Indian Summers - A Review

John Wright's Indian Summers, for people who have not yet read it this books is something like an insight into John's memories. He has used a very simple language in his book and a very neat writing style. The best part being keeping to his topics, coz when you are talking about Indian Cricket its very easy that you dont stay with your topic at all. The book is racy and spicy at some points.The book gives details into the Wright and Ganguly led team which has Test wins overseas in less than five years than Indian cricket had achieved in the previous 70 while raising standards of fitness and professionalism within the team to unprecedented levels.

He has started the book with how life all of a sudden changed when he decided to quit cricket, some internals into his last series, then about working as a manager in a firm. Its after that John took up to coaching some of the local county teams and then how it all changed when he took his flight to India.It has its share of interesting anecdotes about various matches, places, and players. It also has some chapters, devoted to how team selection, the business of cricket and of how aspiring young cricketers in India are mercilessly winnowed down. These chapters are where Wright’s upright style and insider status is well utilized to give the fans an insight to the dressing room happenings.

The best thing about the book is the Wright’s obvious love for the game, for Indians and for Indian cricket, as well as his unpretentious honesty and his self-deprecatory humor. The thing that a serious fan of cricket and of the Indian team will find missing, almost painfully so, is the lack of any substantive information beyond a few platitudes here and there on what made the relationship between Ganguly and Wright so successful. It somehow looked as Wright is reluctant to reveal about his relationship with the then captain. Wright discusses a lot about his relationship with Leipus and Adrian Le Roux than his relationship with captain Ganguly or even vice captain Dravid for that matter. The one whole chapter has been dedicated for Jaggu, and that gives us some real insight to the Brains of the master tactitian.

Wright has also looked at himself critically ("I knew straight away that rather than ripping into Viru (Sehwag), I should have walked away, gone for a stroll around the ground or ducked into the nearest pub"), and admits to mistakes. Thankfully, he springs the odd "I told you so": more an acknowledgement that the joke was on him than any aspiration to righteousness. Also his notes on how he had to get it out of Sachin about where he wants to bat ( Sachin always replied as Wherever the team wants me to), what happened in SA following the loss to Aussies in the group match, the handling of the "HOT POTATO" problem during the Multan test ( Declaration when Sachin was on 194*).

On the whole this has come out as a neat autobiography style book but its only about 5 years of his life, when team India scaled real heights, but as far as my knowledge goes if at all Greg Chappel is going to come out with an Indian Winters, that might be even more interesting.