METAPHORICALLY speaking, it is downright blasphemy to talk about Test cricket when the World Cup is in progress. It is, as you read these lines, but just a matter of hours before the next king of cricket is crowned. While the wham-bam version did help the game to reinvent itself, the purists — an endangered species — would still argue if the game needed to be reinvented at all.

Regardless of the arguments between the modernists and the conformists, the fact remains that the aura that surrounds cricket and puts it on a pedestal for the followers of the game owes much of its sheen, shine and shimmer to the rich and lush folklore related to Test, First Class and even village cricket that dates back to almost a century and a half.

Mid-Wicket Tales: From Trumper to Tendulkar captures all that and more in as exciting a narrative as the game itself. The authors, S. Giridhar, an academic, and V.J. Raghunath, a chemical engineer, have described it as a “love story — the authors’ love for the game” — and this is precisely how it comes out for the readers who can’t help but fall in love themselves.

The narrative — “a celebration of Test cricket in all its hues” — is focused on the longer version of cricket and has a nostalgic, old-world touch about the days when it was what it was: a thrill to watch and a chance for fans to appreciate the amazing set of skills one needed to perform at the highest level. It was called Test cricket because it ‘tested’ you in ways more than one.

In the current age, it is not just the game that has metamorphosed, but so have the viewers who often consider themselves more knowledgeable than the players.

“Today’s television is unfair to the cricketer. Leaning back in a chair in the drawing room, a person can be lulled into thinking this is a simple game. Unless one has tried to meet ball with bat or tried to catch a ball coming at speed to either hand, one will not realise what a complex combination of brain, eye, and hand-and-feet coordination a sportsman must have to be able to do this ball after ball,” say the narrators, stressing without saying it in as many words that the worth of the process must be judged not just in ball-after-ball terms, but in hour-after-hour and day-after-day terms to have some realistic idea of what Test cricket is about.

Though unconsciously, the book as a whole does bring to surface what Test cricket has gained from One Day International (ODIs) and what the game has lost in an era dominated by the shorter and, indeed, the shortest versions of the game, the T20s. For instance, it has become result-oriented and even when the game ends in a stalemate, there is some level of intensity about the whole affair. The days of the dull and drearily-drawn games are now a rarity and, the way things are moving, they will be history sooner rather than later.

A couple of examples from the book would suffice. In ODIs, the authors note, Kapil Dev had a batting strike rate of 95.1, scoring 3,783 runs off 3,979 balls, and hitting 291 fours and 67 sixes. Take away these 358 boundary balls, and Kapil scored 2,217 runs off the remaining 3,621 balls: a strike rate of 61.2 even when he was not hitting the ball across the rope. In simple terms, he was able to rotate the strike like no one has done to date. Test cricket is a direct beneficiary of such a fast-paced approach to the game. As the writers have noted elsewhere in an entirely different context, while the crowds go for “instant gratification of limited overs cricket, they would do well to note that … Test cricket is no more boring … (the batsmen) are scoring briskly, over 3.4 runs an over, and most matches are ending decisively.”

Indeed, they are and it has happened under the direct influence of the ODIs and T20s. But, for sure, the game of cricket has lost some of its thrills and skills which have been replaced by a different set of thrills and skills — different, but not necessarily better or worse, mind you.

The authors find it paradoxical that while ODIs and T20s have raised the standards of fielding, “one of the great casualties have been catching at short leg” which has become a sort of “punishment posting” — for no one wants to be there, even with all the protective paraphernalia that is part of the game played in the modern era. Talking of what field positioning and minor adjustments meant, the authors recall a tale told by Englishman Bill Bowes in his own book, Express Deliveries. Captain Wilfred Rhodes once adjusted Bowes at short and wide mid-on, “in fact coming over and marking the exact spot for Bowes.” A few balls later, the batsman hit one “so hard and straight to Bowes’ tummy that he had to catch it to save his life.”

Bound in a lucid narrative, the book, in the words of the authors, is a “medley of stories: theories with some statistical data and technical assessment to back them, and anecdotes to flesh the characters of the game”. This, the book has done with aplomb. There is one minor hiccup in the shape of a bit too much of the Indian factor which unfortunately limits the scope of the book for global readers, yet coming from Indian authors it is but natural and understandable.

But what is not understandable is the apparent lack of understanding or homework shown by the authors on matters not related to India. For instance, in a chapter discussing “great captains”, what the writers have said about Imran Khan represent the positive stereotype of his captaincy skills. Had they done their homework a wee bit more, they would have surely found that Imran Khan’s captaincy tenure is but a pale reflection of what Abdul Hafeez Kardar and Mushtaq Mohammad were able to achieve. This, naturally, takes nothing away from Imran for he remains one of the finest cricketers and captains produced by the country, but just that the authors seem to have little time for things that are not related to their home country.

Imran’s ability, for instance, to “unerringly spot talent” has been talked about with not a single qualifying clause. The discerning reader would surely recall quite a few ‘talents’ that the captain had spotted and had put on a long leash — at the cost of much more deserving cases — but they hardly ever delivered.

Who can forget Mansoor Akhtar who ended up scoring 600-odd runs in his 29 Test innings and even less in his 41 ODIs? Spread over 10 long, miserable years, his entire career had a single century in any form of the game at the international stage — 111 at Faisalabad where the wicket was famously called “a bowler’s graveyard”. All his playing days were under Imran Khan who more than once publicly described him as Pakistan’s Vivian Richards. This is just one of several such cases.

One doesn’t mind such sweeping statements coming from laypersons, but the authors are anything but, and they have not backed their assertions with any statistical or even anecdotal data. A tad disappointing on this count, but it is surely a book which, in the words of Rahul Dravid, “makes you fall in love with cricket all over again”.

The reviewer is a Dawn staffer.

Mid-Wicket Tales: From Trumper to Tendulkar

(CRICKET)

By S. Giridhar and V.J. Raghunath

Sage Publications, India

ISBN 978-8132117384

292pp.