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SAMPLE EDITION 12 WINTER 2015 THE NightwatchmanTHE WISDEN CRICKET QUARTERLY SAMPLER THE NIGHTWATCHMAN Issue 12, out now, features the following: Matt Thacker introduces issue 12 of The Nightwatchman Anthony McGowan reckons he’s not good enough to be a failure Manu Joseph examines Rahul Dravid and Nehruvian politics Cricket’s past has been enriched by great writing and Wisden is making sure its future will be too. The Nightwatchman is a quarterly collection of essays and long- Geoff Lemon imagines some cricketing parallel universes form articles and is available in print and e-book formats. Co-edited by Anjali Doshi and Tanya Aldred, with Matt Thacker as managing editor, Tanya Aldred wonders where the time goes The Nightwatchman features an array of authors from around the world, writing Christopher Fauske discovers another Shaquille O’Neal beautifully and at length about the game and its myriad offshoots. Contributors are given free rein over subject matter and length, escaping the pressures of next-day Jon Hotten meets a 78-year-old who bats like Bradman deadlines and the despair of cramming heart and soul into a few paragraphs. There are several different ways to get hold of and enjoy The Nightwatchman. You Tony Shillinglaw is that man, and explains how he does it can subscribe to the print version and get a free digital copy for when you’re trav- elling light. If you don’t have enough room on your book case, you can always take Tim Noakes on the science behind Bradman out a digital-only subscription. Or if you’d just like to buy a single issue – in print, digital or both – you can do that too. Take a look at the options below and decide Supriya Nair appraises MS Dhoni which is best for you. Matthew Engel on his awkward relationship with Peter Roebuck Animal instinct – this issue’s photo section Aakar Patel on why nationalism ruins his cricket-watching Dan Brigham digs into the whys and wherefores of left-handedness Full subscription Bob Kaplan discusses gamesmanship from the other side of the Pond Annual print sub- Digital subscription scription (with free Annual e-book only Andrew Alderson on a New Zealander’s yearning for English village cricket e-book versions) subscription £27 (+P&P) £10 Joe Wilson was there the last time England toured Pakistan Click to Buy Click to Buy Hassan Cheema welcomes cricket’s return to Pakistan Patrick Neate has been listening to the language of cricket Harry Pearson remembers creating the Seymour Clark Awards Alison Mitchell investigates the difference between red, white and pink balls Single copy Digital single Single issue (with Nathan Leamon challenges the received wisdom on batting first copy free with free Single issue e-book version) Alex Preston suffered a sporting punishment that set his life on a different course (e-book only) £9 (+P&P) £4 Click to Buy Click to Buy THENIGHTWATCHMAN.NET 2 THE NIGHTWATCHMAN THE RAHUL DRAVID CONCESSION Manu Joseph on the new Nehruvians and the Indian disdain for flair The question was: “Why are you – one of the risk of being shamed, or disgraced, for most famous Indians ever, a global celebrity the small chance that a remarkable truth with vast romantic prospects – marrying a is spoken? Or is an unusual question a girl whom your parents have picked?” stunt performed in the shadow of a superstar? What did the young reporter I was 21, and it was the first question of expect Anand to say? “Like most Indian my life in a press conference. It was an men, I totally trust my parents to find me inauspicious start. The year was 1996 and a pure woman”? That would have been the question was put to chess grandmaster illuminating. So what is the objective of Vishwanathan Anand, whose arranged an indecent question? All of the above. marriage had been announced a few weeks earlier. For reasons I still do not Seven years later, Rahul Dravid, who know, his father was seated beside him at had dated women, entered into an the press conference, which concerned arranged marriage. I have not had a lecture Anand was to deliver. And it the opportunity to put the indecent was his father who answered: “It is an question to him. Between Anand’s inappropriate question.” marriage, when Altavista and AskJeeves were popular search engines, and Obviously. So? That a question should Dravid’s, when Google’s domination have an answer is not a requirement of was complete, India had transformed. human communication, and certainly The urban youth were in the sway not the reason why it is asked. What, of the internet. Most urban Indians then, is the objective of a public had a mobile phone. But something question? Is it, as questions often are, about the new Indian middle-class an opinion masquerading as inquiry? Or male had not changed. A meaning of an act of altruism – a person takes the Dravid’s arranged marriage is this: in ANTHONY MCGOWAN THE NIGHTWATCHMAN a society where the state is useless and appeared to respect him more Dravid hypothesis – a path to greatness eye. He straightened the duvet, tugging and unreliable, the family is crucial, the than Sachin Tendulkar. exists. Not for a moment could Sachin at it till it was symmetrical on each side.” family is the state, hence an individual Tendulkar or Brian Lara convey that. They, concedes some liberties to the family Chappell’s infatuation is in line with the in fact, reminded the world that greatness Wood’s description of Chaudhuri’s work out of necessity or in gratitude. It is concessions that cricket’s intellectuals was unattainable to most people. Dravid as a “refutation of the spectacular” tradition, and tradition often is the usually make in the analysis of Dravid. The was the prophet, never the god. is filled with meaning for a reason graceful kimono of practicality. only batsman who was called “The Wall” is that some of the fans and foes of the one who holds the record for having His devotees then were and are Rahul Dravid would have immediately But that is not the meaning of Rahul been bowled the highest number of times the everymen, and those who had understood. Wood has borrowed the Dravid. Rahul Dravid, as sculpted in the history of Test cricket, over 20 per contempt for him were usually the expression from Chaudhuri himself, in Indian public imagination by his cent of all his dismissals. Among batsmen spectacular and the stylish in their own who wrote this in a column in 2005: elite observers, was not an adorable who have played over 175 Test innings, spheres of work who believed they had “When [Satyajit] Ray speaks of ‘life’ and apology for tradition and the right of only four were more likely than him to be the genius in them. It is a view that riles the ‘raw material’ of life, he is speaking Indian parents to decide whom their dismissed in this manner. Not such a wall his fans, naturally – to be told that they of a refutation of the spectacular that son would marry. He was and remains after all, but an enduring beneficiary of love him because they, too, are ordinary. comprises the exotic, in favour of a symbol of change, modernity, urbane language. His inelegance, which he has But ordinariness is not a deformity, it is the mundane, the everyday, and the sophistication and erudition. The crucial always gracefully accepted, is consecrated a majority condition, the natural state transfiguration of the mundane.” question is not what he really is, but how as “determination”. His circumspection of the world. Genius is the anomaly. his glorious statue came about. And is feted as though he ever had a choice Sport, at its peaks, is a measure of Chaudhuri and Wood appear to see a why, no matter what he did or what he between flamboyance and caution. profitable anomalies. The rest of it is an distinction between “unspectacular” turned out to be, the master sculptors equal contest between the ordinary. In and a “refutation of the spectacular”. of public opinion around the world The most unremarkable description of its ability to move people, the idea of Seen in context, Wood’s use of the word persisted with a beloved notion of him. Rahul Dravid is that he had talent. Of the “ordinary” is underestimated. “spectacular” does not mean “exotic” course he had. Once, during the 2003 (Rushdie) alone, but also everything that In 2011, Greg Chappell released his World Cup in South Africa, I asked him The literary critic James Wood, in a New “spectacular” means (Marquez, McEwan, memoirs, Fierce Focus, which included in the course of a brief interview that Yorker review of Amit Chaudhuri’s novel Morakami). And the word “refutation” an account of his torturous stint as India’s he had granted out of compassion for Odysseus Abroad, wrote that Chaudhuri includes the sense of “rejection”. When coach. (What use misery if it cannot be a persistent reporter, whether he was “has beautifully practised” the Wood writes that Chaudhuri’s body of published one day?) In the book, Chappell working on his wicket-keeping skills to “refutation of the spectacular”. Wood work is a “refutation of the spectacular”, presents his view of Sourav Ganguly, the ensure his place in the one-day side. He goes on to say that “Chaudhuri casts does he presume that Chaudhuri is Indian captain at the time when Chappell said it was an “unfair” question. He said he a lingering eye on London in the mid- capable of the spectacular and has was appointed coach: “His problem was would find a place purely on the strength 1980s.

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