A tame egg by a wild goose

Rohit Mahajan

This book, at 254 pages, seems paltry for a man of Sourav Ganguly’s achievements. Ricky Ponting, for instance, produced 700 pages of autobiography, Sachin Tendulkar did 486 pages, and even the less-than-extremely-cerebral Mike Tyson did 592 and 465 pages over two books! But word-count can be very misleading — Tendulkar’s tome turned out to be an unexciting, longish match report; conversely, Sanjay Manjrekar produced a brilliant psychological exposition on the disintegration of his batting technique, and his career, in merely 200 pages.

Ganguly’s book did raise high hopes, especially as it came right on the heels of Manjrekar’s book — and also because Ganguly is a true great of Indian cricket, plus an outspoken man who holds nothing back.

Ganguly is a fascinating character. He’s suave like Dravid, yet belligerent like Harbhajan; he was a very elegant batsman, but also a bloody-minded street-fighter; unfailingly polite off the field, but a mortal foe on it; a self-absorbed cricketer, but a zealous, almost obsessive supporter of young talent.

He was possibly the most important Indian cricketer of his generation. That’s saying a lot, for his generation included Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, VVS Laxman, Sehwag and Harbhajan Singh.

It’s incumbent on such a man to produce a great autobiography; however, though the book’s jacket claims it’s a “sporting classic”, it’s neither sporting, nor much of a classic — it’s more of a maudlin recounting of the injustices he suffered, his determined fight to prove himself over and over again, a story of his triumphs, to the exclusion of his failures. One did expect his book to be passionate, but nuanced as well.

Life gyaan

The book also claims to be a “manual for living”; indeed, a great sportsperson such as Ganguly can inspire us mortals through his example of obsessive pursuit of self-improvement. Sadly, though, the very generic, mind-numbingly banal ‘motivational’ homilies in this book interrupt the description of fascinating incidents. Here’s an example: After an acrimonious falling out with coach Greg Chappell and sacking, Ganguly was brought back in Pakistan in 2006. He tells us how, a day before the Lahore Test was to start, Chappell and Dravid took him “to a corner” and asked him whether he’d open the innings the next day. He said yes without batting an eyelid, later writing that he thought “they might kill me with the new ball but I would not backtrack”. You hope for some inside dope, but this is what you get next: “Some of you may find yourselves in a similar situation. Never ever think that by agreeing to a difficult demand you are belittling yourself. You should look at it, instead, as an opportunity to climb back to the top. Opportunities are not couriered across to you every day…” And so on. It happens through the book, countless times. He whets your appetite, only to buttonhole you and then deliver extremely dull life gyaan that you’ve already heard all your life from your father, teacher, boss and Deepak Chopra. 

Candidness

The book has its moments. Ganguly is refreshingly candid when he explains that one part of him didn’t like it when the Indian team performed well with him out of it. Cricketers are not greater patriots than any of us, but since sport is a substitute for war, they are lionised as if they’re soldiers fighting for the nation. Ganguly demolishes that simplistic notion. “I must confess while the patriotic part of me wanted India to win at any cost, the cricketer part was thinking otherwise,” he said of India’s defeat in the 1996 World Cup semifinals. In other words, India’s loss cheered him as he now “stood a realistic chance of making it to the team”.

And about his excitement at becoming the captain after Tendulkar gave up the job in 2000: “I will be completely honest here. The moment Sachin announced his decision, my hopes soared.”

If it sounds selfish, just think of your own workplace situation — if your boss resigns, opening the door for your promotion and professional growth, would you be sad?    

Disappointing

An autobiography, by definition, must be self-centred; but Ganguly was more than just a player — he was the creator and commander of an Indian team that was aggressive and fearless like none before. Sadly, he’s chosen to focus on his personal glory - and grievances — rather than the elements that made his team great.

How can a book written by the protagonist cause him to emerge diminished? It’s because he’s dwelt lovingly on his successful batting and skimmed over his failures. On one occasion at least his celebration of his team’s success seems vastly exaggerated. India drew a Test series in Australia in 2003, and he writes: “I conquered the country but not one of its citizens (Chappell).” What did the “conquest” involve? India won two matches against Australia (1 Test, 1 ODI), losing 6 (1 Test, 5 ODIs). Doesn’t seem much like a conquest.

Has he forgiven Dravid for his very close association with Chappell? Why did he devote 200 words to Dravid’s miserable 12 off 96 balls in London in 2007? And for Dravid’s 233 and 72* in Adelaide in 2003, we get only this: “We went 1-0 up in Adelaide where Rahul Dravid, in both innings of the Test, batted superbly.”

In 2008, India under Kumble registered one of their most remarkable wins, at Perth. This is what Ganguly writes of it: “And we went on to win the next Test at Perth.” Well! Eleven words — would he have been more enthusiastic about this landmark win if he’d scored more than 9 and 0?

Maybe it boils down to editing issues — the book seems to be the product of a long, chaperoned interview with sharp focus only on Ganguly’s personal heroism.

It’s disjointed and digressive, too. For instance, Ganguly meanders through a huge controversy over Mike Denness suspending six Indian players; bewilderingly, two paragraphs later, he’s talking about his favourite singers, and his inability to “say no to any request” from Lata Mangeshkar, followed by a gushing paragraph on Virat Kohli!

Ganguly has kept it all very simple: He’s presented his heroic life, his triumphs against odds and enemies. The book would be treasured by his passionate fan, but it’s not for someone interested in nuanced analysis of batting or leadership.

Surprisingly, there are grammatical, spelling and statistical errors in it, but they can be ignored; the real pity is that this book, and the selection of stories and inward focus of them, diminish a great cricketer and leader.