How Sachin Destroyed My Life: but gave me an All Access Pass to the world of Cricket

by Vikram Sathaye

  Greater exposure usually leads to one’s horizons expanding and that’s precisely what’s happened with the IPL, which is a cultural melting pot, bringing together sportsmen from different cricket playing nations who in turn introduce each other to their unique way of sledging in different languages. This is a welcome change from the earlier days when most international cricketers coming to India would learn BC and MC immediately after Namaste. The last time I spoke to one of the international players at the IPL, he told me that at the IPL, he gets sledged in 22 different languages which made him understand the diversity of Indian culture as well as the ethos of “Unity in diversity”.

  Sledging before the IPL was only between two nations because the only cricket that was played was international cricket. In this scenario Indians suffered because being an English speaking country we understood what was being said and got affected by it. Whereas the visitors rarely understood anything and if ever an Indian tried to sledge in English it didn’t have the desired impact. Now the Indians have even learnt to sledge in international languages like Afrikaans and Sinhalese. If we had players from the UAE and Afghanistan, then maybe they would have learnt to sledge in Arabic and Pashtu too.

  Research has shown that learning new languages helps one remain alert and reduces the possibility of getting Alzheimer’s or other memory related diseases. So the IPL has ensured that the players will significantly reduce their chances of suffering from Alzheimer’s later in life.

  For some reason, Indians derive a perverse pleasure out of two things when interacting with foreigners. One is to teach them the choicest of swear words under the guise of teaching them Hindi, and the other is to ask them to say a few words in Hindi when interacting with them at a public platform.

  This is a phenomenon I have never understood. During my IPL tours, I have seen a lot of Australian and South African cricketers go ballistic with their Hindi. Every press conference I host, I am petrified when journalists ask foreign players to say a few words in Hindi because I am not sure of the authenticity of the education imparted to them by the domestic players.

  Sledging For Impact

  Sledging for the sake of sledging never works. Ideally there should be a surprise element. In one of the corporate shows I asked Sachin whether he ever did it. He said he didn’t think sledging was a great strategy all the time but if it was done once in a blue moon it made a huge impact. He recounted an incident when India was playing Australia on a very difficult wicket in Nairobi. Glen McGrath was bowling beautifully and India had lost their openers early. Sachin told Sourav, who was at the other end, that they need to rattle the Aussie bowlers a bit and get a little aggressive or they would quickly take a few more wickets and India would be in trouble. Saurav was not convinced, though Sachin knew it was the only way out. In the next over he decided to do it himself and walked up to McGrath and said, “Which part of the ground do you want me to hit you?” It was a bolt out of the blue for McGrath who was shocked and surprised. This was enough, McGrath strayed and sprayed the next over which allowed Sachin to hit him for 2 boundaries. It was a matter of one bad over because of which the tide changed, helping the Indians find their rhythm.

  Anti-Sledging

  Steve Waugh and his Australian team loved to chat with the Indians when they were batting and expected that from all the opposition as that’s how they were brought up in their playing days. How one reacts to sledging is a cultural thing. The Australians have played their cricket in a certain way and they are used to the fact that someone is chatting around them all the time. Once during an India-Australia game, Rahul Dravid recounts that there was lot of verbal volleying going on when they were batting and Steve Waugh took special interest in this activity and was prepared for the same when they came in to bat. The Indian team in the dressing room took a conscious decision that they would not only stay quiet but also ignore Steve when he comes in to bat. They knew that the Australians actually thrived when you took them on and they knew that in the past whenever Steve Waugh was rubbed the wrong way, he would get motivated enough to go for a big score. For 5 overs, there was absolute silence. The Indian players didn’t even look at Steve Waugh even when crossing him between overs. This actually rattled Steve to the extent that he walked up to the wicketkeeper in the next over and said, “Mate, are you going to say something or not?” This is a great example of how not saying anything can sometimes be more impactful than saying something. The erstwhile West Indian pace attack of Garner, Holding, Roberts, Marshall and even Walsh and Ambrose later, never sledged. At the most, they’d just stare and let their bowling do the talking.

  MS Dhoni once mentioned to a friend that after a Test victory in Australia, the Indian team purposely didn’t celebrate much because they wanted to pass a message to the Australian dressing room that beating Australia was no big deal for them. Also it was important not to fire up the Aussies as they would then come back stronger as a team, a good psychological ploy, I must say. In his last domestic game, Sachin Tendulkar played against Ajay Jadeja who was the Haryana captain. Yes, you heard right, at the time of writing this book, Ajay Jadeja is still playing domestic cricket. Sachin knew that Ajay was the kind of guy who liked to relieve his stress by chatting with the opposition team members and the more relaxed he got, the better he played. Sachin told all his team members to ensure that when Ajay came in to bat, they were not to respond or chat with him. The instructions were to ignore him and bore him into throwing his wicket. Sachin said, “He even walked up to me to say a few words. I looked through him and walked away.” He was out the next over. This in a way is similar to what happens in the corporate world. When the boss ignores you, you know you’re on your way out.

  One piece of advice, however, never try this strategy with your wife at home, because if you do, then facing your mother-in-law at the maika, is far more stressful than facing McGrath at the MCG.

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  The DNA Of The Indian Fan

  Was Cricket A Colonial Strategy To Rule India?

  The English figured out that India was a complex country with a large population with a thousand different aspirations. To rule over such a large number of people and keep them engaged over a period of time was always going to prove a challenge.

  So they gave us this wonderful game of Test cricket, a sport which was then played over six days without the possibility of a result. This suited the Hindu philosophy of eternity where the journey was more important than the goal. Test cricket kept the population completely engaged over a long period of time making it easier to govern the masses. What a masterstroke! How else was it possible to rule over a country like India for 200 years? It was like a nation drugged.

  The English knew that Indians by nature loved lengthy discussions that didn’t necessarily result in any action and therefore this was the perfect game where even if a match rained out, one could have a 2-hour session discussing the possible implications of the rain on the game, applying a complex permutation model created by two Englishmen by the names of Duckworth and Lewis. This just suited Indians perfectly.

  Like many British institutions, post Independence India also inherited the institution of cricket. Subsequent Indian governments realised the power of cricket and have in turn turned a blind eye to the disadvantages and supported the BCCI irrespective of which party they belonged to. They came to understand that the combined negative PR generated by all the scams could be wiped out by one Sachin Tendulkar century. Clearly, the new Indian masters understood well the age-old English strategy. Most of India was more concerned about Sachin’s achievements than the government’s under achievements.

  For many Indians, cricket is like a drug that refuses to get out of the blood stream. Even if you are a part of the brain drain generation that left the country in the early 70s for the US or England you would probably still be romanticising the achievements of Indian cricketers. It’s strange that even today, when I perform at a cricket show in the Middle East there are loads of Indian millionaires in t
heir sixties still reminiscing about Sandeep Patil’s 174 against Australia which I think even Sandeep Patil has forgotten about.

  Cricket has impacted the DNA of Indian men across generations and geographies and one sees the manifestation of this in one’s travels across the world.

  The Way To An Indian Cricketer’s Heart Is Also Through His Stomach

  Fans can go to any extent to express their love for their favourite cricketers. Indians typically express their love through food and that’s why I believe that over all these years of feeding each other sweets, we have now turned our country into the diabetic capital of the world. That’s exactly what happens when the Indian cricket team tours a foreign country for a series. As soon as an Indian tour to Australia, England or South Africa is announced, all the local Indians get into action mode because they know that an entire Indian cricketing contingent will be visiting their shores. Indians being Indians are constantly scouting for local Indian food options and that gives them a chance to not only offer their services but in the process get an opportunity to interact with their favourite cricketers.

  For NRIs, their only connect to India is either through cricket or Bollywood. So when a cricket team arrives at their shores, it’s a golden opportunity for them to relive their nostalgia by offering their culinary services. Thanks to 24x7 media which has dissected every aspect of modern day personalities, these fans are aware of the likes and dislikes of their favourite cricketers. So just because Sachin likes Bombay Duck and fish, there are at least 500 Mahrashtrian Australian families at any given point of time that have geared themselves to cook his favourite recipe the moment an Australian tour is announced. The same applies to Bengalis and Sourav Ganguly or South Indians and Anil Kumble. All the Maharashtrians believed that if Sachin consumed their fish preparation, it would change his fortunes and give him the ability to take on both Brett Lee and Glen McGrath far more effortlessly than he would do so otherwise and if he had rejected their invitation it was purely his loss. This complimentary facility is a big boon for the South Indians and vegetarians in the team because they suffer the most during a tour. Anil Kumble apparently used to tell Srinath to field at third man and befriend local Indians in the last few overs so that they could do some meal fixing. Another example of “fielding lagana”. Cricketers often tell me that their relationships with Indian fans abroad started only because they offered them food to start with.

  The NRI Effect

  I believe Indians living abroad are far more passionate about the Indian team than those in India. There is a reason for this. If you are an Indian living and working in an Australian company, for years the typical topics of conversation you have apart from work related matters are sports, movies and popular culture. Stuff like, India is growing at 8 percent and we have the Taj Mahal or a population of 1.2 billion people can only be a topic of discussion for so long. Chatting about movies is tough because Dabangg or Ready is not something that the Aussies would relate to. So the only potential area of discussion left was sports! Only team sports get people nationalistic, triggering drunken debates and discussions. The only team sport we do reasonably well is cricket and so all Indians pride themselves during the year on the successes of the Indian cricket team. This also gives them an equal footing against the local Australians who love sports and judge nationalities purely on their sporting abilities. Their potential moment of glory comes when the Indian team visits Australia because they know that if India beats Australia their next 4 years in office will be filled with pride and glory resulting in better pay and quality of life. But that rarely happens and when India loses badly you have to see their plight. I have had locals come to me and tell me, “Please tell Sachin to score a century,” or “Please tell the team to win because if they don’t we won’t be able to go to office and the Aussies will sledge us to death. Our lives will be miserable. Please do something.” Only then does one realise that it’s not just the players who suffer at the hands of the Aussies, it’s also the fans and one feels for them in this journey.

  The Indian fan abroad is so optimistic that even if India is 45 for 8 you’ll still find people shouting, “Jeetega bhai jeetega, India jeetega”.

  However, it’s the Indian fans who make touring extremely interesting. It’s amazing how they descend in hordes on the cricket ground to support their team. Wherever you are in the world you’ll hear chants of “Ganpati Bappa Morya” and therefore Hindus for logistical reasons should declare Ganpati Bappa as a brand ambassador of its millions of Gods so the foreigners don’t get confused. The Indian fan abroad is so optimistic that even if India is 45 for 8 you’ll still find people shouting, “Jeetega bhai jeetega, India jeetega.”

  One of the biggest nightmares for the hotel that hosts the Indian team is that for that week the hotel lobby seems like a NRI reunion or a Pravasi Bhartiya Divas. Anyone who is anybody will try and do their best to hang out in the lobby waiting to catch a glimpse of their cricket stars. The hotel security try to do their best, but these Indian fans for those seven days don’t give a hoot about anyone. The security guards don’t understand why these Indians behave in such an obsessive manner as they don’t undrstand the gravity of what this means to them. One can see that Dalbir Singh who left his village and came with his family to England 40 years back wants to shake hands with Yuvraj Singh because that gives him a connection to Punjab and his mitti and if Yuvraj hits a six clearly Dalbir’s happiness far exceeds Yuvi’s because for him it means that his Punjabiyat has won. That is the kind of connect I am talking about.

  Cricket tourism has become an integral part of many Indians’ travel schedule. The Bharat Army modelled on the Barmy Army has been a group of dedicated Indian fans from England who have been travelling with the Indian team across the world since 2002. The greatest fan who takes the cake though is Sudhir Kumar who even postponed his marriage to watch cricket matches across the country. Sachin himself was very particular that Sudhir was always well taken care of on tours. The Barmy Army founded in 94-95 by David Peacock and Paul Burnham follows the best model which is based on the principle of work and fun. This group of fans travels with the English cricket team wherever they go and earns money while on tour. It’s primarily a group of electricians and plumbers, who find work and watch cricket while on tour. Some of them also work on construction sites and repair lifts. I think during tours of India they should be given contracts to repair and build roads in Mumbai as we know that whatever the British had built in India has lasted more than what we did in our own country. There are also artists in the group and a certain Richard Curtis who is a painter is a big hit in South Africa with his paintings. I am sure watching cricket itself has potential as an economic model which unfortunately hasn’t yet been explored in India either by the BCCI or the Government of India. Thank God I have.

  The impact of cricket on the Indian male is such that many life milestones and key moments in their lives are linked to cricketing events. So after doing a psychographic and demographic analysis of the cricket fan I have managed to put them into my own version of the periodic table with the last category being the jingoistic fan who is like the inert gas element…always excited.

  The Time Warp: “In Our Times It Was…”

  This is the 60 plus fan who believes that everything during his time was better than what is happening today, moral values and cricket included. So if Sehwag gets a century against Australia in Melbourne he will compare it with Vishwanath’s 112 at Port of Spain against the West Indies and argue that, that century was better than this one. When one counters their argument, they feel hurt as if someone’s doubting their personal integrity. And if by chance they aren’t able to defend themselves, they will say that those days batsmen batted without a helmet and they played for the country, today’s cricketers play for the money and with all the protection. This statement is used all the time by ex-cricketers themselves too.

  The Purist

  He is an extension of category 1 but focuses more on the rights and wrongs
of cricket. He is open enough to like modern cricketers but doesn’t appreciate anything except Test cricket. He thinks that ODI was degradation and T20 is the breakdown of society. He believes character can be tested only over five days and T20 cricket is like a one night stand so there is no question of any character. He can give you sermons of how batting has suffered because of the shorter format and there are no spinners left in the game. He switches off the telly even if he sees his favourite players in coloured clothes. He detests Kerry Packer and even the sound of the word Lalit Modi generates more anger than the combined anger Chidambaram and Srinivasan have for him. He is also an armchair expert who knows everything that Rohit Sharma needs to do but is not doing and makes profound statements like, “Talent is not everything, hardwork is what makes a batsman world class.”

  The Pessimist

  He loves the game but he wants India to win all the time. He comes to watch the match not for the team and for the love of the sport but for Sachin, Sehwag or one of his favourite cricketers. He is a representative of those millions who switched off their TV set after Sachin’s dismissal. He is extremely enthusiastic about the game, but if India is 78-4 his brain gets rewired into the most negative zone we can ever imagine. He immediately starts calling the team useless, overpaid and good for nothing even though he was idolising them just 2 hours earlier. He can’t handle defeat whichever way it comes. The day India plays badly, his family has had it and the local booze shop’s turnover doubles that evening.

  King Of Cynics