A new biography on India's iconic cricketer Sachin Tendulkar was launched in Abu Dhabi on Saturday.Entitled 'Sachin: Genius unplugged', the book is edited by Suresh Menon, columnist and author, who has known Tendulkar since he reported the player’s debut match in Pakistan.
The essays in the book are by writers who have been reporting and observing Tendulkar’s game, analysing his batting, placing him in context, criticising him over the years. It is a first draft of biography, with the advantage that it is not limited to a single point of view.
This extraordinary work is brought to the avid cricket lover in each of us by NMC and UAE Exchange, and is a tribute to one of the greatest cricketers the world has ever seen.
Tendulkar has made poets of prose writers even if occasionally his strokeplay has demonstrated the futility of conveying in words the brilliance of his batsmanship.
Sachin: Genius Unplugged, brings together writers and contemporaries whose perspectives on the player are unique. Their insights are strained through experience.
Like writers and artists, sportsmen are subject to revisionism, with fresh appraisals adding to the known portrait. A good place to start is the contemporary report.
Every writer has a personal story as well as a measured, professional one, and part of the joy of the book is to read the admission of veteran writers like Mike Coward on how the player figures in his bank accounts, for example.
Harsha Bhogle’s first interview with Sachin, Osman Samiuddin’s discussion with his mathematician father, Barney Ronay’s air-cricket, Peter Roebuck’s comparisons with Viv Richards, Mike Marqusee’s deeply felt personal essay, Gideon Haigh’s take on the commercial value of Tendulkar’s bodily fluids, and personal insights by Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, Bishan Bedi, throw light on Tendulkar, on the writers, and on the art of sportswriting itself.
The foreword on the most successful batsman of all time is by the most successful bowler of all times, Muttiah Muralitharan.
It is a treat both for those who read cover-to-cover at one go and readers who love to dip in now and then, savouring the individual essays at leisure.