He is arguably the game’s biggest ever star. He is also basically a truly decent guy. A shade too decent, as it turns out. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is the one Indian who has defined his own brand equity. He has created the kind of records that will perhaps remain unsurpassed. But all this code-breaking greatness cannot rescue his autobiography, Sachin Tendulkar: Playing it My Way (Hodder & Stoughton, Rs 899), from the kind of listless mediocrity that it is: a well-meaning, sincere effort that tells us only those parts of the tale which are already known. The book that could have authoritatively demystified several things ends up doing nothing of the sort. The great man has preferred to be either too diplomatic or too reticent about the very issues which one thought a man of his stature would answer for posterity.
It is truly baffling why Tendulkar skirts huge controversies like match-fixing that brought so much shame to the great game; one expected a no-nonsense, categorical account of all that transpired, but unfortunately Tendulkar has opted not to reveal the ugly, unedifying truth. A bland statement that he thought the scandals had compromised the credibility of the game and were distasteful in essence is all one gets out of the man on an issue on which he could have thrown the kind of light that would have unmasked the guilty comprehensively and forever. Here was an opportunity to identify the villains of the piece, so that the game they tried to destroy can learn to destroy them forever.
It just cannot be that Sachin has his own rationale for not coming out with the truth. After all, nobody is greater than the game itself.
The god of cricket has failed his fans and the game of cricket. He owed it to his fans and to cricket to save the game.
One “controversy” Sachin does raise, and it has already been rather uncharitably dismissed as an attempt to increase the sales pitch of his autobiography. It must be called what it is: a rather belated post-facto revelation which does neither Sachin nor Indian cricket any good, and brings into conflict cricketing icons of two different eras with markedly contrasting temperaments.
This whole thing about Greg Chappell trying to pull off a veritable coup in the ranks of Indian cricket during his days as the team’s all-too-important coach (2006-07) and entering into a quid pro quo arrangement where the two could script a long-lasting reign for each other — with Sachin as skipper and Greg himself as the coach — should have been exposed at that time itself. Talking about it now seems rather belated.
But there is no reason to disbelieve the Master Blaster. For, in spite of his undoubted fame and skills as a batsman par excellence, there always has been an element of conceit about Greg Chappell as captain, which was most “famously” highlighted by him asking brother Trevor to bowl underarm when New Zealand came within one boundary of cleaning up the Aussies in a one-day game in the 1980s!
Chappell and Sachin may have played the same game, but they were a generation apart and their approaches too were a world apart. While Sachin has doggedly avoided getting embroiled in controversies, Chappell reveled in them. His frosty relationships with senior cricket players dominated the headlines during his stint as Team India coach. Sachin Tendulkar’s scathing revelations in his autobiography have brought back memories of an eminently forgettable episode in the history of Indian cricket.
So what was it about Chappell — who, it may be put on record, studiously avoided touring India during his playing days — that he jumped at the lucrative prospect of becoming the coach, riling so many Indian players, including the gentler ones like V.V.S. Laxman? For starters, his approach was abrupt and abrasive, pulling the top shot players out of their comfort zones. In turn, he ended up breeding insecurity, which led to uncertainty in the ranks, with even the well-established lot peering over their shoulder. They never felt that his ideas were for the good of the team. He fiddled around with batting positions and pushed for a youth-first policy — both moves could have worked but for his confrontational approach. Pure cricketing logic may have dictated at least aspects of Greg the coach, but his persona was such that even such apparently genuine attempts were misunderstood. Deconstructing him is not easy, but it is apparent that the man who found fault with the temperament of so many had unresolved problems of his own.
Greg Chappell was a huge misfit in the Indian dressing room because he antagonised the seniors and virtually finished the careers of several promising ones like Irfan Pathan. He made no attempt to warm up to the team he was coaching, and was apparently too preoccupied with hassles relating to his contract with the world’s richest cricketing bosses.
Chappell took over at a time when Team India had become used to the unassuming John Wright. Unlike the Kiwi, who preferred to stay out of the limelight, Chappell, a true icon in his playing days, was at the same time perceived by the players as someone who sought to appropriate the limelight. He expected that his record as a batsman would ensure that players fell in line with his diktat. It could not have worked out that way, and it didn’t. The results under him were mixed. India started to chase better in the limited-over games and even won a Test series in the West Indies, but with him in charge, it was either his way or the highway.
Even if one were inclined to be more sympathetic and blame the mess on a clash of cultures, subsequent episodes in Chappell’s coaching career don’t support that theory. He was shunned by the Australian team when he was briefly involved with them. As an Indian commentator says, perhaps, “Chappell wasn’t cut out to coach a team of stars.”
Sachin, to be fair to him, has seldom stooped to the level of bad-mouthing anybody. But he should have taken Dravid into confidence and reported the matter to selection committee chief Dilip Vengsarkar. Intriguingly, he did nothing of the sort.
The book does provide some fascinating insights into the making of a champion. But the failure to etch the big picture makes the whole thing a lame exercise.
The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi.
