Just Bat

"Written when Sachin Tendulkar was about to come back after tennis elbow surgery"

He was ten years old and was scourge of the bowlers from this end of the gulli to that. They would all wake up at 5:00 in the morning, hastily put on the chaddis and jump down the stairs to the empty road below. He was always the first to be down there, would arrange couple of bricks to mark the bowlers end and his cycle at the other end with the front wheel as the make-do wickets. By this time others would have come and captains designate for the day would have split up the teams. He was always the first one to be picked and the other captain got to pick three players and first batting chance in exchange for him. He had argued against this system a couple of times as he didn’t take too much time to knock off the runs batting second. But everyone else liked it this way. He would make up for it by staying back with a couple of buddies, who didn’t mind the punishment too much, after others had gone home to get ready for the school. Of course he had to buy them a couple of candies on the way to school. School passed in a haze, except on days when there was a “Sports” period. As soon as the final bell would ring, he would run to the cycle stand, pick up his cycle, ride home, drop his bag, grab a couple of biscuits and his bat and down he would be. As in the morning, he was the first one to be there. They would play till their moms would start shouting from the windows announcing that it was dinner time. But he would stay on alone, knocking around the ball against the wall, throwing it high in the air and then catching it. His mom would then come down and had to drag him up by his ears.

All this flashed through his mind as he lay in his hospital bed. The surgery had been successful. But now the long painful period of healing would begin. Doctors had said it might take anything from 4 weeks to 4 months and even then there was no guarantee that his elbow would recover its former strength. With a weakened elbow, he knew, he wouldn’t be half the batsman he is capable of being. For last couple of years the thought of life after retirement had come like a recurring nightmare. He had managed to push it off, an eventuality to be handled in future. But this was present. Suddenly retirement seemed perilously close. Now there was no time and no space to push things off. Decisions had to be taken, sacrifices made. And he had decided to go under the knife, to sacrifice next 4 months for perhaps 4 more years.
No guarantee. How easy for a doctor to say, but those two words were breaking him now. Ever since those hours playing gulli cricket, he had been sure of one thing. He had to bat. Not because he wanted to bat or because he could bat extremely well. But because batting was part of who he was, part of his existence. He had to bat just like a bird had to fly. But now the surgeon’s voice echoed again and again in his mind. That night he couldn’t sleep.

He was riding his cycle real fast. That evening they had a really important match against the kids from the neighboring mohalla. He had been thinking about this since morning. They had all practiced an extra half an hour in the morning. It was a strong team they were up against and all the hopes were on him. He didn’t see the large stone lying on the road. When he woke up he couldn’t move his left leg and it felt a bit heavier. He realized that this was not his bed and not his room. He was discharged a couple of days later, but the plaster wouldn’t come off for another month. That night he had cried.

He wasn’t even allowed to lift a bat for some time. Even the smallest of movements in his arm would cause extreme pain. He tried to while away time by watching reruns of his old recordings. He also saw some of India’s live matches on TV . But all this only gave him more pain. Pain more severe than the pain in his arm. Therefore he started spending more and more time with his family and detached himself from the game as much as he could. But he waited patiently for the day when he would be able to feel that familiar sensation once again. The shock of cricket ball hitting the bat, which would move through his arm, up through this same elbow to pulsate his brain. That shock wave and the beautiful sound made as the bat made contact with the ball. He waited for that. And as he waited his mind again went back to that incident in his childhood. So far away in past yet now it seemed just like yesterday.

For initial few days he used to sit on the sidewalk and watch his buddies play. He would cheer every big hit and boo every dropped catch. But everyone knew this was just a façade. Sitting on that sidewalk only caused him anguish. Over and over again he would imagine himself in the place of the batsman. To every ball bowled, he would imagine at least a couple of ways of dispatching it to the boundary. And then to his horror would see the batsman play the completely wrong shot. Every shot would pierce his heart, every run would wet his eyes. So he stopped sitting there. He would still talk to his buddies and ask them all the details about the game that day. But he never again sat on that sidewalk.

The night before he was to face his first international ball in 6 months, he wasn’t sure whether he was ready. He had played a couple of domestic matches, had practiced hard in the nets. But he was worried. He didn’t know how to approach the game . In last couple of years his batting style had changed completely. He had become more defensive, mellow, tried to be more responsible. Yet he knew he had missed something. Now tomorrow, all the eyes will be on him. In fact for past few days, all the talk had been about his comeback, rather than the teams performance. He doesn’t like it that way, but can't help it. Should he try to play cautiously, feel his way back, or should he throw caution to the wind? Thinking of all this he fell asleep. And then he dreamt.

He was ten years old. The plaster was off. As usual he was the first to be down on the road. In fact he had woken up at 4:30 and was down much earlier. So he had to wait impatiently for the others. He had cajoled them into letting him bat first just for this day. Soon everything was set up. The bowler started his run up. He thumped his bat on the road, then on his shoe and then on the road again. He was ready. As soon as the ball was out of the bowlers hand he realized that it was going to be over pitched. He just moved ahead a bit and knocked it straight for a six. Next one was short and he hit it for a four. Third ball was again short and this time he hit it straight into the windows of an apartment. He was out because such were the rules of the gully cricket. But he didn’t care. He didn’t even care about how many runs he had scored. He was just happy to be out there.  His world was back to normal, the flight was resumed. He was just ecstatic to have batted once again. That’s all he had wanted to do for past one month. Just Bat.

As he woke up in the morning, he realized that all the anxiety of last night had disappeared. He felt calm, like he had not felt in last six months. As he put on his pads, he knew exactly what he had to do out there. He knew that as each ball was bowled, he would know precisely what to do with the ball. He knew that he had to go out there and Just Bat.