Cricket’s lockdown alternative to bread-andbutter journalism, which stresses results and performances, has been a virtually daily dose of celebrity outpourings, expansively orchestrated probably to pre-empt a switch-over to popular soaps, serials and allied allurements.
While anecdotal offerings – what Sachin Tendulkar told Sourav Ganguly to skirt the first strike in a One-Day International – are at one end of the spectrum; interpretations of history, when attempted, may not always have been quite as entertaining.
Or, even faithful to facts. The message, flawed or totally wrong, that can come through when no one is taking the chinwagging seriously, should ideally be the medium’s area of concern, given that it is on the fame of an individual – rather than his knowledge of the subject – that the presentation is reliant for its acceptance.
But busybodies are not really becoming insomniac thinking of correctitude and accuracy, however, and if it matters little to a high-visibility stalwart of yesteryear that what he says is at variance with the game’s chronicles, those who want errors ironed out of the record book will bristle at eminently questionable ideas posited from a fuzzy perspective.
And well might they find it difficult to be persuaded that Indian cricket’s self-assertive ascent was given its first historic impetus by any of its more recent captains, even though Virat Kohli’s Australian triumph has been a pioneering achievement.
The path-finder’s honour should be accorded to Ajit Wadekar, who led his teams to series victories in the West Indies and England as the 1970s began in a sensational sweep that had never been anticipated. It was something even JK Rowling could not have concocted. The vanquished teams were among those India, even at home, lost very often to.
They pulled it off despite their fast-bowling resources being negligible and their captain was always required to be convulsed by contrition as he had supplanted in the leading role the Nawab of Pataudi, whom chief selector Vijay Merchant had allegedly given the brusheroo for older intra-team hostilities.
Compared with today, when India are expected to win regardless of where the action is, it was a period when away successes were not counted upon as they were pitifully infrequent. Spin boosted our home prospects but far from our own shores we knew we had a lot to be modest about.
The victory in the Caribbean was attributable in a large measure to the batting of Dilip Sardesai and the dramatic emergence of a phenomenon who answered to the name of Sunil Gavaskar. In the Oval win, BS Chandrasekhar played the stellar role with his leg-spin that left England flummoxed.
That Wadekar made it all possible without holding the sort of authority that Ganguly, MS Dhoni or Kohli subsequently took for granted put him way above virtually all his successors. If we are not to sing paeans to him, we have to go by facts.