Nov 16, 2005 12:14 AM
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(Updated Nov 16, 2005 12:14 AM)
As I went through the pages of disputes and despair, stardom and success, there were many titles which crept my mind in between. But the chosen one, I think, carries the most weight of what you will yourself understand in the end.
Being labeled as a match fixer, it’s a great destiny for Azhar that his biography has been written by such a modest person. After going through whole book, it only seems that Harsha had been following Azhar throughout his journey to success as his shadow. A clear picture of Azhar’s batting becomes visible in front of eyes as Harsha beautifully mingle with words and phrases. While portraying one of Azhar’s partnerships with Srikkanth, Harsha goes like this “ it must have been a tremendous spectacle. One man wading into the bowling and hitting through the line, the other waiting for the ball and tapping it around. One savage, the other gentlemanly, but both in harmony with each other.” The book was written in 1994 and contains 15 different phases of Azzu’s life till then. Apart from Harsha’s delicate writing skills, we also get to see here a parallel praise for Sachin, a glimpse on the sour words of Bishen Singh Bedi and many more events that unfolded Indian cricket during Azhar’s tenure there till 1994. This being a review on a book, I would love to share more of Harsha’s comments rather than mine. I hope you people will not mind.
The first chapter of the book has been devoted to portray the special attachment between Azhar and his maternal grandfather Mr.Vajehuddin with whom he spent most of his childhood in Musheerabad. He was the main source of inspiration for him (irrespective of who is he here and who is him). It was he only who predicted that Azhar would one day play for India and even would lead the team. Embarrassingly for Azhar, he died just a few days before he was selected for Indian team in 1984.
After being selected, it was no looking back for Azhar. On his debut only, he blasted an impeccable century on India’s most packable ground of Eden gardens. It surged inside him a confidence which made him flick, drive, pull in every corner of the ground with a sheer class in his further career. On one of his innings of 192, Harsha couldn’t stop saying ‘Azhar himself played a colossal innings of 192 and charmed just about everybody who had the privilege of seeing it.’ Then came the day when he was just taking a few skiers, all of a sudden he saw the chairman of the selection committee approaching him. As usual he bowed in greeting but very unusually in return got a drop of a rose petal on his ear. Raj Singh Dungarpur very unlikely asked “ Miya captain banoge?” the most hummable, I guess, of all the good news he heard in his life. This is my best chapter of this book. Reading this one is like sitting in a park in a spring morning and experiencing the beauty of the surrounding. Sometime after he became the captain, India was touring England and it was going to be a real test for Azhar. The first test was to be in lords. “we were told that every pillar at lords spoke of the history of the game. Unfortunately that pillar, and indeed everybody we met there associated with the game, gave you the impression that you were an intruder on their premises” Harsha said of lords. Azhar, there, was very harshly criticized for choosing to bowl on a pitch perfect for batting. The Englishmen just tore into Indian bowlers to every corner of the ground and as said by Harsha, Azhar’s smile seemed permanently replaced by a scowl. Of all the criticisms that fell on Azzu’s ear, the one from B.S.Bedi was the most bitter till at the score of 191 for 3 of Indian innings, Azhar’s shadow fell on lords pitch. After that it would be apt to hear from Harsha’s mouth only. “for the next two and a half hours England did not bowl badly. But the genius of one man made a respectable line and length look hopelessly inadequate with the most charming strokes. This was the freshness that cricket is all about and in the twinkling of an eye, Azhar took the game beyond the stuffy confines of lords into the freedom of the country. Nobody at lords that day was supporting a nation. Instead they had joined hands to soak in the beauty of the game, and as Azhar played one stroke after another, they shook their heads in disbelief and admiration……….and just before close of play even the sun, realizing that the dull skies did not match the grandeur of the occasion, moved the clouds aside and made a rather grand entry”. I read with a smile on my face and joy in my heart.
Sachin has been equally praised here as he made his debut in 1989. Although he saved India from the clutches of defeat throughout his career, in starting he played some of the most remarkable innings. On one of his best innings in Perth, Harsha over-joyingly elaborate ‘Sachin played an incomparable innings of 114, lifting his small frame as if he had springs in his shoes to get on top of the ball and hit it to Perth’s distant square boundaries. It showed that as a world class batsman he had genuinely arrived, and if Tendulkar plays a better innings than that century at Perth, it will be worth traveling round the world to see’.
Harsha, in this book, is also very critical of Bishen Singh Bedi. Bedi is not at all a polite person and more often tends to speak in the most rude manner he can. Whether it’s a bad performance or a wrong decision or a wrong selection, he never leave anyone from clutches of his words. Once India’s performance was very disgusting and Bedi went on saying that if some of the boys wanted to commit suicide by jumping into the pacific, he would not stop them. I wonder how he became a part of the Indian cricket authority.
Amidst all the things written above and all the events mentioned in the book, let me finally come to the point which is most relevant in the context of Azhar, Harsha and the book itself. At many points in the book, Harsha has mentioned of what some of the cricketers and he himself think of Azhar’s honesty. While favouring him for the captain’s slot, Raj Singh said of him ‘we need an utterly honest man to be captain of India. We need someone who believes in cricket, who will not manipulate situations; essentially someone who will bring dignity to the job.’ There was a time when India lost miserably to Pakistan in Sharjah under Azhar’s captaincy and many suspected that Azhar has taken money for that. Harsha described it as the most impossible allegation and said that the seeding has been done by people who have lost money on the enormous amount of betting that takes place. The main question is that what would have happened to Harsha’s mind (who believed so much in Azhar, who considered him as one of the god’s gift to the Indian cricket, who wrote down a whole book in his praise) when he heard of Azhar’s fixing scandal in 2000. when he has followed Azhar so much in his life, how did he remain unknown of the most relevant facts. Just imagine the first reaction of Harsha when he got to hear of this most sour truth. I just and only wonder of that thunder. The post and pre scenario of that scandal is just like north pole and south pole whether its related to his image in every Indian’s eyes or only Harsha’s eyes.
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