Perhaps no sport has so inspired literature as cricket. No doubt football or tennis fans (or baseball fans for that matter) will reject that claim. Yet, the fact is the pace and concentrated intensity of a cricket contest, the gradual unfolding of a five-day drama — or even 100-over drama, if one so prefers — the grandeur that cricket and only cricket could evoke as an intricate construct of English civilisation and an accompanying social order and, of course, the English language itself have made for a magical combination.
Fine books have been written on the history of cricket, on particular epochs and events and controversies — from Bodyline to the Packer eruption to the match fixing scandals. There are memorable biographies and autobiographies. Yet, the best of cricket literature in some senses is the anthology that puts together short essays, even match reports. There have been occasions when a single innings has created remarkable prose.
A piece by Neville Cardus comes to mind. This writer read it years ago and unfortunately cannot trace it today, having lost it — and the volume it featured in — at some stage in numerous moves from one home to the next. The essay described not a test match or series or even a double century or some such grand innings, but was a taut and almost thriller-like rendition of how Len Hutton scored some 20 runs — just 20 or thereabouts.
The innings in question was played against the South Africans at Old Trafford in the summer of 1951. England had been set 139 to win and Hutton was disappointed because the target was too small for him to hit a hundred, a hundred that would have been his 100th in first-class cricket.
However, with about 20 runs to go and Hutton nearing 80 — he had of course opened the innings — there appeared a glimmer of hope. Hutton calculated that if he hit every run from then on, carefully taking a single or a three off the final ball of each over, he could take his score to 94, with England at 138. At that point, England would need one to win, and Hutton would need to hit a six. The team would win and the batsman would reach his 100th first-class century not in some ordinary county game but in a Test match.
Cardus’ essay is an exploration of how Hutton outthinks the odds and plots his progress, conspires to get those final 20 odd runs without losing his dignity and letting on that he is bothered about his hundred. If memory serves, he also has an eye on gathering rainclouds.
Cardus is brilliant in reading Hutton’s mind, run by run, ball by ball, guessing what he contemplates as he surveys the field, planning that single run off the sixth ball, that two or boundary off every other ball, that narrow escape, that excruciating detail. It reads like a murder mystery, with the detective gathering the clues and nearing the finale.
Eventually, Hutton gets it right to a nicety. England has reached 138, the scores are equal, and Hutton, on strike, is 94 not out. As the bowler runs in, the master identifies where he wants to send the ball, and hit that final six. His stroke is perfect, alas less than perfect — the ball lands inches short of the boundary, and crosses the line for a four. Hutton walks off emotionless. England has won by nine wickets, with Hutton 98 not out.
The following week Hutton reaches his 100th century in a country match, but if you’ve read Cardus’ masterpiece on that majestic and yet tragic 98 not out, it almost doesn’t matter. Does modern cricket, especially the shorter game, lend itself to such writing?
The thought has struck me, as it must have countless other cricket buffs, just so many times. Could someone do a full essay, with the theatre and the welter of emotions that Cardus and Hutton put us through at Old Trafford in 1951, on a breezy 20 off 15 balls in one more of the endless Fifty50 or Twenty20 games?
My “eureka moment” came on January 31, while following the absolutely inconsequential T20 match between India and Australia, played in Sydney. Australia batted first and hit a stiff 197, leaving India to chase at 10 an over. At the end of the 14th over, India was just ahead of the asking rate, had lost just two wickets and Virat Kohli was in his pomp.
All was well with the world. The fifth ball of over 15 changed everything: Kohli fell for a swashbuckling 50 off 36 balls. Surprisingly the captain, M.S. Dhoni, didn’t come in and Yuvraj Singh walked to the middle, for the first time on the tour. He played out a dot ball and the over ended.
The next four overs were horrific for Yuvraj. Suresh Raina had much of the strike, and thank god for it. Yuvraj was out of sorts. The awkward shuffle, the attempt to hook but — too slow, he missed. In over 19, the Australians cleverly gave Yuvraj a last-ball single, ensuring he needed 17 off the final over.
Batting on a woeful five off nine balls, Yuvraj looked a shadow of a once-proud athlete. The memories came back: Yuvraj’s debut in the ICC Trophy of 2000, his pulsating innings in an Indian victory over Australia in that tournament; the World Cup of 2011, when Yuvraj battled cancer but didn’t know it, heroically negotiating inexplicable headaches and vomiting bursts but still delivering electricity on the field; the treatment for cancer itself, the bald pate, the comeback, the aura of a survivor.
The heart tightened. Was this all gone? As India limped to defeat, and Yuvraj struggled to middle the ball, were we to be left with nothing but nostalgia and tears?
Heaven knows what forces Yuvraj called upon, what herculean power and determination he commanded from the innermost recesses of his soul… the first ball of the 20th over went for four, the second went for six. The spell had been broken. Forget the match result; it’s a silly bauble. That innings — Yuvraj Singh, 15 off 12 balls, one six and one four — deserves an epic.
