My Cricket Hero

Martin Chandler | 9:26am GMT 13 February 2022

Published: 2022
Pages: 102
Author: Ezekiel, Gulu (Editor)
Publisher: Rupa
Rating: 3.5 stars

Those of us who review books can be a sniffy lot. We really do not like hagiographies, and any book that falls anywhere close to being in that category gets pulled up on in it. The reasoning, I suppose, is that we must all have at least the odd skeleton in our cupboard, and it is a biographer’s duty to find those, cut to the chase and tell the whole story, warts and all. Any failure to do so let’s the reader and future generations down.

In truth however it is not actually that simple because, sometimes, hagiography is good. But only when it doesn’t pretend to be anything else. After all watching sport is often about raw emotion, and that has two extremes, one of which is hero worship, and there is nothing wrong with writing about that.

Well aware of this our old friend Gulu Ezekiel filled some of his time during lockdown by encouraging his contemporaries, few of whom are primarily writers, to contribute essays on their own personal heroes. The result is a selection of a dozen essays on the great and the good of Indian cricket and, in keeping with the generations from which the contributors come, this collection does not feature any references to the IPL, and there is not a Tendulkar, Dhoni or Kohli in sight.

All twelve men selected are great names from the past of the Indian game, although only Sunil Gavaskar, ‘Tiger’ Pataudi, ML Jaisimha and Kapil Dev have been the subject of biographies. Chandu Borde and Vijay Hazare have written autobiographies, but far too little has been written of the other six; Polly Umrigar, Gundappa Viswanath, Salim Durani, Dilip Sardesai, Mohinder Amarnath and Eknath Solkar.

None of the essays in My Cricket Hero are particularly long, varying between five pages and thirteen. One of the longer ones is that on Sardesai. The only Goan to have played Test cricket for India the reader gets a summary of Sardesai’s life and career as well as a smattering of the history of India’s smallest state and one that was, until as late as 1961, still part of Portugal. The essay is an excellent one, much of its power derived from the fact that its author is Sardesai’s son, Rajdeep.

The fact that I have singled out the Sardesai essay for special mention should not be taken as an indication that the other eleven, which adopt widely differing perspectives, are its inferior. All of the contributions are well worth reading, and those by Gavaskar’s cousin, Hemant Kenkre, and by the editor himself on Solkar are particularly enjoyable.

The surprise in the selection is, perhaps, that none of the great spin bowlers of the late 1960s and early 1970s made the cut. No doubt sensing that Gulu has added an epilogue, which amounts to five poems about Pataudi, Viswanath, and each of the ‘Holy Trinity’, Bishan Bedi, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar and Erapelli Prasanna. Unusual for sure, but a delightful touch.

My Cricket Hero is not a long read, perhaps deliberately so in order that its editor can produce a second selection in the future. But it is certainly an entertaining read, and proof positive that when deployed appropriately there is nothing wrong with hagiography.