da fazobetai： Anand Vasu reviews by John Wright
da aviator aposta： Anand Vasu16-Sep-2006
Wright’s book is a must for genuine fans of Indian cricket ©
If you are a supporter of Indian cricket, or just plain interested inknowing more about how Indian cricket – with it’s big-ticket stars, hordes of cricket crazy fans, behind-the-scenes board politics – functions, thenyou must pick up a copy of John Wright’s Indian Summers. This couldwell be the single most important book written by someone intimately involved in Indian cricket since Sunil Gavaskar wrote Sunny Daysback in 1977, when he was still a player.For all the talent it produces, and for the volume of writing that comesout in daily newspapers, websites and weekly and monthly magazines, you could barely fill a shelf with books on Indian cricket worth reading.There’s no shortage of unabashed hagiography that attempts to pass off asunauthorised biography, and of blow-by-blow tour books which seldom do more than summarise matches and events, quoting extensively from what waspublished in newspapers at the time.If you expect stunning new revelations about scandal, or sensitivepersonal information from inside the dressing-room, you don’t know Wright well enough. Even from distant Christchurch, far from the places andscenes he describes vivdly, Wright is careful about how the things he writescan affect people. When describing incidents he takes names only when they add to the telling of the story, and even then rarely quotessomething that anyone could take offence to.But Wright, unlike his successor Greg Chappell, always kept the media atmore than a cricket bat’s length through his tenure. To be fair to him, Wright didn’t play favourites – he was equally unavailable to everyonefrom the media. In all this, though, it was possible to get a sense ofwhat the man was like, if you interacted with him, and the occasional beery evening and odd bummed cigarette was not unheard of. But in readingthe book you get a clearer picture of what he was trying to achieve.”Sometimes I talked too much and smiled too little,” he writes, talking of his time coaching Kent. When coaching India he might have spoken too muchin the dressing-room but he didn’t say too much in the media. “A huge partof coaching and management is making players believe they’re better than they are,” explains Wright when talking about having to deal with sometricky cricketers in the side.Wright also understood Indian cricket well by the time he had completedone year as Indian coach. He lived out of hotel and club rooms, did not even have a contract for the longest time, and when he writes, about theBCCI office in Mumbai, “I reckon those ramshackle surroundings are thegreatest feat of camouflage since a wolf put on sheep’s clothing,” you know he’s comepletely with it, and no foreign coach. And that is sayingsomething, given the widespread scepticism of the efficacy of a foreigncoach when he was first appointed, admittedly mostly from former Indian cricketers who he was now putting out of work. Wright could have used thisbook as an opportunity to give the finger to some of his persistentbaiters, but he resists the temptation to do so.What he does do in the book is tell you about the little incidents that reveal so much about some of the cricketers in this team. For examplethere is still a feeling among the most staunch Indian fans that butterwouldn’t melt in the mouths of the likes of Rahul Dravid and SachinTendulkar, and they’ll be surprised to hear that the two are notincapable of producing the odd sledge, like the time when India were ontop in the 2001 home series against Australia and asked Steve Waugh, “Sohow’s the final frontier looking now, Steve?” The book, which isfast-paced and readable enough to finish in one sitting, is filled withlittle things like this that will tell you a bit more about theprotagonists of the India cricket scene.There’s a genuine warmth of feeling Wright has for the team and for Indiaand it comes through in the book. This is never more evident than when hewrites, “When I finish with cricket in a professional capacity and get back to watching it purely for pleasure, I won’t bother going to Lord’s;I’ll go back to India.” Similarly, if you’re a genuine fan of Indiancricket, read Wright’s book. Cardus and company can wait.John Wright’s Indian Summers (Indian edition)
by John Wright with Sharda Ugra and Paul Thomas
Published by
Price Rs 495, 244 pages