5 Must-Read Cricket Biographies
Stories of captains, cult heroes, and the people who shaped Indian cricket.
Cricket has always been a game built on personalities, quiet sacrifices and moments that rarely make the highlights reel. The five books on this list span six decades of Indian cricket, from Salim Durani's flamboyant presence in the 1960s to the recent accounts of Rohit Sharma and Cheteshwar Pujara.
Together, they offer a layered portrait of what it has meant to play for India, to captain a side, to bowl with principle and to love someone who has given their life to the game. What connects them is not statistics or silverware but the texture of lives lived at close quarters with cricket and the human beings behind the averages.
1. The Dhoni Touch
Author: Bharat Sundaresan
Published By: Penguin
Dhoni has always been one of those figures who generates enormous warmth and almost no real disclosure. Sundaresan, rather than chase the man directly, goes around him - to childhood friends in Ranchi, to army contacts, to CSK insiders. The result is a portrait assembled from the edges inward.
It does not pretend to unravel Dhoni completely. What it does, more honestly, is show why the mystery itself is part of the appeal. For a captain who changed how India thought about winning, this is the closest thing to an origin story that exists in print.
The book however plays it safe, just like the Neeraj Pandey directorial Biopic M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story. It steers away from the controversies and misses out on talking about life-changing moments of Dhoni’s journey in detail.
2. The Rise of the Hitman
Author: R. Kaushik
Published By: Rupa Publications
The book explores the character, personality and leadership of one of India’s most accomplished cricketers - Rohit Sharma.
Most of the book is a recollection of events and statistics and the storytelling lacks depth and excitement.
You can read my full review of the book here:
3. The Diary of a cricketer's wife
Author: Puja Pujara and Namita Kala
Published By: Harper Collins
Cricket writing rarely moves indoors. Puja Pujara's memoir changes that. She came to the game with no background in it, married Cheteshwar Pujara in 2013, and then spent years learning - the nutrition requirements, the selection anxieties, the particular silence that follows a bad match.
It is a deeply intimate and personal account revealing not only what it takes to be a professional cricketer but also the everyday struggles faced by the family.
This is also the first time we are given a detailed peek into Cheteshwar Pujara. There are quite a few things about him that stood out for me, which you will know when you read the book.
With a strong focus on relationships, the book will appeal to cricket and non-cricket fans alike.
You can read my full review of the book here:
4. Salim Durani: The Prince of Indian cricket
Author: Gulu Ezekiel
Published By: Rupa Publications
Ezekiel's biography was long overdue. It recovers a figure who had begun to slip from memory and places him back where he belongs: at the centre of the story of Indian cricket in the 1960s, a time when the game here was finding its character.
It breaks myth and ground with fantastic storytelling.
Though Durani remains the epicentre and understandably so, there is much more to know and learn about the highs and lows of Indian Cricket.
5. The Sardar of Spin
Author: Neha Bedi
Editors: Sachin Bajaj and Venkat Sundaram
Published By: Roli Publications
Published to mark Bishan Singh Bedi's 75th birthday, this is not a conventional biography but an anthology, comprising of thirty-four essays by cricketers, writers, and opponents who knew him in different capacities.
The form suits the subject. Bedi was never a straightforward figure: too principled for his own comfort, too outspoken to be universally loved, too gifted to be ignored.
Contributors range from Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar to Mike Brearley and Michael Holding, and together they build a picture of a man who treated slow left-arm bowling as a craft worth defending with the same ferocity he brought to everything else he believed in.
Let me know which book you enjoyed reading this year, especially if they don’t appear on the list.
I will be back with another review and more book lists and recommendations. Happy Reading!
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