’t hear anything in the ear
piece and was not sure how to react to the camera. He calmed me down and
said, “On a live telecast your mind should be very sharp and clear and don’t
get carried away by the occasion, consider it a normal day in your life.” He
said that the worst days of his live TV career were when he got carried away
by the occasion because he wanted to be at his best. Harsha explains, “I
decided to do many things and over analysed the things I was going to say. It
was during the 2007 T20 World Cup where everything went wrong that day
— me, the TV crew, literally everything. I was about to cue a tape and then
some wrong tape got played. Just as I was about to cue an interview, some
other interview came up. The director’s instructions in my ear piece were
barely audible so I had to rely on gut feeling and it just didn’t work out well.
I remember Nasser Hussain telling me, that what separates a great player and
an average player is that a great player knows it’s a big day, and he has to
perform on the biggest stage but pretends it’s just another day. The moment
you psyche yourself for the big day, you are taut; you are not thinking clearly
and that’s when you lose the plot.”
As a kid I remember there were times I used to give all the answers to my
parents at home, then go for the exam and fail miserably. There is something
about pressure that gets the worst of you whether in school or in real life.
The ability to remain calm under pressure is very important in live
television and this is something that Harsha always stresses on.
He says, “Live broadcasting always happens on the move and more often
than not, one is rushed into a telecast where one reacts to the situation at
hand. But you know that in your subconscious mind, you know a hell of a lot
more than what you actually said. If you are doing a certain match, what
happened in the last three games should come to you as a throwaway line.
But when you are rushed and too many things are happening around you and
your mind is somewhere else, then you start searching for facts and it affects
the way you are looking down the camera. The small pieces of information
that you add to the commentary are what makes it look good and the ability
to retrieve that information from your database is where you make an impact.
If you don’t have a clear mind you may not be able to do it that well.”
Well my throwaway line in my Trigonometry paper was always Sin2 θ +
Cos2 θ = 1.
On screen, Harsha appears to be one of the happiest people on the planet,
but I know the effort he takes to appear so. Even if he is angry off camera, he
would control it by walking out of the box just like a batsman walks towards
the forward short leg fielder to relax before he takes strike.
Informed Nothingness
One evening when we were having dinner, Harsha emphasised the
importance of preparation in live broadcasting. He said, “It’s important that
one always has to have a go-to-line. Sometimes the producer is new and
maybe stressed, so he forgets to tell you what the next tape is about, but you
have to still go on and look natural and fill the time before he recovers and
tells you what the upcoming details are. That is the time you fill in with
things which are called “Informed Nothingness” where one is not saying
anything profound but one has to make it seem interesting till things are back
on track. You have to ensure that you don’t start a new point in this phase
because then it would be difficult to come back to the original point when the
producer is ready. Most importantly the viewer should never come to know
that things had gone out of control.”
However in my opinion, in the case of Navjot Singh Sidhu, one can’t
really tell the difference between commentary and “Informed Nothingness”.
I always thought that one of Harsha’s biggest strengths was to bring out
the emotion of the moment and that entire last session during Sachin’s
retirement Test match was a moment to cherish. I don’t think anyone else
would have done justice to the final lap as Harsha did.
Harsha reminisces, “I remember distinctly that I was getting into that
moment. When Sachin started the lap my emotions had started to show, my
words were flowing, in a sense everything had happened in front of my eyes.
Ian Bishop was next to me, I suddenly noticed him putting the mike down. I
saw that and asked him to please pick it up and join the conversation. He
replied softly, “No, you know the emotion of the moment, just carry on”. I
hadn’t rehearsed those words, they just came. Till that moment happened I
was a commentator but after that I became a fan. But you couldn’t lose the
discipline of a commentator. The moment belonged to someone else. So I
cannot fill that moment with my own words. It had to be measured with the
right pauses. So every time the pictures were breathing I told the viewers a
story. It was just a flow which wouldn’t stop. It was truly special.”
Somehow I had noticed that Harsha always delivered his best lines for
Sachin, Rahul and VVS Laxman. When I asked him about this he said that
when you know certain players as people and you like and respect them you
want them to do well and when they do well you start to feel their happiness
also and then the words that come out are laced with that warmth. With the
new players it is a little different but the good part is that he finds it easier to
be objective.
Many readers would probably not know that Harsha has a huge following
in Australia because of his radio stints there since the early 90s. There are
many times during the Test matches that one will see a group of Aussies
suddenly laughing loudly as they would be listening to ABC radio
commentary where Harsha and Kerry O’Keefe would be having a whale of a
time. I always wondered how beautifully he bonded with the international
commentators but in countries like England there used to be a certain
unfriendly vibe among the Indian and the English commentators. I witnessed
that during both the English tours. At the Lord’s Test match in 2010 I really
wanted to walk up to Michael Vaughan and reprimand him for the statements
he was making about VVS Laxman. He claimed that VVS had applied
Vaseline on his bat. I had taken that allegation personally and I wanted to tell
him that VVS is such a nice and conscientious guy and that he wouldn’t even
apply Vaseline on his face, forget the bat! Just relax! That was the time
Indian and English commentators were fighting about Decision Review
System (DRS) decisions. I distinctly remember the day in Nottingham when
Sanjay Manjrekar, Harsha and me were having an hour-long chat on the DRS
and technology in cricket over dinner followed by some Kishore Kumar
songs. Thanks to Kishore Kumar our tempers remained under control. Also,
having Sanjay Manjrekar with us is always a musical experience.
When I pointed out the cut and dry attitude of the English commentators
Harsha agreed with me and explained, “There are two styles of commentary,
Asian and International. The Indian commentators are not liked in England,
because our society is different. Our movies are dripping with emotion. In
our commentary when we bring in emotion the English would say, “C’mon
it’s a game, cut the crap”. What they don’t realise is that they are catering to
their audience while we are catering to ours. So the best commentary team is
when there is a mix of the two.”
Harsha though says that his biggest learning was when he went to do radio
commentary in Australia for the first time. The commentary there was way
different from that in India where one described each and every ball. Here the
focus was not on the delivery alone but on things outside of the game as well,
though related to cricket. That was quite a change in perspective for him, he
realised that one needs to know far more to do this kind of commentary and
therefore the peripheral knowledge on the game requirement was higher than
what was required in India.
Harsha cites Ian Chappell as his work ethic compass. Harsha narrates, “It
was a hot English summer in Bristol in 2002. The brightness and heat outside
was so strong that they had to cover the commentary box with black cloth
which made it feel like a green house. It was during this moment that Harsha
mentioned twice in his commentary that it was hot and they were perspiring.
After that session Ian walked up to him and said, “Mate can I have a word
with you? If Kerry Packer was here he would have told you that he doesn’t
pay you to tell people how hot it is, he pays you to tell people what’s
happening on the ground. How does the viewer care?” That day I learnt a lot.
Since then every time I feel like complaining about things going wrong; I
hear Ian’s gruff voice in my head. I remind myself, that if the batsmen can’t
crib about the conditions, how can I? I also remember Rahul Dravid telling
me that every bad pitch is an opportunity so it’s important to enjoy tougher
conditions.”
Harsha explains, “Broadcasting has become difficult now as cricket has
also changed with the newer shorter formats. Earlier you could sometimes get
away with your analysis but now you can get battered on Twitter and this
generation doesn’t hold back. But surely it’s a new challenge. Commentary
entails a lot of hard work and time away from the family. In the last three
months I have done nineteen 50 over games for the U-19 World Cup
followed by 10 ODIs and then the Asia Cup final, the entire T20 World Cup
and then 25 games in the IPL. The entire journey wouldn’t have happened
without my wife Anita. How in all these years she never gave up on me is
simply amazing. Everyone in their life gets one lottery in my case it’s Anita.”
I remember during the 2011 World Cup, Harsha was relentless in the
commentary box for the entire 41 days. At a function hosted by cricket
commentator Mark Nicholas just after the World Cup, he quipped, “For me
the “Man of the Series” from our point of view is Harsha Bhogle.”
10
I Got An Exclusive
his is a popular joke amongst the journalistic fraternity that signifies the
T desperation to get exclusive coverage. However it’s not the Indians
alone but journalists from across the world who face the same pressure to get
exclusive stories. Senior journalist Clayton Murzello once told me about an
incident about a post-match press conference at Pietermaritzburg during the
2003 World Cup when India took on Namibia. This is one of the few cricket
arenas with a tree inside the ground which the authorities have consciously
decided not to uproot. A South African journalist who realised that not much
had happened during the match asked Sourav Ganguly, “Sourav, did India
have a specific strategy for the tree and can you share it with us?” Namibia
may not yet be a great cricketing nation but giving the tree more importance
than the team was a little harsh. But that’s the nature of the beast. Ricky
Ponting once said to me, “It’s interesting that I once gave an interview three
years back and I am still seeing newspapers in India printing parts of that
interview as exclusive coverage.”
Sometimes foreign journalists also play truant when trying to get
headlines out of the Indian team. During a warm-up game in the Australian
tour of 2011, a local journalist kept on asking about various cricketers caste
and background. Unknowingly people told him where the cricketers came
from and which state they belonged to besides other such details. The next
day there was a big headline in the papers which read, “THE CASTE
SYSTEM STILL EXISTS IN THE INDIAN TEAM.” It was completely
uncalled for but that’s the way it is.
As a student, I never imagined that someone could actually make a living
out of sports writing and clicking photographs at sporting events. For some
reason, one assumed these things got automatically printed. So when I finally
met a sports journalist, I was shocked that such a profession actually existed.
Get paid to watch and write about cricket! How unfair is that? But who knew
that in a way one day I would be part of this privileged club.
I believe that even today more than 70 percent people read the newspapers
backwards like an Urdu book, starting from the back page and working their
way to page one. The right wing may misuse these stats to highlight the
impact of the Mughal rule in India, but such was the effect of the sports page
on many of our lives. It took me forever to accept that there was anything
more important than sports. For years my parents and teachers tried to
inculcate the habit of reading the editorial page but I just couldn’t go beyond
cricket news. To me the scoreboard was my editorial which I would
religiously digest. I came from a generation that collected centre-spread
posters of cricketers from magazines like Sportstar, Sportsweek and
Sportsworld. As a student, anyone who had a large collection of such posters
was considered a dude. Inspite of my liking for cricket, I must confess that
the number of posters I had of Gabriela Sabatini exceeded all cricketers.
My first media experience was the 2003 ICC World Cup where an entire
media contingent comprising of photographers, reporters, camera personnel
and commentators was travelling to South Africa. It made me wonder why a
cricket tour required so many people to travel and what was it that they
actually did. Was this a paid party? Did they all get lucky like I did? Though
getting lucky in this context had nothing to do with the opposite sex, the
feeling was equally pleasurable. Imagine if there was media when Alexander
conquered the world. Sometimes cricket media contingents are probably
larger than Alexander’s army. In hindsight if 30 legislators from Karnataka
could undertake a study tour to the Amazon jungle via a desert safari in
Dubai, then we were surely on a mission of far greater national consequence.
There are two kinds of cricket journalists, one is a devout fan and lover of
the game and the other is a failed cricketer who thinks he knows it all and
uses his pen to vent out venom that he has accumulated over the years, from
playing ordinary cricket. The latter’s frustration is always bubbling on the
surface and overflows especially when India is playing badly. This journalist
like any other wannabe cricketer genuinely believes that if not for
administrative politics, he would have played international cricket for India.
Cricket as a sport looks very easy especially when one is watching it from the
sidelines as it gives ample ammunition for one to criticise.
The fan journalist is a simple lover of the game who appreciates the
beautiful things that make this game special like, the lush outfield, grass on
the pitch, the leg glance and the dew factor. The failed cricketer turned
journalist always looks down on the fan journalist.
With the advent of 24-hour television and the internet, the life of a
journalist has become a tough one. The constant need to churn out story after
story and exclusives has made journalists very competitive and hence a love-
hate relationship has developed amongst them. When in India they are
indifferent to each other, but the moment they are travelling abroad this
hatred metamorphosises into unbridled love. One of the reasons is that
foreign tours are very expensive and unless they share accomodation, they
wouldn’t be able to save a pound or two. Money unites people and as a wise
man once said, money saved is money earned. This prospect creates strange
bedfellows. A foreign tour for a journalist is a bumper assignment especially
if its a tour to South Africa, Australia or England. However, if it’s
Bangladesh then it’s a bumper assignment for the batsmen. The match
making process kicks off the moment a tour is announced. They start calling
each other for sharing accommodation and other requirements. Someone
carries food items, someone a pressure cooker and there is a proper checklist
that each one follows to show their contribution to the tour. It’s common
knowledge that there are certain journalists who are close to certain cricketers
and depending upon who’s playing well at a certain time the power of that
particular journalist rises. In case you are in Australia then the journalists
who are close to the batsmen are completely ignored. Fast bouncy wickets
you see.
However close journalists they might get on a foreign tour and
irrespective of the level of camaraderie developed over a few drinks, when it
comes to sharing their story it’s always like the Silence of the Lambs. I have
seen journalists sharing their waistlines but never their headlines. They might
discuss everything over an evening; from boasting about the various stories
and tours covered in the past, to who scored in what context and how they
knew which player would be the Man of the Series. By the end of the evening
they would tell each other their life story but not the story they were filing the
next day. This was one secret that couldn’t be let out because it was also the
sole differentiator amongst the herd. The rivalry continues in the press box
with all of them keeping their laptops in a semi-closed state with their heads
inside and carefully keeping an eye out for those snooping on them. Another
rule I learnt here was “Smaller the font, bigger the story.”
The other zone of entertainment is the post-match press conference. MS
Dhoni is a master at handling the media and their many questions. He can be
cocky but yet make a point. He can be very humourous too. He hurt his
middle finger during the 2006 South African tour and when a journalist asked
him, “MS which finger did you hurt?”, he smartly said, “I can’t show it to
you.”
On the other hand, Inzamam’s press conferences were usually entertaining
irrespective of what had happened with the game, purely because of his
innocence. There was an interview where there was a barrage of questions
that were thrown at him on Abdul Razzaq’s performance. The clincher was
when a journalist repeatedly asked him, “Aap Abdul Razzaq ke baare mei kya
kehna chahenge?” After a few seconds of silence, he softly retorted: “Bhai
saab, kuch karega toh bolunga.”
Fielding Lagana
A cricket journalist’s boon and bane of existence is the cricketer, and
getting a quote from him can make or break his career. With tremendous
pressure from the bureau back home, they are always edgy and waiting to
find some news or the other in order to justify their foreign trips. Most of the
time the BCCI bars cricketers from speaking to the media and that makes
their task tougher. So the entire tour is about getting that one byte, even if it
comes from the waiter who serves the players tea in the dressing room.
Sehwag once narrated an incident to me about a nagging journalist. He called
him and said, “Viruji ek interview dedo, nahi toh meri naukri chali jayegi.”
The answer Sehwag gave was just like his uppercut. He replied, “Mein kya
karoon, tujhe naukri meine thodi na lagvayi thi.” In cricket journalism if one
has not cracked the code of befriending cricketers, then one has achieved
nothing. The process of creating this web of friendship and letting a player
fall into it is referred to as “fielding lagana” by journalists. The journalist
with a touring cricketer’s local number is the King of the Jungle.
Many people may not get the gravity of the words “fielding lagana”.
Players keep on changing with tours, but the methodology used remains the
same. Once you know that a certain player is showing potential and the
nation is starting to get obsessed with him, it becomes your responsibility to
ensure that you create a maze and get close enough to him to ensure your
salary for some months at least. It’s a tough job but you’ve got to do it as
there is no other option. The maze first starts with sending him birthday
messages and anniversary greetings, if he’s happily married. This then moves
on to birthday wishes for the cricketer’s son and other family members and
could ultimately reach extremes like greetings for Teachers Day, World
AIDS Day, Gudi Padwa, Pongal, Dassera, and many others restricted only by
one’s imagination. The biggest evolution happens when the relationship
changes from SMS to BBM. When this happens, you know you hold some
potential of getting into the inner coterie.
The only place the media can meet players is the post-match press
conference, the hotel lobby or a restaurant where the player would possibly
go for dinner. It is extremely important to know where the players are eating,
especially on a foreign tour, because that is the time they are in a relaxed
mood and it’s easier to get a meeting with them for a future date. If you can
throw in a few recommendations on what to eat and convince the chef to
make something that the player likes then you have reached a high level of
customer satisfaction. This could win you brownie points which you could
redeem at some point in your career. So the moral of the story is that if you
want a byte, catch the player having a bite!
Journalists are a persistent lot and believe that one has got to keep trying.
It’s sometimes about being at the right place at the right time which could
lead to a jackpot story. Harini Rana, one of the few women reporters,
subscribes to this theory. She explains, “Some of the biggest stories are done
by being aware of your surroundings. During the Chappell era, there used to
be a lot of stories around vision documents, players’ camps and various
processes being followed by the team during those camps. I was at the team
hotel when a player mistakenly dropped his dossier at a table. When I visited
the conference room where the team meeting was held an hour later for
another meeting, I noticed a bunch of papers. After having read through
them, they went on to become the headlines of the following day.”
Harini also says that the hotel lobby is the place to get the best stories but
one needs to have abundant amounts of patience. She once had to do a Brett
Lee interview which was scheduled for the morning, but eventually took
place at 6:30 in the evening. She says such events put life in perspective and
made her calmer and gave her the strength to face tougher eventualities in
life.
Well not all cricketers are easy to deal with. Some of them do not take
their dropping from the team very well and Harini once reported such a story
of a cricketer who refused to talk to her ever again.
People who had mastered the art of “fielding lagana” off the cricket
ground were the journalists from Bengal. If you thought the most
intimidating field placements were done by Douglas Jardine for the
Australian players during the Bodyline Tour then what the Bengali
Journalists brigade did during the reign of Sourav Ganguly as captain was
tenfold. If you ever saw black cat commandos surrounding a noted politician
multiply that effect by hundred and that is what the Bengali journos parading
in and around Sourav were like. He was a messiah for them, if he was God on
the off side for us, he was God on every side for them. It was like watching
the passing out parade of the National Defence Academy. If he turned left
they turned left, if right they turned right. Sourav Ganguly was the reason
they existed and on tours whether in England, Australia or South Africa they
went about with the confidence that Al Capone would have had in his
heyday. They knew that as long as Dada was captain they were safe. It’s
understandable because for a Bengali newspaper it was sacrilege if they
didn’t get a Sourav exclusive and some other newspaper from the north did.
So every Kolkata journalist gave a feeling that he was closest to Dada, hence
by the end of Sourav’s tenure as captain the most words one heard in the
press box were Dada, Dadi, Skipper, Mohraj and many more.
The major difference between the sports journalism of yesteryears and of
today is that in the past the endeavour was to write elaborate articles
describing in great graphic detail the playing conditions as there was limited
access to high quality television back then. The competition between
journalists was on the basis of who described the cover drive the best. They
were all inspired by the writings of the great Sir Neville Cardus and KN
Prabhu. However things are a lot different now as most readers are more
interested in the car that Suresh Raina drives than the beauty of his cover
drive. I remember during the 2011 Australian tour, some journalists seemed
to be waiting for some kind of argument or fight to break out between
Sehwag and Dhoni as they figured this fight sequence had the potential to
give them higher TRPs than all the fight sequences of Sholay and Dabangg
put together.
With the advent of e-mail and other technologies, covering a cricket
match has become relatively easy. However back then the effort required in
meeting deadlines using typewriters and fax machines and was a challenge by
itself. Senior cricket journalist Ayaz Memon once said, “We did all our work
on typewriters and anyone who had a Brother typewriter was considered
extremely cool. Most couldn’t afford even a simple one. My prized
possession was a Rs 800 typewriter I picked up from Lahore during the 82-83
Pakistan tour.” The pressure to deliver back then was relatively low because
however big or small the victory, cricket news was always restricted to the
back pages unlike today where “Breaking News: India Won The Toss” could
be just under the masthead in case there is some space left by the advertisers.
In the past, cricket journalists have had to share a room between three
people and cook for themselves as they couldn’t afford to eat outside
regularly. Ayaz recounts when once a whole lot of journalists were invited by
Peter Roebuck, an eminent Australian cricket journalist to a restaurant for a
party. The entire contingent was quite excited as they thought “Chalo ek meal
ka kharcha saved.” After having a sumptuous meal, Peter announced that the
bill was to be shared by all the members present. The Indian journalists were
in a state of shock not knowing that this was a common practice in many
countries around the world. Many Indians I know are pretty scared by the
possibility of such an incident and it takes them years to get over the trauma
of spending at such a party.
There has been a tremendous evolution since India has become the
cricketing super power. Indian journalists worry less about paying for food
now as the type of food being served in press boxes internationally has
changed. I remember during the 2003 World Cup in South Africa one would
regularly get cold cuts and continental grub; but by 2006 one had started
smelling curry even in the outfield of the cricket ground.
Roleplay
One of the lesser known facts is that journalists also play a pro-active role
in highlighting upcoming talent to the selectors. They are at times the
communicator between junior and senior cricketers.
Young cricket journalist Devendra Pandey mentions a time when he
called Indian selector Dilip Vengsarkar and suggested he watch out for an
upcoming bowler called Umesh Yadav which possibly helped in some way
since it’s not possible for selectors to be present at regional matches all the
time. Journalists covering local cricket also facilitate meetings between
promising youngsters and their cricketing heroes and sometimes even pass on
extra equipment from senior players to them. Devendra refers to journalists
as “Narad Munis” for the role they play across the board.
Akshay Sawai is someone who has covered many sports apart from
cricket. He talks about the fact that sometimes an interview with a senior
cricketer can be an education in itself. An incident he recounts was during a
domestic tour game against New Zealand in 95-96; he confronted Sachin for
not pushing the opposition harder for a win by applying an aggressive
mindset. Sachin was startled by this question, and asked him whether he had
seen the field placements properly, including the slip cordon. Akshay then
realised that there were indeed certain things he had failed to notice. This
encounter had helped him grow as sports journalist.
Akshay says that even interviewing sportspersons has a certain science to
it. If you have only 5 seconds and one question to ask you better not miss the
opportunity by asking an irrelevant question. This happened to him once
when he got to meet the great John McEnroe during the US open in 1999.
This was also the year when Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupati were in peak
form and were touted as the best doubles pair in the world. Big Mac refused
Akshay an interview but said you can ask me one question. Akshay was so
awestruck by the moment that he rattled out a question about his tremendous
season in 1984. Akshay says, “It was a wasted question. I got carried away by
the moment. If I would have asked him about the Indian boys, maybe I would
have got a more relevant and better headline for my article.”
11
1. Knowledge
If you are doing a Rahul Dravid interview please read up about him. I
know of a young journalist who once asked Rahul whether he played matches
in Australia. Can you beat that! If you are knowledgeable, a player will tell
you things you’d never expect.
4. Love All
Don’t forget the guys who are playing badly. Love the 16 members of the
squad equally, you never know who will start performing when, and by then
it may be too late.
5. Dinner Diplomacy
The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach and cricketers are no
different. There is no substitute for dal-roti. Pasta and Fungi Marinati is for
impressing your girlfriends. So ensure you know the best places to get an
Indian meal across the world and you will catch cricketers in their best mood
out there.
7. Where to Stand
It’s important to understand that cricketers and officials are reluctant
spokespersons and therefore ensure that they wear shades whenever they
come for press conferences.
The Indian team celebrating after the win in Durban 2006, a rare overseas
victory.
Steve Waugh appreciates as I tell him how he stands in the slips with a
chewing gum in his mouth.
Mohandas Menon, Harsha Bhogle and Ian Bishop cramped up in the
commentary box.
This was my big moment of being with the commentary team during the
2003 World Cup. With Tony Greig and Michael Atherton.
An overwhelming feeling standing outside Nelson Mandela’s house in
Soweto, experiencing history.
Only the official masseur Mane kaka knows why Bhajji is meditating.
Ok! I know that’s 9 and not 10, but you get the drift.
12
Mane kaka believes that all the players he has seen do well have also been
good at meditation and visualisation (The exception to this rule was of course
Viru). He specially mentions Rahul Dravid who according to him was the
most hardworking person he ever saw in the Indian team. Once when they
were staying in the team hotel in Kanpur someone complained to him and the
other support staff that there was lot of noise coming from a particular room.
Mane kaka realised that that room belonged to Rahul and he was quite
surprised as Rahul was the most disciplined of the lot. He later found out that
Rahul was practising the night before the game using a hanging ball and that
is what was creating the noise. When Mane kaka informed the guests, they
were overwhelmed and apologised and said, “We can’t stop the great Rahul
Dravid from practising, please tell him to carry on.”
I had been hearing about this low profile individual for a long time. One
always knew from the players, support staff and the media about this
masseur-cum-uncle of the Indian cricket team who looked after the players
like his own kids. The public always sees the glamourous side of the cricket
stars but at the end of the day these young kids who come from small towns
feel at home when they see a Mane kaka like character around them to help
them with the smaller but essential things in life. One always tends to forget
the contributions made by such individuals to the team.
13
here was a friend of mine whose wife was so irritated by the fact that he
T was watching cricket the whole day that she asked him, “Do you even
remember the day we got married?” Yes, he said, “That was the day when
VVS Laxman scored 281 against Australia in Kolkata.” She filed her divorce
papers the next day. When somebody asked him on what grounds, he said
“EDEN GARDENS.” I have to admit that this is not an entirely original joke.
There has been a similar joke in England that has been floating around for
years but I, just like a good cricketer, adapted this to suit Indian conditions.
But seriously I do believe that an ideal marriage in India is possible only if
the two people involved are in love. In love with cricket that is. Is that even
possible? I never thought it was until I met Mohandas Menon and his wife
Valsa. Mohan has been a cricket statistician for more than 20 years and guess
what? His wife maintains the database of all the statistics. If you can’t believe
it here’s more. Mohan and Valsa between them have watched 97 Test
matches and 322 ODIs; ball for ball in all these years. Yes they have watched
807 days of cricket together, every second and every minute of it and
recorded it as well. They once watched cricket for 25 hours at a stretch
entering data as there were three matches happening simultaneously in New
Zealand, India and West Indies in three different time zones. Imagine, 25
hours of TV at a stretch without fighting for the remote or any argument
about pleasing the other person. In such a relationship the wife asking for
space and time becomes irrelevant as a concept. It would be so awesome,
discussing Duckworth Lewis while grocery shopping, DRS while having
lunch and reverse swing during dinner. What a life! They say marriages are
made in heaven. Well some of them are made in front of a TV screen.
Statistics are like mini-skirts, they reveal more than what they hide.
— Navjot Singh Sidhu
Sidhu once said, “Statistics are like mini-skirts, they reveal more than
what they hide.” Surely he understood the significance of statistics unlike a
lot of us. The only stats I was interested during my cricket playing days was
36-24-36. It may sound funny now but when in college, statistics as a subject
simply seemed to have no significance in our lives, or at least we thought so.
Mean, median and mode actually caused a standard deviation in my
personality. Nobody questioned whether the weighted averages would impact
one’s life in anyway unless it was to do with one’s weight. Not questioning
the reason why we were learning the subject was actually the most common
statistic among all the students.
In all of this the one person who was respected the most among the boys
(besides the guy who dated the hottest girl) was the guy who knew the
statistics of the current Indian team’s performances. There was always this
guy who knew who took how many wickets and who had batted well in
earlier tours. Typically he was himself the most average cricketer in the batch
but he made up for it by memorising cricket stats in order to get some respect
from the boys. But back then, none of us thought that this would someday be
a serious career option. Just like a subject called Geology, which I graduated
with.
I guess Mohan himself had no clue that one day he would be doing just
that. Interestingly the game changing moment for him also was Sachin
Tendulkar! The story is that he was the guy who recorded the statistics for the
Harris Shield game in which Sachin scored 328 runs and Kambli scored 349
runs. It so happened that Sachin’s friend and now sports journalist, Marcus
Couto wanted to document the score as a record and so he called Mohan to
have a look at the scorecard for a recheck.
Mohan rescored the entire match again and found out that there were two
leg byes which were wrongly attributed to Sachin’s score and therefore he
got it down to 326. Obviously this didn’t go down well with a 13-year-old
Sachin who couldn’t believe that he got 2 runs less and fought with his friend
as to how someone could reduce his score. Mohan says, “I did not budge.
Little did I know that he was going to be the greatest batsman in the world. If
I knew, I would have probably given him two extra runs to be in his good
books. This is the record which actually got me my first dose of fame.”
“It hasn’t been an easy ride,” says Mohan. His father-in-law stopped
talking to him because he couldn’t imagine someone leaving a steady job to
do this. He was embarrassed because he couldn’t tell his friends that his son-
in-law was a cricket statistician. Fortunately for him, his wife Valsa
supported him and later became his partner in the world of statistics.
One of the amazing stories is that just when Mohan was making a mark on
the scene as a statistician, BB Mama, an eminent cricket statistician died in
1995. It so happened that after his death, BB Mama’s daughter asked Mohan
to meet her at the earliest. Mohan did not know what to expect. When he
reached the meeting there was a gentleman sitting besides her who started the
conversation by asking him, “What is the origin of the word “Chinaman” in
cricket?” Without batting an eyelid, Mohan told him about how an English
player had got out to a West Indian of Chinese origin, and who on his way
out blurted, “How ridiculous to get out to a Chinaman!” Since then that kind
of a bowler was refered to as Chinaman.” Mohan started wondering why he
had been summoned and asked these questions. When probed, it was revealed
to him that BB Mama, in his will had left his entire collection of books on
statistics to Mohan and the person who had asked him this question was his
lawyer who was executing the will. This question was purely to test whether
it was the right decision to do so and Mohan passed with flying colours.
had just completed auditioning with Sony Max and little did I know that
I this single line was going to change my life forever.
I couldn’t sleep for two days after that because for some reason I thought
that something really exciting was going to happen. Two days later I was
called to the Sony office where I was told, “We are launching a new show
called Extra Innings for the World Cup in South Africa and we need some
fillers on the show. Unfortunately we don’t have the time to shoot it here so
can you go to South Africa?” By this time my medulla oblongata had reached
my kidneys. The excitement was truly killing me.
A few months later I was entering the Centurion Stadium in South Africa
with an accreditation badge around my neck which said:
In a home series the Indian curry probably claims more victims off
the field than the bowlers on the field.
Down Under
I have had the pleasure of watching two series in Australia and at the cost
of repeating myself this is a different and exciting experience. If you are a
sports lover this is the country for you. These people love champions and for
them you may be the worst species in the world, but if you can play
something well you will be respected. It’s intimidating because even a
potbellied 70-year-old Aussie can run 25 rounds of a ground while you are
trying to burn your curry dinner with a 20-minute stroll around the park. That
is why in this context if you look at the Indian team’s performance you are
kind of satisfied because the sheer average fitness is far superior Down
Under.
If you have to experience the impact of a coliseum, no other cricket
ground can give you that like the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The best part is
the tram ride from the hotel and the walk over a huge bridge which has in-
built speakers playing music. On the right is the Rod Laver Arena and as you
turn left you see the magnificient structure of the MCG.
It’s the largest cricket stadium in the world, with the highest light towers
in a sporting venue. It’s a different issue that when bowlers are bowling at
140 kmph no amount of light is enough. The fastest ball bowled on this
ground was by Shaun Tait at 160.7 kmph against Pakistan. It’s called the
spiritual home of Australian sports, which is visible from the fact that there
are six big bars inside the stadium. Even if you spend an hour at the MCG
there is no chance you can stay sober.
One of the most amazing things the MCG has perfected is the Portable
Cricket Pitch technology. The pitch is prepared offsite (growing and
nurturing the grass) and is then placed in the centre before the cricket season.
So you can have a cricket game followed by an Australian rule football match
followed by rugby. I think Indian grounds should adopt this technology
because our grounds, apart from cricket are multi-purpose and are used for
political rallies, weddings, funerals and music concerts.
It’s not that only the international grounds are well equipped. A quick
drive around Sydney organised by cricket coach Dean Gilchrist who also
happens to be Adam Gilchrist’s brother actually was an eye-opening
experience for me. He showed me the different school sports grounds around
the city and trust me even they had super drainage systems and seemed fit to
host international games. I think it’s to do with the culture. Sports comes
first.
Sachin was again close to getting a hundred on the Boxing Day Test at the
MCG in 2011 and we were about to wind up for the day with the thought that
we would see him get that much-awaited hundred the next day. I was
watching the game with his wife Anjali who rarely comes to any of his
matches. Whilst we were all having tea, suddenly there was a huge roar of the
crowd and we realised Siddle had castled him. Oh no! Sachin was so close
but yet so far from the magical figure of hundred 100s. There was silence and
we left. Absolutely nothing to say. I walked down all the way to the press
conference zone where the head of the MCG was walking towards the
defined zone and as he passed by he mentioned to Mr Lele and a few
journalists, “Your friend Sachin has destroyed me today.” When I asked what
happened, he said, “My ticket sales goes down by 50 percent tomorrow, no
food sales and therefore loss for the stalls and the bars. The government
suffers as no one uses transport and no allowances for many. Why couldn’t
he have got out tomorrow morning?” No one had an answer, not even Sachin.
From there onwards, we lost that Test match. Something we should have won
and then the series would have changed. I had never seen Sachin work so
hard, success just eluded him. He toiled for hours in the nets, sometimes
alone, yet could not get to the magic figure.
The fastest ball bowled on the MCG was by Shaun Tait at 160.7
kmph against Pakistan.
When the Test finished, I sent a text to Anjali asking her if they were free
the next day to go to visit the beautiful Yarra Valley Vineyard near
Melbourne. It so happened that they agreed as they also needed that break.
Our dear friend Harsha Sheorey and his lovely wife Krushnaa arranged for
two cars and we started our journey. Sachin’s son Arjun sat next to me. He is
a cricket maniac and asked me and Harsha Bhogle around 100 questions on
cricket during the entire journey. The last question floored me. “Who do you
think is faster, Shoaib or Lee?” It was funny because the best answer to that
question could come only from his father. As soon as we reached the
vineyard we converted that into a cricket field and guess what, we played
cricket there which kind of surprised the staff a lot. The greatest batsman in
the world playing cricket with his son and his friends in a vineyard in
Melbourne itself was a spectacle. When Arjun dropped a high catch because
of the glaring sun, Sachin walked up to him and told him how it’s important
to figure out a mechanism to catch the ball especially when the sun is directly
coming into your eyes. I just couldn’t believe this, but then there are a lot of
things that we still don’t know about the master. That’s why his
autobiography becomes extremely crucial to demystify the man.
I would still say that the most distinct memory from all my Australia trips
has been the Sydneygate incident where Anil Kumble made a chilling
statement saying “Only one team played in the spirit of the game.” It was a
cracker of a Test match with so many highs and lows. Sachin’s 150 was
world class and the photograph pointing at the Grand Stand is permanently
etched in my mind and I still have that Sydney Morning Herald newspaper in
my room. Sadly, the umpiring was the worst I had ever seen in my life and
this also fueled the frustration of players from both teams. The Harbhajan-
Symonds feud seemed normal to me, something that the Australians should
have been used to as they do it all the time to others. Ponting’s complaining
to the match referee seemed bizarre. It’s like Arnab Goswami complaining
that Renuka Chaudhary talks too much.
I couldn’t figure out who to blame for this mess. I too was inclined to
blaming Ponting and his team for their bad behaviour. The late Peter
Roebuck also wrote a scathing piece on the Australian captain the next day,
proving that there was a general resentment against the Aussie skipper. The
only thing which was troubling me and my conscience was that the match
tickets to this game were given to me and my buddy Sundeep Gulrajani by
Ricky Ponting himself.
15
Sledging
ou are too old, forget it, you need to go,” said a petulant Michael
“Y Clarke to Sachin.
The master had been out of the field with a minor injury and when
he came in to bat, Michael Clarke went after him continuously.
This however irritated Sehwag, who walked up to him and asked, “How
old are you?”
Michael: “Mate 23.”
Sehwag: “Do you know he has more hundreds than your age! If you want
to abuse someone, see that he is at least of your age and experience.”
This however didn’t stop Michael and it was only Viru’s clincher that
finally shut him up.
Viru asked, “Your teammates call you pup, right?”
Clarke replied, “Ya Mate.”
Viru retorted, “Which breed?”
For the rest of the Test, Michael Clarke was subdued and I’m sure every
time he hears his nickname, he’s reminded of this episode.
When I recently reminded Sehwag about this incident, he said: “In the
initial years it was alright because my English was not so good and I never
understood the opponent’s accent, so it didn’t matter. But then when I started
understanding the language I started getting a little affected so when someone
said anything I used to go and give it back to him. But sometimes I preferred
to just walk up to the third umpire and chat with him while the bowler
continued with his verbal barrage.”
Sometimes constant chatter by the Australian bowlers can get irritating
even for the people watching. I once saw Mitchell Johnson continuously
sledge Sehwag and try to disturb his momentum. It went on for a full over
and while I was getting irritated with his behaviour, Viru seemed completely
unperturbed. He was probably thinking about why his cook had put less
butter on his parathas that morning. At one point I wanted to walk up to
Mitchell Johnson and tell him, “You should stop it for your own good. There
is no point in sledging Viru as the decision to hit a 6 over third man had been
taken a week before and it had nothing to do with your bowling skills or his
mental state which you are trying to disturb.”
The term sledging means to verbally insult and intimidate your opposition.
Well I can proudly say that I was a witness to one of the greatest sledging
incidents during the “Monkeygate” affair in Sydney in 2007. As live
spectators we had absolutely no idea what was happening on the ground. For
us Indians, the concept of calling someone a “monkey” was never considered
racist and addressing someone maaki was an act of endearment. In fact, while
growing up in India, calling someone a “monkey” or a “donkey” as a kid was
a sign that the person came from a cultured family and his parents would take
great pride that their child did not use any foul language. I’m sure even PETA
would have appreciated this behaviour. So we couldn’t understand why the
Australians who sledge for a living made such a hue and cry about it. The
controversy simmered for a long time and the media went ballistic over how
tensions exist between players and nations. All I can say is that it launched
the alternate careers of all the people involved. Mathew Hayden is now the
official cook of various restaurants in India, Symonds bagged a spot on Bigg
Boss and Harbhajan Singh got the courage after this incident to not only slap
Sreesanth, but also lift up Nita Ambani on the cricket field which must have
been the bravest act perpetrated in India since Bhagat Singh’s mutiny against
the British.
It’s not just cricketers who get sledged. As a stand-up comic I get heckled
once in a while by someone in the audience who thinks he’s smarter or is in
some way trying to get his frustration out after he is a few drinks down. The
challenge is not to get rattled but to give it back with an intelligent repartee.
Even as a school kid I remember being sledged by my mates and that had
a deep impact on my life. In addition to this there were endless taunts from
my family members for being an average student. So when I dig deep inside,
I realise that becoming a comic came from the need to give it back to
society’s barbs by being perceived as cool and intelligent. It’s probably the
Sidhu effect.
The moral of the story is that wherever and whatever you do, you could
get heckled. This phenomenon has been seen in every aspect of life since
time immemorial. The mother-in-law, daughter-in-law relationship
highlighted by prime time soaps are perfect examples of the art of sledging. It
is something which is intrinsic to every aspect of human life whether it is
Parliament, a corporate boardroom or your co-operative society meeting. My
observation is that all those who have been heckled in the early part of their
life have two options. Either they get motivated to perform better or they get
affected and leave the race. I don’t blame either of them but ideally one
would like to be in the former situation.
Coming back to cricket, the modern player has to take a lot of heckling
from the crowds and sometimes it becomes unbearable, which is what
happened with Virat Kohli in Australia in 2011 which led to the middle
finger incident. The good part was that it fired him up and made him perform
better. I am sure BCCI will insure the middle fingers of all the players in the
next tour to Australia.
Many people feel that Virat’s aggressive behaviour is detrimental to his
game. This is a very middle-class, God-fearing point of view which my
generation suffered from. It came from a point of view that if you behaved
badly, God would punish you and you would lose in life. Times have
changed and things work differently for this generation. Aggression is a part
of their life and unlike us they don’t get affected by it. Rahul Dravid and Anil
Kumble came from a generation that believed in keeping their mouth shut
and letting their performance speak for themselves, but this generation of
players does it differently. It’s important to understand that nobody is right or
wrong as long as it’s in the spirit of the game.
If you thought Indians are docile, timid and complete puritans when it
comes to sledging, you are mistaken. They just do it subtly. I once sat in the
commentary box and heard an entire over on the stump microphone. We are
the types who have mastered the art to such an extent that we can do it with
no expression on our face and the Indian slip cordon would give even a
seasoned ventriloquist a run for his money.
A typical over of Anil Kumble would begin with a shout from
wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik, “C’mon Anil bhai,” then Sachin would say,
“Shabash ladko shor machao Kallis aaya hein.” Dinesh was the find in South
Africa when it came to chatting behind the stumps. Once Shaun Pollock had
a verbal altercation with Kumble and the atmosphere was tense because the
crowd support for Pollock in South Africa was extremely high. Everybody
was silent…one saw Kumble visibly disturbed walking back to the mark…
and suddenly there is a voice saying, “C’mon Anil bhai this is the chance to
get Pollock, he’s upset, I have never seen Pollock upset before… this is the
chance.” Once Sachin started turning the ball, he started shouting, “C’mon
Warnie … that’s the way.” He didn’t even spare Graeme Smith. When
Sreesanth was bowling to him he said “C’mon Zaheer.” This is the extent to
which Indian cricket has changed.
Greater exposure usually leads to one’s horizons expanding and that’s
precisely what’s happened with the IPL, which is a cultural melting pot,
bringing together sportsmen from different cricket playing nations who in
turn introduce each other to their unique way of sledging in different
languages. This is a welcome change from the earlier days when most
international cricketers coming to India would learn BC and MC immediately
after Namaste. The last time I spoke to one of the international players at the
IPL, he told me that at the IPL, he gets sledged in 22 different languages
which made him understand the diversity of Indian culture as well as the
ethos of “Unity in diversity”.
Sledging before the IPL was only between two nations because the only
cricket that was played was international cricket. In this scenario Indians
suffered because being an English speaking country we understood what was
being said and got affected by it. Whereas the visitors rarely understood
anything and if ever an Indian tried to sledge in English it didn’t have the
desired impact. Now the Indians have even learnt to sledge in international
languages like Afrikaans and Sinhalese. If we had players from the UAE and
Afghanistan, then maybe they would have learnt to sledge in Arabic and
Pashtu too.
Research has shown that learning new languages helps one remain alert
and reduces the possibility of getting Alzheimer’s or other memory related
diseases. So the IPL has ensured that the players will significantly reduce
their chances of suffering from Alzheimer’s later in life.
For some reason, Indians derive a perverse pleasure out of two things
when interacting with foreigners. One is to teach them the choicest of swear
words under the guise of teaching them Hindi, and the other is to ask them to
say a few words in Hindi when interacting with them at a public platform.
This is a phenomenon I have never understood. During my IPL tours, I
have seen a lot of Australian and South African cricketers go ballistic with
their Hindi. Every press conference I host, I am petrified when journalists ask
foreign players to say a few words in Hindi because I am not sure of the
authenticity of the education imparted to them by the domestic players.
Anti-Sledging
Steve Waugh and his Australian team loved to chat with the Indians when
they were batting and expected that from all the opposition as that’s how they
were brought up in their playing days. How one reacts to sledging is a
cultural thing. The Australians have played their cricket in a certain way and
they are used to the fact that someone is chatting around them all the time.
Once during an India-Australia game, Rahul Dravid recounts that there was
lot of verbal volleying going on when they were batting and Steve Waugh
took special interest in this activity and was prepared for the same when they
came in to bat. The Indian team in the dressing room took a conscious
decision that they would not only stay quiet but also ignore Steve when he
comes in to bat. They knew that the Australians actually thrived when you
took them on and they knew that in the past whenever Steve Waugh was
rubbed the wrong way, he would get motivated enough to go for a big score.
For 5 overs, there was absolute silence. The Indian players didn’t even look
at Steve Waugh even when crossing him between overs. This actually rattled
Steve to the extent that he walked up to the wicketkeeper in the next over and
said, “Mate, are you going to say something or not?” This is a great example
of how not saying anything can sometimes be more impactful than saying
something. The erstwhile West Indian pace attack of Garner, Holding,
Roberts, Marshall and even Walsh and Ambrose later, never sledged. At the
most, they’d just stare and let their bowling do the talking.
MS Dhoni once mentioned to a friend that after a Test victory in
Australia, the Indian team purposely didn’t celebrate much because they
wanted to pass a message to the Australian dressing room that beating
Australia was no big deal for them. Also it was important not to fire up the
Aussies as they would then come back stronger as a team, a good
psychological ploy, I must say. In his last domestic game, Sachin Tendulkar
played against Ajay Jadeja who was the Haryana captain. Yes, you heard
right, at the time of writing this book, Ajay Jadeja is still playing domestic
cricket. Sachin knew that Ajay was the kind of guy who liked to relieve his
stress by chatting with the opposition team members and the more relaxed he
got, the better he played. Sachin told all his team members to ensure that
when Ajay came in to bat, they were not to respond or chat with him. The
instructions were to ignore him and bore him into throwing his wicket.
Sachin said, “He even walked up to me to say a few words. I looked through
him and walked away.” He was out the next over. This in a way is similar to
what happens in the corporate world. When the boss ignores you, you know
you’re on your way out.
One piece of advice, however, never try this strategy with your wife at
home, because if you do, then facing your mother-in-law at the maika, is far
more stressful than facing McGrath at the MCG.
16
However, it’s the Indian fans who make touring extremely interesting. It’s
amazing how they descend in hordes on the cricket ground to support their
team. Wherever you are in the world you’ll hear chants of “Ganpati Bappa
Morya” and therefore Hindus for logistical reasons should declare Ganpati
Bappa as a brand ambassador of its millions of Gods so the foreigners don’t
get confused. The Indian fan abroad is so optimistic that even if India is 45
for 8 you’ll still find people shouting, “Jeetega bhai jeetega, India jeetega.”
One of the biggest nightmares for the hotel that hosts the Indian team is
that for that week the hotel lobby seems like a NRI reunion or a Pravasi
Bhartiya Divas. Anyone who is anybody will try and do their best to hang out
in the lobby waiting to catch a glimpse of their cricket stars. The hotel
security try to do their best, but these Indian fans for those seven days don’t
give a hoot about anyone. The security guards don’t understand why these
Indians behave in such an obsessive manner as they don’t undrstand the
gravity of what this means to them. One can see that Dalbir Singh who left
his village and came with his family to England 40 years back wants to shake
hands with Yuvraj Singh because that gives him a connection to Punjab and
his mitti and if Yuvraj hits a six clearly Dalbir’s happiness far exceeds Yuvi’s
because for him it means that his Punjabiyat has won. That is the kind of
connect I am talking about.
Cricket tourism has become an integral part of many Indians’ travel
schedule. The Bharat Army modelled on the Barmy Army has been a group
of dedicated Indian fans from England who have been travelling with the
Indian team across the world since 2002. The greatest fan who takes the cake
though is Sudhir Kumar who even postponed his marriage to watch cricket
matches across the country. Sachin himself was very particular that Sudhir
was always well taken care of on tours. The Barmy Army founded in 94-95
by David Peacock and Paul Burnham follows the best model which is based
on the principle of work and fun. This group of fans travels with the English
cricket team wherever they go and earns money while on tour. It’s primarily a
group of electricians and plumbers, who find work and watch cricket while
on tour. Some of them also work on construction sites and repair lifts. I think
during tours of India they should be given contracts to repair and build roads
in Mumbai as we know that whatever the British had built in India has lasted
more than what we did in our own country. There are also artists in the group
and a certain Richard Curtis who is a painter is a big hit in South Africa with
his paintings. I am sure watching cricket itself has potential as an economic
model which unfortunately hasn’t yet been explored in India either by the
BCCI or the Government of India. Thank God I have.
The impact of cricket on the Indian male is such that many life milestones
and key moments in their lives are linked to cricketing events. So after doing
a psychographic and demographic analysis of the cricket fan I have managed
to put them into my own version of the periodic table with the last category
being the jingoistic fan who is like the inert gas element…always excited.
The Purist
He is an extension of category 1 but focuses more on the rights and
wrongs of cricket. He is open enough to like modern cricketers but doesn’t
appreciate anything except Test cricket. He thinks that ODI was degradation
and T20 is the breakdown of society. He believes character can be tested only
over five days and T20 cricket is like a one night stand so there is no question
of any character. He can give you sermons of how batting has suffered
because of the shorter format and there are no spinners left in the game. He
switches off the telly even if he sees his favourite players in coloured clothes.
He detests Kerry Packer and even the sound of the word Lalit Modi generates
more anger than the combined anger Chidambaram and Srinivasan have for
him. He is also an armchair expert who knows everything that Rohit Sharma
needs to do but is not doing and makes profound statements like, “Talent is
not everything, hardwork is what makes a batsman world class.”
The Pessimist
He loves the game but he wants India to win all the time. He comes to
watch the match not for the team and for the love of the sport but for Sachin,
Sehwag or one of his favourite cricketers. He is a representative of those
millions who switched off their TV set after Sachin’s dismissal. He is
extremely enthusiastic about the game, but if India is 78-4 his brain gets
rewired into the most negative zone we can ever imagine. He immediately
starts calling the team useless, overpaid and good for nothing even though he
was idolising them just 2 hours earlier. He can’t handle defeat whichever way
it comes. The day India plays badly, his family has had it and the local booze
shop’s turnover doubles that evening.
King Of Cynics
When he sees anyone talking or watching cricket he says, “Why are you
watching? Everything is fixed.”
he advent of the IPL, pioneered by Lalit Modi and Sharad Pawar, had far
T more impact on a cricketer than the liberalisation of the Indian economy
by PV Narasimha Rao and Dr Manmohan Singh. There was a time when
every mother dreaded that her son would waste a considerable amount of
time during his studying years playing what she called “the wretched game of
cricket”. She cursed the British not for ruling India for 200 years but for
inventing and introducing this game that would destroy her family’s
economic future for the next 5 generations.
How times have changed! Even engineers are leaving their profession to
successfully pursue cricket instead. The trend was started by Anil Kumble
and Javagal Srinath, the latest victim being R. Ashwin. Every mother now
wants her son to become a cricketer and not even appear for the engineering
exams because she knows that one IPL contract can not only get them out of
their modest lifestyle but also make her a kitty party queen.
Cricket is now an industry by itself. The total money generated in the last
World Cup alone was estimated to be about $US 1.5 billion which could
possibly be the annual budget of some countries. This would also give you an
idea about the kind of employment cricket is generating. According to
estimates just the official broadcasting crew and associates took close to
20,000 domestic and 350 international flights and occupied 13,000 room
nights in hotels. Despite the average revenue growth in the TV industry being
close to 12 percent, the TV ad rates during the World cup grew by 50 percent.
At Rs 4,50,000 for 10 seconds, you had the option to buy 100 seconds of
advertising or a 1,300 sq ft flat in a decent area in Pune. The official
broadcaster syndicated this to 200 territories which meant that there would
have been a total TV audience of more than a billion people across the world.
There were 27 cameras shooting this in HD format and with 3G mobile
streaming resulting in tremendous quality for viewers. Rs 400 crore worth of
tickets sold during the World Cup and each association getting Rs 3.3 crore
per match for the World Cup games.
The prize money for the 1983 World Cup was £42,000 with the winners
taking £20,000. The 2011 World Cup was worth $10 million with the
winners taking $3 million. I’m sure the same 1983 World Cup winners are
making more money from commentary today than what they made by
winning the World Cup back then.
Now we even have the IPL. This is a different financial eco-system by
itself, where the economics is such that the money made by Robin Uthapa
and Irfan Pathan during 74 days of the IPL is twice the World Cup final team
prize money. Irfan Pathan made Rs 8.74 crore in the IPL 4 auction while
Gautam Gambhir made Rs 11.04 crore. The highest a foreign player made
was Rs 6.9 crore by Sri Lanka’s Mahela Jayawardene then. So now you
understand why mothers prefer that their sons join a cricket academy instead
of an entrance coaching academy.
I guess Glen Maxwell’s parents would have never imagined in their
wildest dreams that their son would play league cricket in India and make a
fortune. At this rate they’d want him to settle down in India.
During Lalit Modi’s time, there was a different vibe around the IPL.
While all the franchises were happy with him, the people who did not get a
deal with the IPL felt that he had an attitude problem. He used to roam
around like a “King of the Jungle” and that’s why his defiance of
Chidambaram was the turning point in his life. Cricket versus politics was as
exciting as any battle could get.
For me, the IPL was a superb experience from a commercial and an
observational point of view. The dynamics of each of the franchisees was
unique based on the owner’s personality.
Kolkata Knight Riders
I have been performing for Kolkata Knight Riders every year since the
IPL began. To me this has been the toughest event to host during the
tournament because it usually starts only at 2 am after the players come back
to the hotel after the match. My job is to do a stand-up act followed by
interactions with the players on stage at that unearthly hour. If by chance they
have lost the game, then the mood of the players and the team owner Shah
Rukh Khan is low which means I know the show is going down and how. As
my luck would have it, this was almost always the case. But I know that if
Shah Rukh was triggered in the right manner, things would look up. He is the
wittiest person I have interviewed in my life and it is always a challenge for
me to throw questions laced with humour at him. He never lets the audience
down. Once Shah Rukh sets the tempo, the other players carry forward the
momentum and even reluctant speakers like Yusuf Pathan can throw gems
making you chuckle every now and then.
The highlight of this event though is the after party that starts at the ITC
Hotel at around 3am and can go on till the wee hours. Shah Rukh takes the
moral responsibility of entertaining everyone and at any point of time is
dancing some place or the other with his 7 foot tall bodyguards surrounding
him and people trying to get through them to at least try and shake a leg with
him. At that time one sees team members from other franchisees also joining
in the party which now has turned into a complete zoo where every member
is trying to impress the other with their dancing skills.
One of my biggest observations about the IPL was that it showed me the
impact of wealth on different kinds of people and what happens when young
innocent cricketers actually interact with a world that is not theirs.
It’s interesting to watch these young small town boys at these parties. For
them, just the thought of being close to Priyanka Chopra for a few moments
and a hug from her can trigger a volcano of emotions inside their brains and
coupled by a hormonal rush of an uncontrollable nature. When you overhear
some of their conversations, you realise how these young boys are affected
by the glamour quotient and how difficult it is for them to maintain their
sanity in these situations.
Here’s an example which will give you an idea about why players get
greedy and then succumb to the bookies hanging out in the lobbies of team
hotels.
Player
Boss ye Priyanka aur Kareena kya mast hein, chal baat karein?
1:
Player
Pagal hein! Ye badi society ke log hein, apne jaise ki bas ki nahi!
2:
Player
Arre chhod, hum bhi IPL player hein.
1:
Player Arre ye tere Honda City mein thodi na baithegi, ise Range Rover
2: chahiye.
Player Kya baat kar raha hein? Dekh ek din saala Range Rover le ke
1: aoonga.
This kid who is 19 and was struggling to make both ends meet a few
months back, suddenly got an IPL deal and celebrated it by buying a Honda
City and now within 15 days of doing so wants to buy a Rs 1 crore car. What
happens if by chance he has had a few drinks and then meets someone in the
lobby who gives him an iPhone and calls him to his room offering him a deal
to bowl a no-ball in the next match? Now you know how vulnerable the
situation is and that is why having a psychologist and a counsellor I believe is
very crucial to keep the sanity amongst these younger players. This sudden
change in lifestyle is the greatest challenge for many of these younger
players.
Kings XI Punjab
Kings XI Punjab is another glamour driven franchise. The players of this
franchise always played second fiddle because no matter what they did on the
field, the camera would only capture Preity Zinta’s reactions. Thanks to the
IPL we got to see her emote many more expressions than she did in her films
as unlike life, Bollywood films provide very little opportunity to act. It took
her time to understand what this game was all about and now she is far more
mature than before. It was difficult for anyone to control her excitement after
a win. She would invade the ground to hug Yuvraj or Sangakarra. As a team
owner she didn’t realise that this caused a sense of inequality amongst the
other players. Many times I wanted to tell her that as a management principle
she needs to love all her employees equally. Yuvi and Sanga are popular
among the girls, she needs to focus on the others. It was Piyush Chawla who
needed the hugs back then. This was an important HR lesson which she
missed out on in the initial years of her IPL career. Piyush, by the way,
played better for KKR recently when they won the IPL in 2014.
The IPL events and parties were an economy by themselves. In the first
few years, companies and brands bid to sponsor IPL parties. These parties
had a strange mix of players and models who walked the ramp and wannabe
actresses, cheerleaders and nouveau rich businessmen from across India who
tried to make an impression. At that time, ticket packages were such that you
could watch the game and then come to the party at a hefty price. So no
matter how and where you made your money from, whether it was by selling
leather goods in Ludhiana or textile in Tiruchirapalli, you could come to this
party if you had the cash to spend. As part of their contracts, players had to
come and hang out at these parties for some time. Small businessmen would
mingle with the players asking them the stupidest questions but then the
players had no other option, they were paid to listen.
The main parties happened after this in the private enclosures of team
owners where senior corporates hung out with the real celebs and senior
cricketers. This was the exclusive group where big discussions happened.
One of the key reasons that I thought the IPL worked was that it was a great
way for corporates to entertain their customers and guests. Every time one
went to the President’s box during a game, it felt like a CII summit where
business heads got together to decide on the economy over a drink and
cricket. Each one thought that they knew the game better than the other.
Mumbai Indians
The boys from Mumbai Indians are relatively low profile. Well when Nita
bhabhi is your owner, you’ll never be high profile enough, unless you’re
Sachin Tendulkar. I’m sure even Pollard feels intimidated in front of her. For
most of the earlier matches she used to sit in the dug-out with a headmistress
like look which by default put the young players under tremendous pressure
to perform. I must say though that on the other hand when you are doing any
stuff for the MI team, the owners treat guests with utmost dignity and respect.
My strategy while performing at a Mumbai Indians event was to first break
the ice with Sachin because I know if that happens well then the entire team
would fall in line making every moment of the evening special.
India must be the only country in the world which wanted them to wear
clothes. I feel bad for the girls because despite not having anything to do with
big money, auctions, teams or FERA violations they were the ones who
suffered the most! They just came here to be cheerleaders. This was one of
the only industries where India was hiring foreigners instead of exporting our
workforce. It was a matter of pride. The courts however didn’t like
cheerleaders and the BCCI was asked to justify their presence.
The cheerleaders helped players in more ways than one by distracting the
crowds and taking the pressure away from the players. There were times in
the IPL where a player had dropped a catch and no one even noticed it
because the crowd was busy ogling at the cheerleaders.
While match fixing has been a constant menace that needs to be dealt with
strictly, one also needs to seriously consider the option of legalising betting at
least during the IPL.
Since the IPL is all about entertainment, the BCCI should legalise betting
during the event and take it one notch higher with innovations like mic-
linking the fielders directly to the bookies instead of the commentators. It
would be so much fun. Actually commentators should be replaced by
bookies.
“Agli gaind, rate 5:1, accha shot, abhi rate 50:40.” Would be far more
entertaining than some of the old school commentators. We always
complained about subjects in school not having any practical application. I
think the study of probability was one of the best examples of applied
mathematics and our teachers who taught us that subject were the original
bookies. Besides bookies, the only other people who made a career out of
probability were those working at the MET department. Bookies should be
actually given awards for taking math to a new level. A hard working math
teacher would only make about Rs 10,000 per month, but a bookie…any
guesses?
I’m not surprised that betting is rampant. We have speculated on
everything in life. For God’s sake even our education system was based on
21 Probable Question Sets for board exams. If we can speculate in education
why can’t we speculate in sport?
It’s interesting that 99 percent of betting and spot fixing happens on
bowlers. After all this, one wonders why we still call it a batsman’s game.
18
One of the drawbacks is the lack of excitement Indians have for that small
piece of yellow metal. India imports almost 50 percent of its gold in the form
of jewellery. We buy gold for everything from celebrating the birth of a child
to when we have extra cash lying around. We even have a festival called
Dhanteras which is considered auspicious for buying gold. For years dirty
Indian men have been accepting tonnes of free gold in the form of dowry
from their wives and in-laws. Do you think any Indian man would work hard
for 4 years to win a gold plated medal at the Olympic Games? Especially
since the gold medals awarded consist of 80 percent silver. It just doesn’t
make sense for Indians.
Most sportsmen do not get much respect in Indian society. Imagine you
go to a wedding and you are standing next to a doctor and suddenly there is
an introduction parade. The host will say, “Meet Mr Ranade, he is an
orthopedic surgeon and meet Mr Sathaye, he plays some game, what is your
game? Ya ya malkhamb, Ya. He won the bronze medal in the Bangladesh
Malkhamb Asian Cup.” Do you think anyone would even nod in
appreciation?
Unfortunately we cannot convince the IOC to change the chemical
composition of medals at the Olympics just to motivate Indian sportsmen.
The only other solution is for the government to enforce stronger anti–dowry
measures thereby limiting the easy supply of gold and creating a genuine
need to work hard for it.
DISCLAIMER: The opinions in this book are solely those of the author.
Popular Prakashan Pvt. Ltd. assumes no responibility for the content.
(4412)
ISBN 978-81-7991-853-1
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About the Author
Vikram Sathaye has the distinction of being the first English Stand-up
Comedian in India and has performed in more than 1,200 corporate events
across the world over the last 11 years.
An MBA in Marketing from the Symbiosis Institute of Business
Management, Vikram worked for 7 years with companies like MTV and
PMG. While at MTV he had been performing stand-up sketches along with
the MTV VJ’s since 1998. In 2003, he got the opportunity to be part of Extra
Innings on SET MAX as a cricket humourist. On his return he was offered to
perform a sketch at the 2003-2004 CEAT Cricket Awards. Encouraged by the
overwhelming response from the audiences Vikram then launched himself as
a professional stand-up comedian.
His television stints include being a presenter on SET MAX during the
World Cup in 2003 and Champions Trophy 2004, India’s Tour of South
Africa on ESPN Star Sports in 2006 and the ICC World Cup 2011 on IBN
Lokmat.
His stand-up repertoire includes everything from sports, politics, current
affairs, Bollywood, to popular culture and solutions for marital disputes.
As an entrepreneur, Vikram is the Director of a sports and entertainment
company called White Copper Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. He is also one of the
founding member of “Bawraas” - an initiative along with Bollywood
musicians Swanand Kirkire and Shantanu Moitra, to support young
promising Indians who have taken up unconventional careers. Another
interesting activity he is involved in is “Think Cricket” - a platform started
along with leading cricket expert Harsha Bhogle and Anita Bhogle aimed at
senior corporate executives, to discuss all matters cricket.
@vikramsathaye /vikramsathaye
/vikramsathaye www.justvikram.com
Dedication
To my mom and dad from whom I inherited my humour and cricket gene
Author’s Note