The nation’s leading cricketers besotted with their annual summer fix, the Indian Premier League, are tumbling around the country. In this age of instant joy, a book on Tests that shaped India’s progress as a cricketing nation, may seem to be an anachronism.
However, writers S. Giridhar and V.J. Raghunath, both 'cricket-tragics' obsessed with the sport, have picked the gauntlet and penned a lovely tome From Mumbai to Durban: India’s Greatest Tests . Their narrative aptly reflects how India gradually emerged as the number one team over the years, from baby steps after Independence to the assured gait now.
The book isn’t only a chronology of triumphs, it also sheds light on draws that reflected steel, showcasing the nerve-shredding tie between Kapil Dev’s men and Allan Border’s troops in Madras (now Chennai) in 1986. The essay on that epochal contest starts with a nugget: “Kapil announced after this match, ‘I felt like going to the beach, stand on the sand facing the sea and scream and scream till I got it out of the system’.”
Split into 28 chapters on individual games that are milestones in India’s cricketing evolution, the book has many such anecdotes reflecting the obsession that drives the nation’s cricket. It starts with the fifth Test between India and the West Indies at Bombay’s Brabourne Stadium in 1949 (a gripping draw) and winds to a close with India’s 87-run victory over South Africa at Durban’s Kingsmead in 2010.
Giridhar and Raghunath paint word-pictures of the principal cast involved in India’s growth as a Test-playing nation besides lauding the fans. The beauty of this book lies not just in the writers’ meticulous retelling of critical Tests, it also offers excerpts of fine cricket literature.
Right from The Hindu ’s S.K. Gurunathan and R. Mohan to the modern masters, the reader has enough written-magic to preserve. Sample this, Sharda Ugra on V.V.S. Laxman in Cricinfo: “When Laxman takes the stage in his moment, he can conjure up the illusion that the crisis is not being tackled, it is being ignored.”
The romance of Tests may not be eternal and Giridhar and Raghunath briefly shed their nostalgia, and sound an alarm bell: “We are less sure now. Unless Test cricket survives and thrives in India, it will not have a future.” Grounded in the past but honestly looking ahead, this book is an essential read for the diehard fan.
