A CRICKETING CASE IN POINT

A CRICKETING CASE IN POINT

To my mind Dravid's declaration at Multan, 2004 with Tendulkar stranded on 194* was a seminal moment in Indian cricket when cricket was underscored once and for all as a team game in which individuals in conjunction performed and not an individual's game that contributed to the team's output. This was a departure from the way we in India generally view things with personality ruling polity. That Tendulkar fumed at being denied the double hundred after plodding on for ages to near his failed double ton is a pointer to the fact that all this hoopla about he being essentially a team man was not fully true. Personal interests do come in in a team sport, given the fundamental selfish nature of the surface man, although it must never be so as a matter of team policy. That Tendulkar questioned his skipper about the veracity of his decision to declare is an affront to the unquestionable status of the skipper in so far as decision-making is concerned. To argue about the point later in his autobiography to prove his point that Dravid was wrong to declare when he did has shown Tendulkar in rather poor light. Just like his decision to get a waiver on custom's duty for his Ferrari car, a waiver that celebrities like him are legitimately eligible for, showed him as much less magnanimous than is made out to be in the eulogising media. Finally, to carry on for a couple more years and struggle to get 100 international hundreds even when advancing age and poor form deserved a timely retirement to allow fresher flowers to bloom will raise perennial questions in the minds of the intelligent and the analytical as to how far Indian cricket deserves to be reduced to individual cricket. When ex-cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar, our foremost cricket analyst of the day, praised Dravid's timely declaration as a seminal point in Indian cricket, Tendulkar fell foul of it and snapped back at him that he didn't appreciate his unwarranted comment, especially when he was not even in the know-how of dressing room discussions regarding the prospective declaration. Another pointer to the real Sachin, the selfish gene working alright.

In 1975 in the inaugural Prudential World Cup in the opening match versus hosts England India were set to chase 335 to win in 60 overs. Reckoning it an impossible task legendary opener Sunil Gavaskar chose to plod his way to a despicable 36* in 60 overs, repeatedly flouting messages sent by skipper Venkatraghavan to accelerate. Gavaskar has ever since forwarded the lame excuse that somehow he could not manage to score despite earnest efforts to do so which is hardly believable. He could simply have hit his way out to escape the ordeal in that case where his batting destroyed the team's hopes of a worthy chase of the set target. But no, he went for batting practice instead in a World Cup match which to this day remains reasonably inexplicable otherwise. Sheer disgrace despite his stupendous status as India's greatest ever batsman to my reckoning!

Now compare these episodes with the selfless batting of Sandeep Patil, Gundappa Vishwanath, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and the unforgettable Virender Sehwag who have always placed team above self even as they naturally achieved personal laurels.

One of the prime reasons for this selfish assertion of great players from time to time is the unnecessary hyper-adulation they receive from an idolatrous fan-base spanning the entire country that make demigods out of mere performing mortals. That Tendulkar should have been adorned earliest in our history with the Bharat Ratna even before many great freedom fighters have been recognised thus is the seal on my argument that we are a nation of blind worshippers of personalities and are as yet far from appreciating the worth of principles that make a people great. This sort of adulation of the individual to the exclusion of understanding as to what is rationally the right course to adopt in driving human affairs has been the bane of our nation-building. Even nationalism raised to demigod status invariably proves counterproductive for the welfare of the nation. Let us learn to think instead of blindly following the few. Democracy deems it to the imperative. 

Written by Sugata Bose

P.S. A disclaimer. This essay is not meant to run down the seminal career contributions of two legendary players, Tendulkar and Gavaskar, but to highlight certain deficiencies in our mental make-up towards approaching what is essentially a team game. The collective above the individual must be the motto not only in cricket but in life as well. That is the effective way forward for the nation and for the world.  Unselfishness is divine. Man-made demigods must remember this and the masses must stop slavishly eulogising their supposed heroes whatever stature they may be of. This is the Vedantic way of human redemption which sadly is lacking in our polity.