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

by Vikram Sathaye

  Even the great Imran Khan got mesmermised by the Sardar during an interview. The Oxford educated Imran may have even wondered if Shakespeare was born in Patiala. I remember Imran confronting him with “I am optimistic about Pakistan’s success” for which his reply was, “Optimistic is the one who thinks bullshit is a fertiliser.”

  Rahul Dravid had once said to me that in his entire cricketing career, Sidhu had never uttered a word. So when I asked Sidhu how this transformation came about, his reply was “Meditation”. What he said after that was the clincher, “Sathaye saab, when 50 percent of the world loves you and the other half hates you then you know that success has come to you.”

  Whether you love him or hate him, you can’t ignore him.

  How times have changed. My first memories of commentary involved the duo of Sushil Doshi and Ravi Chaturvedi which was not the best of experiences. This was not because they were bad but because for some reason words such as “Manovagyanik dabav”, or descriptions such as “Kadee pariksha le rahe Madan Lal”, never captured the glamour of the game in any sense. I guess we have to accept certain things, one of it being that this game is not fun with the Hindi language, just like swear words in English sound like sweet nothings in Hindi. It is a different issue that often English commentary also sounded the same. They used to say that Bob Willis’ commentary was actually used by mothers to put their babies to sleep. I guess it also had to do with the nature of the sport because scoring 40 off 100 balls was considered an excellent strike rate back then.

  Then Tony Greig happened and an entire nation realised that cricket broadcasting is actually supposed to add value to the sport and make it entertaining rather than be a burden. His high pitched voice in combination with the likes of Bill Lawry and Ian Chappell was like Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Jasrajji, and Mansoor Ali Khan saab having a combined concert. When Tony Greig was commentating sometimes even Ravi Shastri looked like Viv Richards. Such was his impact.

  But the one moment that etched his voice in the Indian psyche was his loud banter during Sachin’s famous Sharjah hundreds. One wonders that if it wasn’t for Tony, would some of Sachin’s centuries have looked even half as impactful as they did. Therefore I have always believed that much of the credit for Sachin’s earlier successes should be attributed to Tony Greig’s boisterous praising of the Master. So there was someone else before me who made a career in India because of Sachin. And it was this very imitation of Tony and Sachin that landed me my first assignment with Sony Max during the Cricket World Cup in South Africa.

  When I landed in Cape Town and headed to the studios, I was introduced to the crew and because it was the first time everyone had met, even the Extra Innings team had no idea what to do with me. They were also experimenting with cricket programming back then, so they told me that they would figure out what to do with me once they got there. The only stuff I had in my bag was some 20 odd cricketers’ batting styles and around 5 voices of cricketers. All of it untested.

  Gary, who was the head of the broadcasting team, was English. I was introduced to him by a production executive who said, “He does some cricketers, Have a look at him.” I was as embarrassed by the introduction as he was. Then he asked me, “I believe you do a Tony Greig?” Now Indians enjoying my take on Greigy was one thing, but an English head of production wanting to see my imitation was a different ball game.

  “C’mon we’ll test you out now, come with me.”

  I followed Gary and by this time I had started sweating because the last thing I wanted was someone saying, “Why the hell did we get this guy here, he is shit!.” I got my first shock of the tour when I entered the studio. Standing against the wall were two 6 foot 8 inch men who cumulatively could cover 22 yards of the cricket pitch if they were lying down. One was the West Indian fast bowler Ian Bishop who apparently bowled the fastest ball Sachin faced in his life and the other was the man who got me this job in the first place, Tony Greig. I didn’t know how to react because it was a weird situation I was thrown into. Even before I could recover, Gary said to Tony, “We want to get this bloke on the show and apparently he does a good Tony Greig.” That was it, my heart sank because I could see what was going to happen in the next 5 minutes. We all knew this man’s reputation. After all, the media had portrayed him as an arrogant, loud, smart man who along with Kerry Packer started the World Series Cricket in the 70s. Suddenly I hear, “Mate, show us what you got.” I don’t know what happened after that, but I rattled all my Greigy lines in a jiffy and the last thing I remember is Tony Greig’s loud guffaw followed by a baritone voice telling Gary, “Let’s shoot the guy.” Now considering the violence in South Africa, that statement can have very different meanings. Fortunately for me, he liked what he’d heard, especially when I shouted “Wonderful Shot!” thrice and made a remark that if there was a calculation done, the impact of him saying “Wonderful” would be far greater than that of Eric Clapton mentioning it in millions of renditions of his song “Wonderful Tonight”.

  On cricket tours, Tony used to be the life of a commentary box. Before the producer could cue him, saying “Tony you’re on”, he would be busy chatting with his mates about the weather, the women, Kerry Packer’s influence and then suddenly rush and take guard in his inimitable way. It might be the most inane news, but he loved to make it sound good. I remember a gaffe that he made in Birmingham when the Pakistani section was blowing horns like no-one’s business and suddenly he shouted, “Oh what an atmosphere, these horny Pakistanis are having a party.” There was a stunned silence in the box but then it was back to business in a few minutes again.

  Tony Greig and Ian Chappell were two individuals who I thought were the epitomy of professionalism. They would know everything about the game before it started. Tony loved the concept of breaking news and unlike the Hindi channels who cook up breaking news, he worked hard for the same. Though he would like a bit of sensationalism, I would see him constantly chatting with match referees, groundsmen and authorities to get some news he could use in his broadcast. When it came to insights on the game, I think no one can match Ian Chappell. I call him the Yash Chopra of cricket as he is the biggest cricket romantic out there. This man is full of anecdotes for every cricketing situation there can be. I also believe that his liver is beer and wine proof because it is difficult to visualise him without a glass. I remember meeting him at a bar in London at 9 am and he was having a beer. It was a different issue that I had just woken up and he had finished 40 laps in the swimming pool. These Aussies are made differently. Period! Ian is like your favourite uncle who could cook up a story whenever you wanted as a child, whether it was Spiderman or Superman.

  This man could be extremely witty and sarcastic in his commentary and could say things with a plain face which could make you smile instantaneously. I remember an instance when Pakistan was playing India and Javed Miandad was the coach of the Pakistan team. Abdul Razzaq was batting and Javed, the enthusiastic bloke that he is, was making gestures to Razzaq from the player’s balcony explaining to him how he should be playing. Ian’s reaction on air went something like, “Razzaq is a good cricketer which is evident from the fact that he is not watching Javed Miandad giving all those instructions.”

  The reason you see humour is because you observe beyond what everyone does and that’s what a good commentator is supposed to do.

  — Ian Chappell

  He is one of the few guys who can tell the viewer more than what he sees. A classic example of that was when during one of the matches Dhoni had asked for 4 bats from the dressing room and held 3 of them together and practised a stroke. All the commentators thought that he was changing his bat as he had managed to destroy the previous one while hitting a helicopter shot. Suddenly there’s a voice which says, “MS is trying the bats together and practising the stroke because that will acclimatise the hand to a heavy bat load. So when he holds one bat while he is batting his hands would feel much lighter after that exercise.” I was amazed at how he pointed out such a subtle thi
ng while the rest of the world was busy having coffee.

  He once told me, “The reason you see humour is because you observe beyond what everyone does and that’s what a good commentator is supposed to do.”

  The Art Of Cricket Presenting

  Cricket anchoring has also evolved in a big way, from Narottam Puri to Mandira Bedi. Even Darwin would have been proud of this evolution. This whole new phenomenon was described as “Wrap Around Cricket Programming.” For puritans it was scandalous but it definitely made the game more youth friendly and surprisingly women friendly. I thank Mandira for diverting some of the women folk from Shanti to the ‘Ashanti’ of the cricket field. She did it the hard way and I saw that in 2003 when she made her debut on a bouncy wicket in South Africa. She will have equal significance in Indian cricketing history like Sarojini Naidu or Jhansi ki Rani had in our freedom struggle and trust me that’s not an exaggeration. To have broken into cricket’s male bastion was as difficult as fighting the British in a war. Bishen Singh Bedi couldn’t achieve 1 percent of her success inspite of taking 266 wickets and successfully captaining India. This was clearly an example of a High Risk – High Return strategy.

  Well she had one of her most embarrassing moments when she called Harbhajan Singh a leg spinner. In some way she was technically right because in the last 2 years most of Bhajji’s wickets had come from doosras which theoretically was leg spin. However Mandira was not one to give up, she purely survived on the basis of her grit. Another of her contributions was in making noodles extremely popular in India thanks to her noodle strap blouses. I was quite surprised that Maggi never thought of using her as a brand ambassador. Her historical significance is also due to the fact that the saree suddenly became as popular as Gandhiji after Munna Bhai. So I can say that out of the 22 yards on a cricket pitch, at least 5 yards belonged to her.

  One of my most embarrassing moments was when I called Harbhajan Singh a leg spinner.

  — Mandira Bedi

  Said Mandira: “It was the “Big occasion syndrome” for me too, amidst ex-cricketers, suits, technical stalwarts and me wearing interesting clothes. They said, “Don’t worry, just do what you are good at.” And honestly I didn’t know till then what I was good at. As Shanti on TV I was given my lines but as Mandira I had to make my lines for live TV. I was making mistakes by the minute and was constantly telling myself that I have been selected out of so many people and that I can’t be letting everyone down. I just could not stop weeping for the first 7 days.”

  Unlike Shaanti, here the weeping would not have helped garner TRPs so Mandira left the ablah nari tag and decided to take on the cricket world and I give her full credit for how she transformed herself. I remember whenever she spoke in the studio she got a raised eyebrow. She was constantly asking herself whether she belonged here and there was a time when she told Sneha Rajani the Head at Sony Max that she could not do it anymore as there was just too much criticism. That’s when Sneha told her, “We got you here because we believe in you and if you empty the baggage in your brain of being a woman and the bigness of the moment and it being a male sport, etc, etc, you will be fine.”

  Mandira said, “Live broadcasting taught me to be present in the current moment and not worry about the gaffes made in the past or the anxiety of the future. Heaven and Hell is in your own head. So with swollen eyes I decided to throw away my baggage the next day and just go for it and things just changed after that. A few days later my confidence came out, a little too much, after the famous India vs Pakistan World Cup 2003 game at Centurion which we won. We had a huge celebration that night and I came pretty groggy the next day for the telecast. Mark Nicholas asked me live on air from the ground about my celebrations the night after India’s win. I replied instantaneously, “Oh it was terrific but I can’t describe it to you as we are a family channel.” Mark was shocked by my answer. Actually everyone was shocked including me. I didn’t realise what I had said. It was another blunder!!! But one thing I realised after this was I wasn’t scared anymore.”

  Mandira talks about the fact that she always did her homework but the key challenge was to apply it on live TV. One good piece of advice she got was not to load up the questions so heavy that the player had nothing to answer. Cricketers are reluctant speakers. She says, “One has to ensure it’s not about you and the fact that I was the only woman present meant sometimes it became about me. So even if Shah Rukh Khan made it about me, I still had to recover from the flattery and make it about him. Having said that, one has to bring one’s personality into what you do, otherwise you won’t make a mark.”

  If you are associated with cricket one is also vulnerable to controversies especially when India is not playing well. When India was eliminated in the initial rounds of the 2007 World Cup and the media had nothing to write about, they created a controversy around Mandira’s tattoo which she had for years. She had to issue an apology saying it was not done to hurt anyone’s religious sentiments. She added, “Then came the saree which I wore which had the flags of all the World Cup teams and Star News did a piece where they interviewed soldiers in Kargil saying “The flag you are protecting is what Mandira was wearing on her body”, I was once again under scrutiny.”

  She remembers that she got a lot of hate mail from Bangladesh because she said, “What! We got beaten by Bangladesh.” There were Facebook pages dedicated to “Hate Mandira”. She further added that the West Indies World Cup was just a disaster. A wrap-up show at 4 am when India is not playing and 3 people are watching is the worst punishment one can get as a presenter.

  Her 5 days in Pakistan were among the best experiences she has had. She said, “I had one embarrassing moment there as well. I was watching the game and Irfan managed to come to the area where we were sitting. I remember getting excited and screaming out, “Irfan I love you”, like a true fan. As I did it, I realised that the camera was focussing on me and it was on the screen for all to see.”

  Another ace cricket presenter on TV is Gaurav Kapur whose strength actually lies in making all the player interactions very comfortable and engaging whether it is a discussion with Wasim Akram on reverse swing or with Sunil Narine on the carom ball. He mentions the importance of talking to the players before the interview and helping them formulate answers for the standard questions. When you do that then the interviews become impactful. He says, “Imagine if I had to bat in a cricket match and I went there in front of thousands I would expect my non-striker or the other cricketers to calm me down, make me comfortable, similarly when players are giving interviews it is not their domain and therefore one has to give them support to face the balls on this pitch called live TV.” This is absolutely true because I have seen a lot of presenters just rush to a player and throw the mike at their face after they have scored a century and ask, “How are you feeling after this hundred?” To me this is the most inane question as no sane man would feel hurt or distraught after scoring a hundred.

  The other thing he says is, never underestimate the viewer. Always consider that he or she knows more than you and even if 10 people are watching a show ensure that those people feel satisfied by the broadcast. Gaurav says someone who inspired him in his cricket journey was Rahul Dravid because of his manners and the way he carried himself. The other thing about Rahul he mentions is his curiosity. He recounts an incident where he and his fiancé were having dinner with Rahul and for 2 hours Rahul did not even mention the word cricket and actually understood the nuances of his and his fiance’s profession which was shocking because normally with cricketers one rarely gets to see this quality. Gaurav also mentions that in the newer generation he is amazed by the single minded focus of Virat Kohli when it came to his diet which is probably the reason why he has those 6 packs. Even after a lot of coaxing by friends once Virat refused to have chicken curry during an evening out. When Gaurav asked him about it, Virat said, “Ek saal se meine chicken curry nahi khaiye hein because the curry makes you put on weight.” Now that’s creditable. For a Punjabi lad with Vi
rat’s aggression to stay without chicken curry is akin to a Gujarati family managing without thepla for the rest of their lives.

  9

  The Broadcasting Doctrine

  “I have always believed its not about me. My glory comes from making others look good.”

  Harsha Bhogle

  The Indian male believes that he knows cricket better than anyone else in the country. He is convinced that if he was batting at Perth or Durban he could have adjusted his batting technique better than Dravid and Laxman put together. My uncle never played the game and was always averaging around 105 kgs during the course of his lifetime. He never got up to even pick up the remote to change the channel but had strong views on the fitness quotient of the Indian team and how Raina’s sliding stop technique needed some fine tunning. Like him, my grandfather could barely lift his back but had a theory on how Sachin should change the angle of his back lift and improve his performance. How an Indian garners the audacity to make such statements is an area of research worthy of a thesis.

  Indians, especially Maharashtrians and Bengalis, are born theorists! A co-operative bank cashier for 25 years, my dad’s friend had enough courage to talk about everything from economics to cricket and quantum physics. From the limited enclosure of his tiny cabin he could device a foolproof solution to the Simla Agreement and in the same breath will tell you that MIG 21s were becoming flying coffins because of the sheer negligence of the Indian Air Force. That’s why they say that it is knowledge that creates problems in India. Lack of it can make you an expert.

  However, over the last 20 years, there has been one man who made his opinions count in the world of cricket and that is my dear friend Harsha Bhogle. Every Indian cricket lover has envied and aspired to be in his shoes. I was one of them. Harsha has lived every Indian male’s dream.