Sachin Tendulkar: A Definitive Biography

Vaibhav Purandare

Description

This is not a scorebook, nor is it an accumulation of facts or the extension of a globally recognised brand. This is the first in-depth and comprehensive biography of Sachin Tendulkar, and it puts Sachin, the cricketer and the human being, in perspective. Tendulkar's story is told here grippingly, with a wealth of rare, unpublished anecdotes that throw fresh light on a remarkable career. The book probes the psychological growth of the world's leading batsman, examines the historical forces that shaped his personal and cricketing character, analyses his cricket planning and actions and evaluates the history the man himself has created, whether by making his Test debut at 16 or making his 50th century in Test cricket. It just as carefully chronicles and discusses his disappointments, failures and the controversies that have cropped up around his name, and provides an insight into Tendulkar the man, who has for so long been kept from public view. Above all, the book places Tendulkar in the context of the international cricket tradition and determines his exact place in world cricket history. Capacious and yet crisp, Sachin Tendulkar: A Definitive Biography is Tendulkar in totality.

Sujets

• Sport
• Autour du sport
• Histoire du sport
• Sports
• Lettres et linguistique
• Ácido desoxirribonucleico
• Biography
• MiD DAY
• Mumbai Mirror
• Asian Age
• Tell-tale
• The Indian Express
• Hindustan Times
• Batteur (cricket)
• Autobiography
• Test cricket
• Sachin Tendulkar
• The Times of India
• HIStory
• Blitz
• DNA
• Cricket

Informations

• Publié par: Roli Books
• Date de parution: 22 août 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788174368980
• Langue: English

Extrait

Sachin Tendulkar
Vaibhav Purandare grew up playing cricket at Shivaji Park, Mumbai, at the same time as the school-going Sachin Tendulkar was amassing loads of runs on the field. He watched helplessly as Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli walked away with a world-record partnership against his school. Purandare was taught in college by Tendulkar’s father, Professor Ramesh Tendulkar, and was coached as a right-hand batsman and off-spin bowler by Tendulkar’s coach, Ramakant Acharekar.
He began his journalistic career in 1993 with the political newsmagazine Blitz and has since worked with India’s leading newspapers like The Indian Express, The Asian Age, and Mid Day, apart from writing for a host of other publications. His first book, The Sena Story , a history of the Hindu militant political party Shiv Sena, was published in 1999, when he was only twenty-three. He is currently senior Associate Editor with the Hindustan Times, Mumbai.

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a definitive biography
vaibhav purandare
Sachin Tendulkar
foreword by Ramachandra Guha


Lotus Collection
© Text: Vaibhav Purandare, 2005 © Photographs: Pradeep Mandhani, 2005
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher.
First published in 2005 Fifth revised edition 2011 The Lotus Collection An imprint of Roli Books Pvt. Ltd. M-75, Greater Kailash II Market, New Delhi 110 048 Phone: ++91 (011) 4068 2000 Fax: ++91 (011) 2921 7185 E-mail: [e-mail] Website: www.rolibooks.com Also at Bangalore, Chennai, Jaipur, Mumbai & Varanasi
Cover Design : Bonita Vaz-Shimray
Production : Naresh Nigam, Shaji Sahadevan
ISBN: 978-81-7436-360-2


~
In memory of my grandparents Suryakant Chemburkar and Lilawati Chemburkar
~

contents
A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
F OREWORD
the bandra boy
the city of cricket
the schoolboy as cricketer
the world beneath his feet
tons of runs
the big test
impact on england
wonder down under
the vice-captain as hero
whose bat is best?
don of a new era
the captaincy crisis
the golden year
troubled times
an uneasy quiet
convert into a new mould
senior statesman
tendulkar and bradman: a comparison
epilogue
B IBLIOGRAPHY
I NDEX

acknowledgements
‘S ee how he bats, and see how you bat’ my father once told me when I was in Class IX. He was talking about Sachin Tendulkar, then a student of Shardashram High School in Mumbai.
Tendulkar was scoring tons of runs in schools cricket; I, playing the same Harris Shield Tournament in the same city, was struggling to find form. Yet my dad mentioned my name in the same breath as Sachin’s. I must first thank him for that.
He didn’t stop at that. He went on to analyse Tendulkar’s game for me. My father, Jagdish Purandare, knows his cricket. He’s technically a flawless batsman and played for the top division in Mumbai in the Seventies and Eighties, the glorious days of the city’s cricket. His analyses, to this day, have enriched my own study of the game and of Tendulkar in particular.
My brother Kunal, the greatest admirer of Sachin’s partner-in-runs Vinod Kambli on this and other planets, read some of the chapters carefully and made many corrections. I can’t thank him and my mother, Jyotsna, enough for their solid support.
My debt to Kiran Nagarkar, one of the world’s finest fiction writers in English, is really incalculable. He went out of his way to ensure the successful completion of this project, contacting people, offering suggestions and despite being a confirmed recluse, taking my persistent calls which were actually fervent appeals for help. Without his encouragement, this book would not have seen the light of day.
Eminent historian Ramachandra Guha, whose book on the social history of Indian cricket has been acknowledged the world over as a seminal work comparable to C.L.R. James’ Beyond a Boundary, not only agreed to write the foreword but did it days ahead of the deadline, a practice relatively unknown amongst accomplished authors.
Tulsi Vatsal made the all-important call to Sachin; Clayton Murzello, the unassuming sports editor of Mid Day, set up a meeting with him; and Ramakant Acharekar, Tendulkar’s coach and also my own during my college days, recollected for me his fondest memories of his most illustrious disciple.
Former India Test cricketer and now a successful television commentator, Sanjay Manjrekar gave me fascinating insights into Sachin’s game. Former India captain Ajit Wadekar, former India wicket-keeper and Sunil Gavaskar’s uncle Madhav Mantri and former Test cricketer Praveen Amre granted extensive interviews as well.
A rich fund of anecdotes was provided by Sachin’s closest friend Atul Ranade, his Shardashram mate and Mumbai Ranji player Amol Muzumdar and former first-class cricketer Ashok Gadkari a brilliant left-hand batsman who in the Seventies used to open the innings in club cricket with Sunil Gavaskar.
Sudha Sadanand, the editor of this book, cast a sharp eye on the manuscript and disciplined my prose; Ashwati Maya-Franklin, with her fine attention to detail, read the final draft before I sent it to the publishers; Pradeep Mandhani, who has shot Tendulkar more extensively during his international career than any other photographer in the world, granted his pictures; and Jayapriya Vasudevan of Jacaranda Press always offered support.
Special thanks to my publisher Roli Books and Roli’s managing editor Renuka Chatterjee, and to my close friends Pankaj Upadhyaya, K. Balachandra, Suyash Padate and Jhilik Sen, all of whom I badgered for suggestions and who always conveyed a certain confidence in the ultimate outcome of this project. That kept me going during some of the lean periods of research and writing in the two-and-a-half years that this project has taken for completion.
All these people are responsible for the good things in this book. For any error, I alone am accountable.
M UMBAI 12 J ANUARY 2005
V AIBHAV P URANDARE

foreword
I n cricketing terms, Sachin Tendulkar defines the Age; indeed, he is the Age. In the history of the game, there have been only three other cricketers who, in terms of skill and impact, can be compared with him.
First, there was the bearded Dr William Gilbert Grace, mammoth in size and personality, a vigorous, extroverted and often domineering character who was the best-known Englishman of his time. Then there was Donald George Bradman, who brought to the art of batsmanship a clinical and almost frightening efficiency. After him came Garfield Sobers, who was, without doubt, the most accomplished and variously gifted man ever to grace this most graceful of games.
And now there is Tendulkar. No batsman since Bradman has had quite such a range of strokes, quite such an ability to dominate attacks, quick and subtle, on wickets dusty or green. And, coming of age with the one-day game, he has mastered challenges the Don never faced; such as flaying away at the top of the innings, or nurturing a shaky middle order to reach what looks like an impossible target. Moreover, in social terms Tendulkar has had to bear a burden no other sportsman could even remotely contemplate. Grace was loved by fifteen million Englishmen. Bradman was idolized by ten million Australians, Sobers worshipped by a like number of West Indians. But Sachin is answerable to a billion hyper-expectant and too-easily dissatisfied Indians.
Tendulkar, lik