SECRET SUPERSTAR
One of the most proficient batsmen of his generation, Sanjay Manjrekar’s account of his career humanises international cricket
Make no mistake, this is no airbrushed hagiography dressed up as a biography. During the time when he was playing, there were few better sights than the ball meeting the middle of Sanjay Manjrekar’s bat. Considered one of the most technically proficient batsmen of his time, as he recounts his career as cricketer and TV commentator, Manjrekar offers a straight, wide bat to the narrative. He doesn’t duck the awkward deliveries, whether it is while reminiscing about his troubled relationship with a violent father, writing of his penchant for overanalysis, or coming to grips with failures and what some would consider, untimely retirement at the age of 32.
That he would transform into a successful TV analyst after giving up the cricket whites was in a way a painless transition. Manjrekar has always been a good student of the game. In the chapter titled ‘Struggles’, for instance, he writes: “I just enjoyed batting defensively. It didn’t bother me much what my score was after an hour, as long as I was playing flawlessly. I focused so much on playing correctly that I sometimes lost sight of what my real purpose at the crease was: to get runs… I had to look good to all those who were watching me. Tendulkar, to an extent, was the same, but because of his prodigious talent he could not help but hit a good ball for a four every now and then. Unlike me, who would be stuck on 20 for almost two hours. This was the Mumbai School of Batting. How you got your runs and against whom you got it mattered a lot. Just runs were not enough for Mumbai cricket.”
One can argue that Manjrekar was both a beneficiary and victim of the Mumbai School of Batsmanship. It was here that he inherited the khadoos quality of putting a price on one’s wicket, the guidance of icons such as Sunil Gavaskar, who once person- ally delivered a Gray-Nicolls bat to him at a playground and the technical perfection that many from the cricket nursery are instilled with. But he also suffered because of the pressure that the Bombay media created by anointing him the next Gavaskar. Really, Manjrekar didn’t have a choice but to be a Test cricketer. “If my father (Vijay Manjrekar) had not been a former cricketer, and if I had not grown up in Dadar, where the only sport people played was cricket, I would not have become a cricketer,” he writes. Had Manjrekargrown up in Dombivli would he have grown up to be as successful? This reviewer has reason to believe Manjrekar would still be behind a microphone, if not analysing the nuances of run chases, then letting out an aalaap in a recording studio.
Since his retirement, Manjrekar has cut a Rabindra Sangeet album but the singing and Mumbai cricket connection runs deeper than that. Engage him in a conversation on Kishore Kumar and he’ll be your friend for life. That Manjrekar takes his singing seriously is no secret. Even when he was playing, in 1996, he had cut an album called Rest Day. During an interaction with him in the early 2000s, I was exposed to his singing prowess. When I asked Manjrekar about his obsession with Kishore and whether he remembered the lyrics of his wacky numbers from the 1960s, he nodded vociferously and went on to belt out some of Kishore’s zaniest songs, along with the Asha Bhosle portions in the duets, for the next 30 minutes or so. I distinctly remember C-A-T, cat maane billi, dil hai tere panje mein toh kya hua and was most impressed with his rendition of Zindagi ik safar hai suhana, yahan kal kya ho kisne jaana! complete with the yodelling.
Unlike the cricketer who had his share of highs and lows, Manjrekar the authorretains his form throughout. He wields a light, deft touch whether it is describing his hundred in the Barbados Test against a fierce Caribbean bowling attack or fighting the demons in his mind when the slide in his batting began. In this process, he humanises the cutthroat world of international cricket for readers. The beauty of Imperfect is that, unlike Manjrekar’s batting, it often plays outside the V. It indulges in lofted strokes and doesn’t run on unexpected lines. This is where the autobiography may appeal to connoisseurs as well as commoners.