Back In Business

Even as Sachin Tendulkar was about to enter 1999, his tenthyear in international cricket, he received the ultimate recognition for anybatsman — a testimonial from Sir Donald Bradman that among all batsmen he haswatched after his retirement, Tendulkar’s batting resembled his the most. Tounderstand the Don’s statement, one needs to know what his batting was allabout. And, perhaps, the best person to turn to for a fully developed analysisof Bradman’s batting is the West Indian political activist and cricket writerC.L.R. James.

In his book Beyond A Boundary, James describes thebatsmen of the 1930s and 1940s, including Bradman, as having taken batting intothe discourse of industrial production from the discourse of art of theEdwardian age (1890-1914). According to James, batsmen of the 1930s and 40s,including Sir Walter Hammond and Bradman, reverted to a technique that wasorthodox, they minimised shots that were risky, and emphasised on producing runsreliably and predictably in a reasonably quick timeframe. According to James,the school of batting was connected dialectically to the economic and politicaltrends in the society—the discourse of maximisation of runs and minimisationof time spent in the crease was connected to Fordism (industrial massproduction) and the discourse of cutting out risky shots, or security overflair, was connected to the concept of the Welfare State, which was beingformulated in inter-war Britain and Europe, as a consequence ofindustrialization and war.

Former England captain, Michael Atherton, one of the bestmodern exponents of technical perfection, in his autobiography, Opening Up,talks about Tendulkar and Lara as the best batsmen he has played against.Atherton, a Cambridge blue in history, discusses the batting styles of the twogreat modern masters. Lara, according to Atherton, is the only player of hisgeneration to possess a touch of genius. The only person to run Lara close,according to Atherton, is not Tendulkar but the Indian master’s former captainMohammed Azharuddin. According to Atherton, Lara, and to a lesser extent,Azharuddin, make batting look so easy and beautiful when executing their shotsin the most unorthodox yet elegant ways. Tendulkar, on the other hand, isextremely orthodox in his shot selection, yet remarkably quick in scoring hisruns, and very predictable in the production of runs as well. According toAtherton, Lara, even at the height of his brilliance, gives the bowler and thefielding captain a ray of hope. On the other hand, Tendulkar is the person whoclinically mauls the confidence of the bowler and the fielding team and makeseverybody, including the opposition, believe that his wicket is for the takingonly after a customary hundred or even more. Atherton’s analysis of Lara andTendulkar are, in fact, remarkably similar to those about the twosome by ShaneWarne and Allan Donald.

If one were to contextualise Tendulkar’s recent run of poorform in Tests in the light of these observations and critiques, and his returnto form in the Sydney Test, one would easily come to terms with the reactionsthat these have caused in the world of cricket. Whereas Indian fans weredismayed, startled, puzzled and worried at what was happening to their starbatsmen in Test matches when he was in the worst form of his career till date,cricketers and fans in other countries were no less surprised though they didnot share the worry and despair. One of the most memorable moments of recenttimes was when former West Indies fast bowler and television commentator MichaelHolding interviewed Sri Lanka’s spin wizard Muthiah Muralitharan on collectinghis man of the series trophy in the recent Sri Lanka-England Test series. Aftertalking about Murali’s bowling, Holding decided to quip about his recentimproved batting, and he said, "You seem to be batting well. This year, inTest matches, you have a higher average than Sachin Tendulkar." Murali,whose mind could not even fathom the reality, just thought that Holding wasplaying a fast one, to which Holding said, "Well, this is a fact. This isstatistics." Murali’s surprised stare said it all!

One must remember that in the late 1990s, when Lara washaving the worst run of his career, a period that extended for quite some time,the cricket world did not react as strongly as it did now when Tendulkar was notamong runs. An artist or a musician, after all, can have barren periods (eventhough music and literature are situated within the field of capitalism throughthe recording and publishing industries) and they get out of the rut by usingthe same resources that helped them in their creative days. Nations and people,in the age of global capitalism, panic only when multinational companies gobankrupt, when national economies get into acute recession, when productiondries up!

Then again, when that happens, they soon dig themselves outof the hole by adopting extremely clinical methods of survival, whether it is atakeover or an underwriting of debts by the banks or even a cash injection bythe State. Caution becomes the watchword and skeletal processes and proceduresare set up again but deliberately slowed down till production gets back tonormal levels again. The return to mass production by Tendulkar Incorporated inSydney was no less different—the batting star eschewed from executing hisnormal reportoire of shots in his unbeaten 241 in the first innings and evenplayed the second fiddle in the second to Rahul Dravid! The much-neededinjection in terms of security and confidence to kick-start production came fromV.V.S. Laxman who was playing a sublime innings at the other end. It is anothermatter though whether Tendulkar would have enjoyed not playing the expansivedrive through cover, his natural reaction and one which he enjoys doing, whenyet another of those flurry of well-pitched up deliveries just outside theoff-stump came his way. Now that mass production has resumed one can expect theprocesses and procedures to be normalised again. Beware, Pakistan.

Meanwhile, in another corner of the Southern Hemisphere, unmindful of how agreat run-maker was turning the corner, a sublime artist continued to standamong ruins and create sheer magic. As Wisden Cricket Asia so rightlywrote about Lara while listing six of his most memorable Test innings thissummer, ‘He has failed more often than most greats, but oscillating betweengodliness and impoverishment, he has sculpted some of the most alluringmasterpieces of modern times.’ If Tendulkar evokes a sense of fear in me withhis staggering conformism to the discourse of capitalism—consistency,predictability, enforcement of gaps between the professional (something to be‘done’ irrespective of whether you ‘enjoy’ it or not) and the personal,between thinking and feeling et al—Lara is a source of regeneration in that hehas humanized the concept of success in post-industrialized society—one getsthe feeling that Lara thinks, feels, works and enjoys all at the same time anduses this equivocal language to make inroads into a system, which isstructurally inhuman.

(The author does research on sport at University of Warwick, UK)