Cricket Odyssey - A fascinating journey... with 75 legends of all time

4.   GENIUS IS WHAT GENIUS DOES

HAMMOND

In this age of teenage beepers, one finds it not so amusing to delve into Tendulkar’s supreme genius, even before he had transformed himself into a bludgeon of a batsman that wielded the willow like a mediaeval swordsman. This is not all. There was more to Tendulkar’s peerless capabilities than what met the description of aptitude. First of all, let’s burrow into the precincts of a parallel allegory — one that is part of modern women’s tennis. Of a game that is played like cricket: between your two ears. Or, better still, a cricketing story from another time. More of this later.

Tendulkar’s brilliant capabilities are as much a part of sport folklore as the dazzling exploits of the youthful brigade once led by a champion performer — the racquet game’s most charming Swiss Miss, Martina Hingis. It’s a simile like no other — one that was contemporary tennis’s own benchmark, a veritable landmark in our journey through time. It’s a tale that you’d, perforce, have also often thought of. Of similarity as a case of narrative, in tune with the times we live in — of a world of open boundaries, or high-tech imagery. But, wait a minute. You’d be in for a surprise.

Flashback: Walter Reginald Hammond, a batsman of rare stock, was just 19 years and 324 days, when he notched up his maiden first-class hundred, in the English County Championship, 90 years ago: the bedrock of the game’s school of learning. It was, indeed, Hammond’s launch-pad essay, the first among the 167 centuries he was destined to record in his glorious career. It was stuff that dreams are made of, and fulfilled. It’s also something that was not really, or easily, accorded to youthful prospects in his epoch. Because, young and aspiring cricketers were asked to hone, mould, synthesise their talent and ability for ‘baptism’ at the right time — one, which never came too early to most? You bet.

Hammond was something special — a genuine article. He questioned customary thoughtfulness, inside out. Not because he was a batsman in a league of his own, but because he was a player that comes but rarely in history. He could have just walked into any Test or one-day side, in any era, without ado.

Hammond was to cricket what Claudio Monteverdi was to operatic music — an amalgam of mathematical sweetness, melodious assurance, flow, poise, radiance, immaculate grace, and majestic psychosomatic attributes. Hammond crystallised the pure classics of the game. He was neither a compulsive innovator nor a mercurial, roller-coaster batsman. With his left foot never far from his bat and footwork as balletic as that of a born dancer, Hammond brusquely dismissed the red cherry from his presence. A powerful hitter, with an army general’s ken for detail, Hammond had all the qualities — and, more — which go to making a great batsman truly great. As another legend, Hutton, summed him up, “Whenever I saw him bat, I felt sorry for the ball.”

Strange are the ways of destiny. A quirky potion too — since both Hammond and Bradman began their phenomenal Test careers together, in Brisbane, 90 years ago. Soon enough, Hammond was the greatest batsman in the world. It was pure magic — the Hammond delight, scoops and scoops of it. Bradman, of course, had not just as yet climbed to his stupendous level: of near-infallibility with the bat. Curiously, however, Hammond’s annus mirabilis lasted for just the whole of 1929. Come 1930, Bradman ‘gnawed’ away at Hammond, making him Gloucestershire’s and England’s possible answer to the futuristic ‘Wizard of Oz,’ not only psychologically, but also by way of simple arithmetic. So much so, if Hammond made a ton, Bradman often responded with a double ton.

Hammond had a Freudian tag in his cricket mechanics, all right. Blame it on the detrimental effects of a lonely childhood, an unpleasant apprenticeship, and the delay it caused to his entry into county cricket. It was, therefore, not without reason that Hammond’s rashness was often enveloped by his own strong composite of mood swings. It was a divulgence to some of his most vociferous critics, which included the English martinet Lord Harris — that Hammond’s early brilliance was only passé, not something that was bound to last. A few of them even went to the extent of saying that Hammond was too headstrong, and he had too many shots to offer for every ball.

Come August 19, 1925, Hammond had them and their blazing guns silenced. He made a sparkling 250 not out, pitted as he was against one of the finest bowling outfits in England. His supreme quality was no longer in doubt. The innings was Hammond’s springboard... for a great future. He had now made it to the English side for the tour of West Indies: the right place for his ambitions and skills to be sharpened, and placed in context. Sadly, disaster struck — in the form of a mosquito bite. Hammond was shipped back to Bristol. It was a desperate illness and debilitating too. Forget about Hammond’s future in cricket. Many thought that he would not survive at all, or lead a normal, relaxed pace of life.

But, destiny was manifest. Hammond returned a great batsman. The hospital to him, without those odious ‘bugles’ in the ear, or their stinging malarial bite, was what insulin was to Sir Frederick Grant Banting. He fused his talent and mind chemistry into one whole. He soon made bowlers pay for that dreadful insect’s indiscretion. When England toured Australia, two years later, Hammond emerged taller than anyone else [It was a great script: one that also calls for some yearning for old times’ sake]. His sterling achievement in the series: 905 runs. His signal objective, from then on endured — for a while. No wonder, Hammond’s overall performance against teams from the Antipodes was nothing short of the magnificent, even though he sometimes found the great leg-spinner, Clarrie Grimmett, ‘quite a hitch’ to deal with — especially in England.

Hammond’s best was yet to come. And, he kept the world waiting for something special. The Lord’s Test of 1938 fulfilled that invocation. With the game barely 40 minutes old, England was reduced to a shambles: 31 for 3. With Hutton, Charlie Barnett and Bill Edrich gone, Hammond took charge. As Eddie Paynter assisted him with purpose and definite resolution, Hammond reached his 70 before lunch. England: 134 for 5. At tea, Hammond was on 140 — an excellent symmetry. And, at close of play, Hammond had added exactly 70 more runs to his score. His innings was dignified and breathtaking. He treated the Aussie bowlers with contempt. Only the great O’Reilly was able to check Hammond’s flow of runs for a while.

Cardus waxed eloquent, “A throne-room innings.” Hammond’s finally tally? A stupendous 240. His exposition was, for sure, something out of this world. Jack Fingleton, a fine cricketer and an equally fine writer, wrote with poetic licence, “The King was there. The sun shone brightly, and Hammond was in the full glow and flow of his glory in Cathedral of cricket. The ball streaked through the covers... [He was] majestic at the crease, twirling his bat and stepping back to crash the ball through the covers. He found the answer to O’Reilly by taking guard on his leg-stump and devised a sweep-shot against the great Australian bowler.”

The cover drive was Hammond’s patent. Good, Arthur Dunkel wasn’t around to have a clue about its magic, and patent it. Hammond gave the wonderful shot a new thrust, or status. It has not been excelled since. Not even by Tendulkar, or Mark Waugh, or Rahul Dravid. Bradman and other captains always tried to close obvious gaps, for the shot, in vain. As one English writer observed, “Hammond’s reverberating drives whistled and thrummed with the power of his wrists and shoulders, cracked clean through the ringed field out of all possible reach, until the off-side seemed full of holes as a colander. Hammond seemed to place the ball, and place it at intimidating speed, precisely where he chose.”

An outstanding player of both pace and spin bowling, Hammond could play the greatest of slow bowlers of his time even with the edge of his bat, if he wanted. He once handled spin on a turning practice wicket with a baseball bat, when some of the best batsmen in the side could not read, or judge, the line of the ball. But, genius also has its limits. Hammond, for one so great, was a routine skipper, not always popular with his team-mates. He was a great talent without the common touch, or endearing feeling for younger players. One more thing. Hammond, when he grew older, also did not relish fast bowling much — but, he still had the capability of riding on it with ease, or ducking out of the way of short-pitched deliveries.

Life was also not always kind to Hammond. He never got anything on a platter. He had to work extra hard for a few things which one can often achieve without much effort. Add to this Hammond’s problems with divorce suits, business failures, and a crippling road accident in South Africa, and you have a sad portrait of a man, a legend with the bat, who was in command, so long as his mood was in sync with his cricketing psyche.

All the same, Hammond was born to play cricket, nothing else. His statistical roll-call tells it all: 634 first-class matches; 50,551 runs; 167 hundreds; 56.11 average — a refined interpretation of his awesome prowess, a gleaming understanding of cricketing empathy.

Hammond played in 85 Tests, and scored 7,249 runs; 22 hundreds; 336 not out, highest score; 58.46 average — a fabulous percentage in any era. Hammond was...