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Indian Innings: The journey of Indian cricket from 1947
The story of Indian cricket is, in so many ways, the story of the nation itself. It is also a game that has inspired some of the most insightful writing across all genres. Indian Innings collects some of the finest samples of this writing, thoughtfully curated by Ayaz Memon, one of India’s foremost sports journalists. In his own magisterial introduction, Memon traces the development of the sport in a newly independent country, and right up to 1971. The ’70s was a decade of inflection points that dramatically altered Indian cricket. From K.N. Prabhu to P.N. Sundaresan and Dicky Rutnagar to Ramachandra Guha and Suresh Menon, those years of famous victories and of the Spin Quartet come alive. The Prudential Cup victory, the legends that were Gavaskar and Kapil Dev, the Tied Test of 1986, the influence of television—voices as diverse as Rajdeep Sardesai, Raj Singh Dungarpur, Shashi Tharoor and Anil Dharker capture the historic 1980s. The post-1990s years have seen a profusion of cricketing riches for India. The Tendulkar Era, the epic Eden Gardens win in 2001, the 2007 T20 World Cup win, the emergence of the IPL, the 2011 World Cup win, the Dhoni captaincy era, the victory in Australia in 2021 and much more—all feature here, in the essays of some of India’s finest sports writers, like Rohit Brijnath, Sambit Bal and Sharda Ugra. Equally, the book wrestles with the game’s difficult history. The ‘Summer of 42’, the match-fixing issue, the Greg Chappell saga, the Lalit Modi affair and more, are addressed in pieces by Bishan Singh Bedi, Aniruddha Bahal, Pradeep Magazine, Sriram Veera, among others. To round off these fine offerings is Clayton Murzello’s carefully prepared ‘Milestones’ section—a superb snapshot view of the last 75 years. As complete a picture of post-independence cricketing history as one could hope for, this riveting volume promises hours of reading pleasure for every cricket fan.
581 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 27, 2021
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May 10, 2023
“Indian Innings – The Journey of Indian Cricket from 1947” edited by journalist, columnist, author, sports commentator and news channel analyst Ayaz Menon is the story of Indian Cricket from pre-independence era star like Vijay Hazare right up to current stars like Virat Kohli. This is one of those exhaustive and eminently readable book for any Indian cricket lover.
If you have paucity of time and can read only a few of the 400 odd pages, please go thru the first article “Pitching Stumps” by Ayaz Menon himself. He gives his reasons as to why cricket of India is a metaphor for India itself becoming sort of religion in India. You can only marvel at his ingenuity and the efforts put in to collect and collate the material from a vast number of sources – almost eighty different authors. The original concept was to have published articles on Indian cricket by Indian authors – which was tweaked a bit to include articles published in foreign publications too while the “Indian” has been changed to people of Indian Origin – the changes give the book more of both breadth and depth.
Another bonus is a column of “AYAZSpeak” after each of the article – giving comments/ sharing anecdotes by the editor. The book also has a few gems of photographs especially of an era gone by, when magazines and newspapers were the way to consume cricket.
“He strode like a colossus” by Raju Mukherjee – first published in The Sportstar , 22.03.1997 focuses on Vijay Hazare – the kind of apartheid he faced being an “Indian” Christian in the pre independence era before being allowed to participate as part of “Rest” thanks to nationalist movement gaining strength. He was brilliant for close to 25 years, especially as a batsman for his powers of concentration, endurance and mastery over pace. His bowling and excellent fielding was complementary. However, he was not a leader of men and the country lost its best batsman due to the faulty belief that someone who is good as a batsman will also be a good captain (a mistake that we have kept repeating) – although they are two distinct different disciplines requiring different skill sets.
The article “Vinoo Mankad” by Rajan Bala (Outlook, 17.06.2022) who as per the author was the Indian “Cricketer of the Century” for his role in test victories and as per the editor he was the best all rounder in the world in the 1950s.
The article “India’s Finest Hour” by K.N. Prabhu (The Times of India, 25.08.1971) talks in detail about India’s first test victory over England in England. Under the new captain Ajit Wadekar, India had defied all odds and won in the face of no expectations. This was achieved despite trailing in the first innings and losing the previous series 0-3 in 1967.
Our generation will always remember the December 2020 Adelaide test when India were All Out for 36 despite having a first innings lead against Australia. Prior to this the lowest total was 42 All Out at Lords in the 1974 tour. Considering that India had won the previous away series against West Indies and England, they were the strong favorites and thus it was a huge let down and let to the subsequent sacking of the then captain Ajit Wadekar. Two articles covering this series are “It was Abject surrender to the moving ball” by Khalid Ansari (Sportsweek 30.06.1974) and Bishan Singh Bedi’s (part of the team) “1974: Few clothes to no runs, it all went wrong” – first published in The Indian Express on 03.01.2021.
If you are tired of the current crop of our batsman succumbing in fourth innings, please do read “Historical Happening” by Kishore Bhimani (Sportsweek, 15.04.1976) regarding India defeating Lloyd’s West Indies by crossing insurmountable 400 + runs target. Prior to this match, the only time a team had won by scoring more than 400 runs in the fourth inning was Don Bradman’s squad in 1948. The batting heroes were Sunil Gavaskar, Mohinder Amarnath and Gundappa Viswanath in that order. This defeat completely changed the approach by Lloyd who spurned spin and went with an all pace attack resulting in West Indies ruling the sport for next 15-16 years.
The article, “The Best Loved Player” by Ramachandra Guha (espncricinfo.com 05.03.2009) is on G.R. Viswanath who for the first half of his career matched Sunil Gavaskar run for run before his fondness for beer and lack of physical discipline dimmed his reflexes. Still he was a very competitive, respected, popular cricketer throughout his fifteen years career. Considering that initially he was not being considered even for Karnataka state junior team because of being “too short”, he really achieved great heights.
The article, “Great Combination May Not Be Revived” by P.N. Sundaresan (Sportsweek Cricket Quarterly, 1979) explains in detail about the famous spin quartet of Prasanna, Chandrasekhar, Venkatraghavan and Bedi with normally any three of them playing in a single match. During their time Prasanna, Chandra and Bedi were rated as the best in the world in off-spin, leg-spin and left arm spin bowling ably supported by the brilliant close-in fielders Solkar, Wadekar, Abid Ali and Venkat. They were the mainstay of Indian bowling for a decade from 1967 with other bowlers including even Pataudi, Wadekar and Gavaskar just rolling their arms to get the shine off the ball. Credit is also due to the captains MAK Pataudi and later Ajit Wadekar. On a related note, do read the inspiring story of Chandra (Bhagwath Chandrasekhar) a lead bowler with one “proper” arm prospering under a captain (Pataudi) with one eye – “Coffee with Chandra – Spin, songs and other turns with the great Indian spinner” by Suresh Menon (The Cricket Monthly, 06.11.2017).
A few articles on the first world cup that India won that changed Indian cricket and in the years to come Cricket economy forever is on the 1983 World Cup triumph. The article, “June 25, 1983” by Rajdeep Sardesai (India Today 05.02.2015) shares his experience in watching live the finals and Kapil Dev lifting the world cup. Another article on the topic is “The Prudential Cup” by Raj Singh Dungarpur (Wills Book of One-Day Cricket, 1985). He had been a national selector and also head of BCCI and had the first hand experience of India turning the tide from 1975 World Cup (better known for Sunil Gavaskar’s 36 runs in 60 overs) to winning the Prudential Cup (World One Day Champion) in 1983, Asia Cup in 1984 and Benson & Hedges World Championship of Cricket and the Rothmans Cup in 1985. He believed (true till this date) that the requirements of one-day cricket were adaptability and athleticism. He also credited the World Cup win resulting in dissipating the inferiority complex and credited Sunil Gavaskar, Mohinder Amarnath and Kapil Dev for instilling the brand of hardened professionalism in Indian cricket. Another article in the same vein “Kaps” by Balwinder Singh Sandhu is extracted from The Devil’s Pack by Sandhu (1983 Team member) published in 2011.
People of a decade older than ours will probably still recall the silken touch of Mohammad Azharuddin before his fall from grace. Two articles, “Azhar’s century on debut” by K.N.K. Menon (Hindustan Times, 04.01.1985) and “The Inscrutable Craftsman” by Rohit Brijnath (Wisden Cricket Asia, 2004) are worth a read.
Sandeep Dwivedi’s “Javed Miandad his famous last ball six off India’s Chetan Sharma to hand Pakistan maiden title” (The Indian Express, 30.03.2011) speaks about the 1986 innings that turned the way we viewed India-Pakistan matches especially at Sharjah. It took us almost 5-6 years to get back to winning ways.
Then there are two articles on a man many considered at par with Sunil Gavaskar but forced to be under Gavaskar’s shadows throughout his career – Dilip Vengsarkar. The articles, “Team for a dream” by Sunder Rajan (The Times of India, 20.07.1986) and “The Lord of Lord’s – How Dilip Vengsarkar cemented his status among the greats of World Cricket” by Austin Coutinho (Firstpost, 11.08.2018) are therefore worth a read.
The article, “A Memorable Victory for Cricket” from The Hindu, 24.09.1986 talks of the “tied” Madras test match between India and Australia where India had been able to “tie” the match despite having a 177 run first innings deficit thanks to contribution from all batsman especially Sunil Gavaskar, Srikkanth, Amarnath, Shastri who all played for a win despite a defeat staring them in their face.
You cannot miss the articles on Sunil Gavaskar, arguably the best opener nee batsman of his era. The articles, “Gavaskar’s expertise is of no avail – Iqbal Qasim’s spell swings test Pakistan’s way” by The Hindu, 18.03.1987 on the Bangalore test and “Sunil Gavaskar as the embodiment of Independent India” by Shashi Tharoor does show us the brilliance of the man. Tharoor’s article mentions the case of swap of babies at the time of birth and only because of Narayan Masurekar (Gavaskar’s Uncle) could we get back the future cricketer. Tharoor’s article also complements Gavaskar on his timings of retirement with the world asking ‘Why?’ rather than ‘When?’.
Part III of the book covers the period from 1991 to 2001, the era of economic liberalization of India. Therefore, we have a very good article, “Sachin Tendulkar, The Heir Apparent: India’s Teenage Batting sensation speaks exclusively to David McMahon” (The Sunday Age, 16.02.1992) on the coming in prominence of the next superstar, and superstardom he did achieve, being the only cricketer ever to be awarded India’s highest civilian award, “Bharat Ratna”. The article, “Kapil climbs the peak” by R. Mohan (The Hindu, 09.02.1994) talks about Kapil Dev becoming the highest wicket taker in World Test cricket, a unique achievement for a player without much support in the pace department and in a country known for its spin riches. The article, “A fitting reply by Sourav Ganguly” by R. Mohan (Sportstar, 06.07.1996) talks about the arrival of India’s new No. 3 batsman scoring a century on debut at Lord’s. The article, “How Mark Mascrarenhas redefined celebrity management” by Vivek Kamath (Forbes India, 23.12.2013) talks about his impact on the earnings for Indian cricket and his keeping the players at the core of it all. The role played by cricket administrator Jagmohan Dalmiya (BCCI treasurer and the president and also ICC president later) in making India the center of global cricket is discussed in “Jagmohan Dalmiya: The man who showed who is the boss” by Aabhas Sharma (Business Standard, 22.09.2015) and “Jagmohan Dalmiya: The man who revolutionized sports broadcast in India” by Urvi Malvania (Business Standard, 22.09.2015).
An article on Anil Kumble’s Perfect – 10, only the second man to do that after Jim Laker (1953 against Australia in Ashes) to ever do that is covered in the article, “Fourth straight five wicket haul for Saqlain – ‘Perfect – 10’ by Kumble as Pakistan crumbles” by Vijay Lokapally (The Hindu, 08.09.1999) where it talks about the Ferozeshah Kotla (Delhi) test where in the second innings Kumble ended with figures of 26.3 over – 9 maidens – 74 runs and 10 wickets. India had won a test against Pakistan after 19 years. Another article, “Anil Kumble” by Soumya Bhattacharya (extracted from her book – All that you can’t leave behind – why they can never do without cricket, Penguin, 2009) talks about Kumble not to be compared with great spinners but to Aussie Glen McGrath for his accuracy – again and again.
The match fixing scandal of 2000 involving eminent players from across the globe are covered in “By way of deception – The hidden cameras that would not lie” by Aniruddha Bahal (Outlook) and by V. Ramnarayan (The Hindu, 04.04.2000) in “Of fair play and sportsmanship”.
The epic Calcutta (now Kolkata) India – Australia test of 2001 that India won despite following up in 1st innings is covered in “Laxman puts his hand up” and “Silent assassin strikes Aussies” by Prem Panicker (rediff.com, 13.03.2001 & 14.03.2001) respectively and the period is summed up in a detailed article on “Eden Garden – The world’s biggest human laboratory” (this was prior to the Motera stadium becoming the biggest) by Mudar Patherya (from the Best of Indian Sports Writing, edited by Sundeep Mishra, Wisdom Tree, 2001).
Part IV of the book covers 2001-2011 starting with the entry of large number of players from smaller towns in the article, “Small Town, Big Strides” by Sharda Ugra and Ramesh Vinayak ( India Today, 28.05.2001) , the Natwest Trophy Win, etc. An article, “Veeru goes where no Indian has gone before” by Kadambari Murali (Hindustan Times, 30.03.2004) talks about the exploits of Virender Sehwag in scoring the first 300+ by an Indian in a test match, the 2004 test in Pakistan. This was the last tour of India to Pakistan. There are another articles on Virender Sehwag and on cricket with Pakistan. Two articles focused on Sourav Ganguly covers his run-in with coach Greg Chappell and his turn as a Captain are covered in great detail.
India’s World T20 Championship is covered in “Generation Next Gets its 1983 Moment” by G.S.Vivek (The Indian Express, 25.09.2007) . Other articles of interest are “the Monkey Gate”, advent of IPL, on Lalit Modi, Yuvraj Singh’s six sixes.
Part V of the book covers 2011 to 2015 – Hitting the High Note focuses on retirement of Rahul Dravid, then Sachin Tendulkar, entry of Virat Kohli, retirement of M.S. Dhoni especially “Dhoni – The first hero of ‘real India’” by Kunal Pradhan (Hindustan Times, 16.08.2020)
Section VI of the book focuses on The Ranji Trophy and the players or teams that made it and those that didn’t.
Section VII of the book covers the period after 2016 focusing on the Virat Kohli way , the Lodha Committee report Women’s Cricket etc.
All in all a reader will really cherish the time spent on reading this book on cricket.
If you have paucity of time and can read only a few of the 400 odd pages, please go thru the first article “Pitching Stumps” by Ayaz Menon himself. He gives his reasons as to why cricket of India is a metaphor for India itself becoming sort of religion in India. You can only marvel at his ingenuity and the efforts put in to collect and collate the material from a vast number of sources – almost eighty different authors. The original concept was to have published articles on Indian cricket by Indian authors – which was tweaked a bit to include articles published in foreign publications too while the “Indian” has been changed to people of Indian Origin – the changes give the book more of both breadth and depth.
Another bonus is a column of “AYAZSpeak” after each of the article – giving comments/ sharing anecdotes by the editor. The book also has a few gems of photographs especially of an era gone by, when magazines and newspapers were the way to consume cricket.
“He strode like a colossus” by Raju Mukherjee – first published in The Sportstar , 22.03.1997 focuses on Vijay Hazare – the kind of apartheid he faced being an “Indian” Christian in the pre independence era before being allowed to participate as part of “Rest” thanks to nationalist movement gaining strength. He was brilliant for close to 25 years, especially as a batsman for his powers of concentration, endurance and mastery over pace. His bowling and excellent fielding was complementary. However, he was not a leader of men and the country lost its best batsman due to the faulty belief that someone who is good as a batsman will also be a good captain (a mistake that we have kept repeating) – although they are two distinct different disciplines requiring different skill sets.
The article “Vinoo Mankad” by Rajan Bala (Outlook, 17.06.2022) who as per the author was the Indian “Cricketer of the Century” for his role in test victories and as per the editor he was the best all rounder in the world in the 1950s.
The article “India’s Finest Hour” by K.N. Prabhu (The Times of India, 25.08.1971) talks in detail about India’s first test victory over England in England. Under the new captain Ajit Wadekar, India had defied all odds and won in the face of no expectations. This was achieved despite trailing in the first innings and losing the previous series 0-3 in 1967.
Our generation will always remember the December 2020 Adelaide test when India were All Out for 36 despite having a first innings lead against Australia. Prior to this the lowest total was 42 All Out at Lords in the 1974 tour. Considering that India had won the previous away series against West Indies and England, they were the strong favorites and thus it was a huge let down and let to the subsequent sacking of the then captain Ajit Wadekar. Two articles covering this series are “It was Abject surrender to the moving ball” by Khalid Ansari (Sportsweek 30.06.1974) and Bishan Singh Bedi’s (part of the team) “1974: Few clothes to no runs, it all went wrong” – first published in The Indian Express on 03.01.2021.
If you are tired of the current crop of our batsman succumbing in fourth innings, please do read “Historical Happening” by Kishore Bhimani (Sportsweek, 15.04.1976) regarding India defeating Lloyd’s West Indies by crossing insurmountable 400 + runs target. Prior to this match, the only time a team had won by scoring more than 400 runs in the fourth inning was Don Bradman’s squad in 1948. The batting heroes were Sunil Gavaskar, Mohinder Amarnath and Gundappa Viswanath in that order. This defeat completely changed the approach by Lloyd who spurned spin and went with an all pace attack resulting in West Indies ruling the sport for next 15-16 years.
The article, “The Best Loved Player” by Ramachandra Guha (espncricinfo.com 05.03.2009) is on G.R. Viswanath who for the first half of his career matched Sunil Gavaskar run for run before his fondness for beer and lack of physical discipline dimmed his reflexes. Still he was a very competitive, respected, popular cricketer throughout his fifteen years career. Considering that initially he was not being considered even for Karnataka state junior team because of being “too short”, he really achieved great heights.
The article, “Great Combination May Not Be Revived” by P.N. Sundaresan (Sportsweek Cricket Quarterly, 1979) explains in detail about the famous spin quartet of Prasanna, Chandrasekhar, Venkatraghavan and Bedi with normally any three of them playing in a single match. During their time Prasanna, Chandra and Bedi were rated as the best in the world in off-spin, leg-spin and left arm spin bowling ably supported by the brilliant close-in fielders Solkar, Wadekar, Abid Ali and Venkat. They were the mainstay of Indian bowling for a decade from 1967 with other bowlers including even Pataudi, Wadekar and Gavaskar just rolling their arms to get the shine off the ball. Credit is also due to the captains MAK Pataudi and later Ajit Wadekar. On a related note, do read the inspiring story of Chandra (Bhagwath Chandrasekhar) a lead bowler with one “proper” arm prospering under a captain (Pataudi) with one eye – “Coffee with Chandra – Spin, songs and other turns with the great Indian spinner” by Suresh Menon (The Cricket Monthly, 06.11.2017).
A few articles on the first world cup that India won that changed Indian cricket and in the years to come Cricket economy forever is on the 1983 World Cup triumph. The article, “June 25, 1983” by Rajdeep Sardesai (India Today 05.02.2015) shares his experience in watching live the finals and Kapil Dev lifting the world cup. Another article on the topic is “The Prudential Cup” by Raj Singh Dungarpur (Wills Book of One-Day Cricket, 1985). He had been a national selector and also head of BCCI and had the first hand experience of India turning the tide from 1975 World Cup (better known for Sunil Gavaskar’s 36 runs in 60 overs) to winning the Prudential Cup (World One Day Champion) in 1983, Asia Cup in 1984 and Benson & Hedges World Championship of Cricket and the Rothmans Cup in 1985. He believed (true till this date) that the requirements of one-day cricket were adaptability and athleticism. He also credited the World Cup win resulting in dissipating the inferiority complex and credited Sunil Gavaskar, Mohinder Amarnath and Kapil Dev for instilling the brand of hardened professionalism in Indian cricket. Another article in the same vein “Kaps” by Balwinder Singh Sandhu is extracted from The Devil’s Pack by Sandhu (1983 Team member) published in 2011.
People of a decade older than ours will probably still recall the silken touch of Mohammad Azharuddin before his fall from grace. Two articles, “Azhar’s century on debut” by K.N.K. Menon (Hindustan Times, 04.01.1985) and “The Inscrutable Craftsman” by Rohit Brijnath (Wisden Cricket Asia, 2004) are worth a read.
Sandeep Dwivedi’s “Javed Miandad his famous last ball six off India’s Chetan Sharma to hand Pakistan maiden title” (The Indian Express, 30.03.2011) speaks about the 1986 innings that turned the way we viewed India-Pakistan matches especially at Sharjah. It took us almost 5-6 years to get back to winning ways.
Then there are two articles on a man many considered at par with Sunil Gavaskar but forced to be under Gavaskar’s shadows throughout his career – Dilip Vengsarkar. The articles, “Team for a dream” by Sunder Rajan (The Times of India, 20.07.1986) and “The Lord of Lord’s – How Dilip Vengsarkar cemented his status among the greats of World Cricket” by Austin Coutinho (Firstpost, 11.08.2018) are therefore worth a read.
The article, “A Memorable Victory for Cricket” from The Hindu, 24.09.1986 talks of the “tied” Madras test match between India and Australia where India had been able to “tie” the match despite having a 177 run first innings deficit thanks to contribution from all batsman especially Sunil Gavaskar, Srikkanth, Amarnath, Shastri who all played for a win despite a defeat staring them in their face.
You cannot miss the articles on Sunil Gavaskar, arguably the best opener nee batsman of his era. The articles, “Gavaskar’s expertise is of no avail – Iqbal Qasim’s spell swings test Pakistan’s way” by The Hindu, 18.03.1987 on the Bangalore test and “Sunil Gavaskar as the embodiment of Independent India” by Shashi Tharoor does show us the brilliance of the man. Tharoor’s article mentions the case of swap of babies at the time of birth and only because of Narayan Masurekar (Gavaskar’s Uncle) could we get back the future cricketer. Tharoor’s article also complements Gavaskar on his timings of retirement with the world asking ‘Why?’ rather than ‘When?’.
Part III of the book covers the period from 1991 to 2001, the era of economic liberalization of India. Therefore, we have a very good article, “Sachin Tendulkar, The Heir Apparent: India’s Teenage Batting sensation speaks exclusively to David McMahon” (The Sunday Age, 16.02.1992) on the coming in prominence of the next superstar, and superstardom he did achieve, being the only cricketer ever to be awarded India’s highest civilian award, “Bharat Ratna”. The article, “Kapil climbs the peak” by R. Mohan (The Hindu, 09.02.1994) talks about Kapil Dev becoming the highest wicket taker in World Test cricket, a unique achievement for a player without much support in the pace department and in a country known for its spin riches. The article, “A fitting reply by Sourav Ganguly” by R. Mohan (Sportstar, 06.07.1996) talks about the arrival of India’s new No. 3 batsman scoring a century on debut at Lord’s. The article, “How Mark Mascrarenhas redefined celebrity management” by Vivek Kamath (Forbes India, 23.12.2013) talks about his impact on the earnings for Indian cricket and his keeping the players at the core of it all. The role played by cricket administrator Jagmohan Dalmiya (BCCI treasurer and the president and also ICC president later) in making India the center of global cricket is discussed in “Jagmohan Dalmiya: The man who showed who is the boss” by Aabhas Sharma (Business Standard, 22.09.2015) and “Jagmohan Dalmiya: The man who revolutionized sports broadcast in India” by Urvi Malvania (Business Standard, 22.09.2015).
An article on Anil Kumble’s Perfect – 10, only the second man to do that after Jim Laker (1953 against Australia in Ashes) to ever do that is covered in the article, “Fourth straight five wicket haul for Saqlain – ‘Perfect – 10’ by Kumble as Pakistan crumbles” by Vijay Lokapally (The Hindu, 08.09.1999) where it talks about the Ferozeshah Kotla (Delhi) test where in the second innings Kumble ended with figures of 26.3 over – 9 maidens – 74 runs and 10 wickets. India had won a test against Pakistan after 19 years. Another article, “Anil Kumble” by Soumya Bhattacharya (extracted from her book – All that you can’t leave behind – why they can never do without cricket, Penguin, 2009) talks about Kumble not to be compared with great spinners but to Aussie Glen McGrath for his accuracy – again and again.
The match fixing scandal of 2000 involving eminent players from across the globe are covered in “By way of deception – The hidden cameras that would not lie” by Aniruddha Bahal (Outlook) and by V. Ramnarayan (The Hindu, 04.04.2000) in “Of fair play and sportsmanship”.
The epic Calcutta (now Kolkata) India – Australia test of 2001 that India won despite following up in 1st innings is covered in “Laxman puts his hand up” and “Silent assassin strikes Aussies” by Prem Panicker (rediff.com, 13.03.2001 & 14.03.2001) respectively and the period is summed up in a detailed article on “Eden Garden – The world’s biggest human laboratory” (this was prior to the Motera stadium becoming the biggest) by Mudar Patherya (from the Best of Indian Sports Writing, edited by Sundeep Mishra, Wisdom Tree, 2001).
Part IV of the book covers 2001-2011 starting with the entry of large number of players from smaller towns in the article, “Small Town, Big Strides” by Sharda Ugra and Ramesh Vinayak ( India Today, 28.05.2001) , the Natwest Trophy Win, etc. An article, “Veeru goes where no Indian has gone before” by Kadambari Murali (Hindustan Times, 30.03.2004) talks about the exploits of Virender Sehwag in scoring the first 300+ by an Indian in a test match, the 2004 test in Pakistan. This was the last tour of India to Pakistan. There are another articles on Virender Sehwag and on cricket with Pakistan. Two articles focused on Sourav Ganguly covers his run-in with coach Greg Chappell and his turn as a Captain are covered in great detail.
India’s World T20 Championship is covered in “Generation Next Gets its 1983 Moment” by G.S.Vivek (The Indian Express, 25.09.2007) . Other articles of interest are “the Monkey Gate”, advent of IPL, on Lalit Modi, Yuvraj Singh’s six sixes.
Part V of the book covers 2011 to 2015 – Hitting the High Note focuses on retirement of Rahul Dravid, then Sachin Tendulkar, entry of Virat Kohli, retirement of M.S. Dhoni especially “Dhoni – The first hero of ‘real India’” by Kunal Pradhan (Hindustan Times, 16.08.2020)
Section VI of the book focuses on The Ranji Trophy and the players or teams that made it and those that didn’t.
Section VII of the book covers the period after 2016 focusing on the Virat Kohli way , the Lodha Committee report Women’s Cricket etc.
All in all a reader will really cherish the time spent on reading this book on cricket.
June 3, 2023
Indian cricket journey has been such a rollercoaster journey in 2nd half of 19th century when the cricketing roots took place till the current times, that it is quite difficult to capture in a single narrative. However this book makes an attempt to capture some of the key milestones of the Indian cricketing journey from 1947 onwards, but not as a historical complication but more as selection of writings capturing these key milestones.
The book largely succeeds in this endeavour and definitely takes the reader through the highs and lows of Indian cricket. The selection of writings by the editor of book- Ayaz Menon a distinguished cricket writer is quite varied, comprehensive and covers multiples viewpoints. These writings are in different categories- some are match reports, interviews, analysis. They cover important events, personalities, issues like match fixing for e.g.
An add-on to the writings, where the author expresses his thoughts- as Ayazspeaks is quite insightful. It is quite interesting to read some writings which are of that time, while some look back long after events have taken place.
The caveat as mentioned by the author of very less writing available prior to 1970s is a bit of dampener which reflects the amateur state of Indian cricket at that time, and the developing arena of sport journalism, however the author has tried to do the best of the content available.
Few of my favourite articles- ‘He Strode like a Colossus by Raju Bharatan’, ‘Great Combination may not be revived by P.N. Sundaresan’, ‘Coffee with Chandra by Suresh Menon’, ‘Sachin Tendulkar, the Heir Apparent by David McMahon’, ‘The Lord of Lords’ by Austin Coutinho’, ‘The Man whom Cricket Loved back’ by Sambit Bal among others.
A definite must-read for Indian cricket fans- to relieve the memories of Indian cricket.
The book largely succeeds in this endeavour and definitely takes the reader through the highs and lows of Indian cricket. The selection of writings by the editor of book- Ayaz Menon a distinguished cricket writer is quite varied, comprehensive and covers multiples viewpoints. These writings are in different categories- some are match reports, interviews, analysis. They cover important events, personalities, issues like match fixing for e.g.
An add-on to the writings, where the author expresses his thoughts- as Ayazspeaks is quite insightful. It is quite interesting to read some writings which are of that time, while some look back long after events have taken place.
The caveat as mentioned by the author of very less writing available prior to 1970s is a bit of dampener which reflects the amateur state of Indian cricket at that time, and the developing arena of sport journalism, however the author has tried to do the best of the content available.
Few of my favourite articles- ‘He Strode like a Colossus by Raju Bharatan’, ‘Great Combination may not be revived by P.N. Sundaresan’, ‘Coffee with Chandra by Suresh Menon’, ‘Sachin Tendulkar, the Heir Apparent by David McMahon’, ‘The Lord of Lords’ by Austin Coutinho’, ‘The Man whom Cricket Loved back’ by Sambit Bal among others.
A definite must-read for Indian cricket fans- to relieve the memories of Indian cricket.
November 9, 2021
Fun book for a cricket nut like me. Heavily biased towards the present day, this book is a compilation of great cricket writing from India and about Indian cricket. I am about the same age as Ayaz and therefore his choice of matches, subjects resonate with me. Really enjoyed this collection.
May 3, 2022
Decent collection of essays/articles with useful notes from the editor to help jog your memory. One gets a feeling that it could probably have been curated better, though - reads a bit like a mishmash.
October 22, 2022
Not exactly what I was expecting. A lot of things have been skipped or mentioned in one liners and brushed aside. No mention of Laxman's heroics at Sydney in 1999/00, or CB Series win in 2008, or Rahane, Ishant's magic at Lords. These are few examples amongst many.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 23, 2021
A powerful collection of journalism on the most beloved sport of the Indian subcontinent. You learn about cricketers and people behind the scenes that made those cricketers who they were.
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