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SMG: A Biography of Sunil Manohar Gavaskar WITH the ever-increasing popularity of cricket, the biographies/auto-biographies of cricketers have also proliferated over the years. For his long and illustrious cricketing career, "Indian cricket’s all-time numero uno, on and off the field", Sunil Manohar Gavaskar life has been richly chronicled.
SMG is extolled as the Amitabh Bachchan of Indian cricket. By the way Amitabh Bachchan and his mega hits of 70s occupy the biographer’s attention. SMG’s dalliance with films also incorporates cinema in the narrative. Moreover, fanciful comparisons of politics and cricket are also there. Prabhudesai’s chronological study of Gavaskar’s career—crammed with the detailed chronology of the crucial ODIs and Test matches played by him as a player and a captain, extracts of conversations, interviews, comments of his peers and selectors—in a way reconstructs the history of Indian cricket, as evidently the history of SMG overlaps with that of Indian cricket. Besides, it builds a deep analysis of the nature of cricket. The advent of the phenomenon player had much to do with his middle class origin and upbringing, the tenacity he inherited from his parents, his growth in Bombay and most important of all, the optimal use he made of his mental powers. He made his debut in 1971 and had scored 1,000 runs in 1976. One of the architects of the historical win at the Port of Spain, West Indies’ "Enemy No. 1" in 1976 was an inspiration to Indians from 1970-80, the momentous decade of Indian cricket. Notwithstanding his cricketing prowess and extraordinary abilities, he could not escape from controversies. Quite sad! And the author definitely disappoints the readers as far as the treatment of the controversies surrounding Gavaskar is concerned. He amplifies the controversies assiduously with all the details and comments, but chooses not to pass any judgment either or defends his subject strategically. He also fails to weigh the historical tension between SMG and Kapil Dev, the duo titans of the Indian cricket, objectively. The scale is often tilted in the favour of SMG. Finally, to glorify Gavaskar’s achievements and impact on Indian cricket and to nullify his deficiencies, the author, with wit, compares him (Gavaskar) to Mahatma Gandhi. However the contrast itself is striking. "Both men evoked, and continue to evoke extreme reactions. Some people swore by them, while other swear at them while the Mahatma took the freedom movement to the common man, SMG took the initiative in showing world that Indian cricket could be consistently good, if not better than others. Not all their decisions and moves were correct either. It was just that they were extraordinary beings who made fewer mistakes then others. They laid the foundations for their respective successors to build upon." Besides, the analysis of the cricketing careers of SMG overlapping careers of his peers, both national and international, illustrates the life of a cricketer. The strategic, tactical, capricious game of scores and intense climaxes—very much like life—brings surprises and vicissitudes to the cricketer. The man who gets much money and laurels for his winning performance is, somehow, denied humanity for one poor performance both by the selectors and the public. The controversial selection process, dismissal of players by arbitrary set of laws and the tension between captain and players depict fickleness, unpredictability of the kaleidoscopic cricketing world and its iniquity.
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To
break the ennui of the repetitive task and to add colour and variety, a
series of coloured illustrations capturing Gavaskar’s world are tagged
at the end of every hundred pages. Besides, the emphasis is on the three
C’s of 1970s—cricket, cinema and congress.