Art for heart's sake
Ranjith Jayaram
Art is a thing of beauty.
In this simple sense, sport is one of the greatest forms of art. And sportsmen artists worthy of the highest praise.
What we have witnessed between India and Australia is art at one of its many pinnacles. An eclectic cricketing musical orchestrated by a group of fine performers playing to an audience who were at once overwhelming and overwhelmed.
Venkat Laxman was a veritable Itzhak Perlman, wielding his willow like a magical violin.
Harbhajan Singh, a Mohammed Rafi, now spinning soulful melodies and now yahooing to tub thumping rhythms.
Matt Hayden, an Eric Clapton, guitaring many a fine solo innings punctuated by powerful, electric riffs.
Jason Gillespie, a raw blood and guts performer from the streets, a budding artist who seems to draw inspiration from Jeff Thomson's the-sound-of-the-ball-hitting-the-batsman's-skull-is-music-to-my-ears school of art.
Steve Waugh was Zubin Mehta, directing his players with customary calm. Saurav Ganguly was Anu Malik, voluble and controversial, but eventually redeeming himself.
Some of the credit for the spinning sardar's success must go to his captain. Though - Ian Chappell never misses this point - Ganguly's schemes and field placements were sometimes questionable, he has revived the tactic of giving a spinner long spells to get into a groove and gain in confidence. Quite often we have seen Indian captains removing inexperienced spinners from the attack as soon as the opposition gets stuck into them but Ganguly thankfully bucked the trend. Harbhajan repaid this faith not just with his spinning fingers, but (being the ultimate team man that he is) allegedly with his middle finger by emulating his skipper's salute to the Aussie fans during the now infamous winning lap at Eden. Oh Captain! My Captain!
The difference between a riveting one dayer and a classic test match is the same as the difference between a Steven Spielberg and a Satyajit Ray.
A well woven Spielberg yarn is art at its entertaining best - thrilling and fast paced, fantastic and stunning. It's the tale of the two Joneses - Indiana and Dean.
A Ray masterpiece is life inspiring art inspiring life - sublime and poetic, intricate and uplifting. Test cricketers are like Charulata - sometimes soporific, sometimes stirring artists in a gilded cage viewing the world through their opera glasses.
The Indiana Jones trilogy is Spielberg's version of a gripping one day series. The Apu trilogy is the master's impression of an epic test series.
In their millennium edition, the venerated Economist controversially chose cricket as the paramount sport of mankind. I was ecstatic. Their reverential references to "Mr." Tendulkar sent me into thunderous rapture. Their caustic endline - "Baseball is indeed a great sport, but by comparison with cricket it is, well, simple stuff", had me rolling on the floor. But I never took the article critically, dismissing it as one of those idiosyncratic analyses the British occasionally indulge in.
May be, in the glowing light of this series, I should give the question some serious thought:
Is cricket the greatest of all spoarts (pronounced spo-arts) and are great cricketers the greatest spoartists?
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