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Magazine
Art is international
Sunil Gavaskar
FOR me, the nicest moment of the recent series between India and England occurred off the field. This was when Sanjay Bangar, playing his first Test, walked up to the commentary box at Mohali before going into bat. (One should perhaps say limped up, for he had previously pulled a hamstring while bowling.) On reaching the box, he made for Sunil Gavaskar, stooped low and touched his feet. The boy was duly blessed, and went on to score 36 and thus play his part in India's win.
When England last toured India, another batsman took more from Gavaskar than a mere benediction. Vinod Kambli was in the Test side but out-of-form; one more failure and he would be out of the team forever. He came into bat late one day of the Bombay Test, and was a scratchy 20 not out at the close. Afterwards his team-mates went back to the hotel but Kambli stayed, with Gavaskar. Sunil had a net boy throw the left-hander balls short of a length, and supervised how he met them. Back and across, he kept repeating, back and across, sometimes matching the words with action, taking the bat from his pupil's hands and showing precisely how it was done. (Kambli, as Gavaskar well knew, was wont to stand still and push hard at the short ball, a method of defence whose most likely outcome was an edge to slip). The lesson took the better part of an hour, its fruits to be borne the next day, which Kambli batted through to score a double hundred.
Indian batsmen in trouble or in search of good fortune look for Gavaskar. Indian spinners in need of instruction go in search of Bishan Bedi. Once, when Sunil Joshi had been dropped from the Indian one-day side he simply took a flight to New Delhi and presented himself at Bedi's clinic. The Sardar asked him to bowl a few balls and diagnosed the illness: his right shoulder was falling away. Over the next few days the deficiency was corrected. Joshi went back to Bangalore, and shortly thereafter to Nairobi, selected to play in a tournament there. In the first match after his comeback he took 5 for 6 against South Africa, and dedicated the wickets to Bedi.
When Harbhajan Singh played his first Test match, against Australia in Bangalore in 1998, he made an immediate impression, his flight and turn made more memorable by his action, the arms gracefully swaying out and in like a bird's wings in flight. He took, as I recall, about two for 100, but we in the audience sensed at once that this was a fellow to follow and watch out for. On the second evening of the match I went to the West End Hotel, where I was to dine with Bedi. As I walked in Harbhajan was preparing to leave. "Meet Indian cricket's new sensation," said the Sardar, with characteristic generosity. Then a few last words were communicated to the lad in Punjabi, on the importance of temperament, on the need to be patient if the wickets did not come as quickly or as abundantly as they would in the Ranji Trophy. Harbhajan met the advise with a respectful "Ji Paaji", and, taking a last bow of the old maestro, went on his way.
Some might think that Bedi would have a special interest in another Sikh spinner, much as Gavaskar would be naturally inclined to come to the aid of a younger Bombay batsman. In truth, the two men have helped cricketers from other lands too. That day at the West End, a visitor to Bedi's room before Harbhajan had been Shane Warne. And doubtless Gavaskar has on occasion given advice to white or black-skinned opening batsmen.
Bishan Singh Bedi
My favourite story about the generational transmission of knowledge goes back to the distant year 1930 — and this may surprise some readers of this column — when I wasn't born. Australia were touring England, and Bradman was scoring centuries and double centuries (and, once, even a triple). In desperation the England selectors chose a young wrist-spinner named Ian Peebles who hadn't played much county cricket. The day before Peebles's first Test match, the two teams were entertained at the home of the Duke of Norfolk. During lunch, the former Australian googly bowler Arthur Mailey, who was covering the tour as a journalist, was seen huddled in a corner with Peebles. After the meal was over, Mailey asked the host's staff for a cricket ball. The request granted, he went out into the garden with the novice. With an ancient oak tree serving as a wicket he showed Peebles how to more effectively disguise his wrong-un. After the lecture-demonstration was over, Mailey was accosted by the manager of the Australian team. "Don't you know that what you taught him will be used against us in the Test," he remonstrated. "Spin bowling is an art," answered Mailey, "and art is international."
It is, too. Younger but more bloody than the England-Australia cricketing rivalry is the India-Pakistan one. When we went across the Wagah border in 1989, Mohammed Azharuddin was in horrible form with the bat. The day before the first Test he was told he was not in the eleven. The great Pakistani stylist Zaheer Abbas, seeing Azhar moping about in the hotel, took him back to the ground and into a net. There he saw at once that the right hand was gripped too low and too tight. Zaheer helped him open up his grip, thus allowing the wrists freer play. The morning of the Test, Raman Lamba dropped out, through injury. Azhar played, scored 35 and 35, and 100 in the next Test.
Zaheer was a sunny Lahori whose gesture seems in keeping with what we know of his character and his city. Consider then this story of that cunning and — so we have long been told — mean-spirited resident of Karachi, Javed Miandad. Now Miandad has been hated by every Indian cricket fan ever since he hit a last-ball six to win a match against us at Sharjah. His last match for Pakistan was the quarter-final of the 1996 World Cup at Bangalore. There, as ever, he tried his damnedest to beat India, the match going our way only after he was run out after a battling innings.
He retired immediately thereafter, no doubt to the relief of millions of Indians. I wonder how they would feel if they knew that only weeks after the Bangalore match Javed was with the Indian cricket team at the nets at Lord's, putting his rich knowledge of English conditions at the service of young batsmen of their first tour of the Mother Country. Among those he would have spoken to were Saurav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid.
Indian cricket, like Indian classical music, relies a great deal of the guru-shishya parampara. The gifted apprentice attaches himself early to a wise teacher, learning the craft at his hands, six or eight hours a day, every day of the week. But after he matures and is sent out into the world into perform, he may embellish his craft with a tip from a master who is not, in the strict sense, his guru. Thus you might have a singer trained in the Jaipur-Atrauli style later learn how to sing a bandish otherwise associated with a giant from another gharana. In much the same manner, an opening batsman from North India may pick up a trick or two from an old Bombay batsman, and a spinner from Karnataka have his technique corrected by a great Sikh slow bowler. And, as it behoves us to remember at a time like this, there have even been serving Indian cricketers who have been constructively helped by retired Pakistanis.
RAMACHANDRA GUHA
The writer is the editor of the Picador Book of Cricket.
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