Outlook – June 29, 2019

by Suresh Menon

A

LEXANDER Pope, the 18th

century English poet, has writ-

ten about the tedium of the

twice-told tale. What rescues

Mihir Bose’s second book on

the history of Indian cricket is

that it is a journalistic take on eight

decades, from C.K. Nayudu to Virat

Kohli. It has allowed him a greater lat-

itude in dealing with the rumours and

innuendos that have accompanied

the game–without the pressure of

having to ensure historical accuracy.

This lite version of Bose’s earlier tome

is chattier, gossipy, anecdotal and joins

the dots in a slightly different way, alt­

hough the narrative is chronological

and repeats many stories. 

The achievement Bose seems to place

above all is the fact that he “went to

school in Mumbai with Sunil Gavaskar”.

In chapter two, he talks of his “Jesuit

school in Mumbai, also the school of

Sunil Gavaskar”. On page 99 is the rem­

inder, “In my Jesuit school, which as I

have mentioned is also Gavaskar’s....”

On page 128, he says, “I knew him better

than most, for as I have mentioned, I

was at school with Gavaskar in St

Xavier’s, in Mumbai”. A few pages later,

talking of the Tendulkar­Kambli school

records, he says it was made against St

Xavier’s, “Gavaskar’s and my old school”.

Bose also tells us more than once that

Sourav Ganguly always addressed him

respectfully as ‘Mihir­da’. His editors

have been unkind to him.

 But mostly, Bose meshes well the per­

sonal and the historical, and the fact that

he has been following Indian cricket for

over six decades grants him an easy fam­

iliarity with the dramatis personae. He

watched his first Test as a five­year old

from the terrace of a house overlooking

the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai. It

was symbolic of the manner in which he

has been viewing Indian cricket ever

since—from a heightened perspec­

tive which brought into his line of vision

elements beyond the game itself. 

Indian cricket can be divided into nine

waves (as Bose has done here), or two

(pre­ and post­Tendulkar), or three or

four, it does not matter. The picture

remains much the same even as the

frames through which they are viewed

change.  When Bose digresses or dips

into the vast store of ‘Did that really

happen?’ he is at his most interesting.

Did Tiger Pataudi’s mother really

write to Nehru, asking that her son

ought to be made captain ahead of

Chandu Borde because he “belonged to

a minority community”? Did Vijay

Merchant really call the Kathiawar

captain and ask him to concede the

match, thus denying Maharashtra bats­

man B.B. Nimbalkar, then  batting on

443, a chance to overtake Don Brad­

man’s world record of 452? Bose tells us

these stories in a spirit of take­it­or­

leave­it. To authenticate is the reader’s

responsibility.

Bangaloreans might object to his

characterising their city as an “outpost

of cricket” where Rahul Dravid grew up.

Only Mumbai have won the Ranji

Trophy more often than Karnataka, and

players from V. Subramanya, Erapalli

Prasanna, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar and

Gundappa Viswanath to Kirmani and

Dravid and Anil Kumble, Javagal

Srinath and K.L. Rahul will all have

something to say about that statement.

Dramatic statements have been a

Bose staple. In his previous book, he

theorised that India produced quality

left­handers because of their manner of

cleaning themselves in the toilet with

their left hand. Had Subhas Chandra

Bose rather than Jawaharlal Nehru

been the first prime minister, he said,

football, not cricket, would have been

India’s main sport. Here he compares

coach Greg Chappell’s dissing of skip­

per Ganguly to “the political assassina­

tion of Subhas Bose by Mahatma

Gandhi in the 1930s”. 

Perhaps the canvas was too large and

the palette deliberately limited. More

has happened in Indian cricket in the

last 30 years (since Tendulkar made his

debut) than in the half century and

more before.  To combine the two eras

in one volume is a challenge, however

fascinating the narration. For, in that

period, the centre of world cricket has

shifted to India. The money is here, the

players are here, the fans are here, and

the richest tournament, the IPL, is here. 

Was there an inevitability about all

this? Was this natural progression? Did

all the elements unite at the right time

and in the right place? By keeping his

canvas large, Bose might have missed

the psychological evolution of a game

where for long the passion for it didn’t

match performance. Bose’s offering is a

wonderful read, but it necessarily fav­

ours width over depth, and while it is a

good introduction, it leaves the reader

wanting more. O

(Suresh Menon is editor,

Wisden India Almanack)

Missing Through The Line

Bose’s wide canvas of limited depth is at its best when he roams Indian

cricket’s delicious suburbs, not in its audacious socio-historical claims

booksMihir Bose

The Nine Waves: The Extraordinary Story of Indian Cricket | Aleph Books | 563 pages | Rs 999

Was Vijay Merchant (above)

responsible for denying a

batsman the chance to

overtake Bradman’s world

record? To authenticate such

breezily told tales is the

reader’s responsibility.

62 OUTLOOK 1 July 2019