Confessions of a sparkling mind

More comprehensively than in the past.

RE Jones (1926-1976)

Bob Jones was a professor at Cambridge,a closet poet,an ardent follower of cricket,and also an occasional fast bowler in the university nets. In the above extract from his poem Years Back,he describes the essence of being a lover and a disciple of sport,amplifying the smallest details on the playground into worthy achievements in the minds eye. Had Bob Jones been alive today,he would have been overwhelmingly proud of a certain pupil of his,one that was so influenced by his teachings that he not only included the passage in his extraordinary book,but decided to base his memoirs on the same lines.

Wrapped in simple green with beige checks,the title sits firmly on the front cover,bordered by two red tramlines. The Following Game,it reads,pressed neatly in field green,just above the name of the author Jonathan Smith. Across the spine on the back flap,theres a picture of Smith,walking through the English countryside with his son Ed,a former Test cricketer and now a successful author.

The blurb states that the 222 pages between the book boards are about a father following his sons career in the public eye, but like everything else in and about this book,the precis too is subtle. For what the write-up at the back doesnt tell you is that The Following Game is rare and sensitive literature in the world of sports books,one that doesnt revert to scandals and controversies to sell the contents within.

First and foremost,lets rule out what the leaves within do not consist of. If the dark side of fame in a sportsmans life is your idea of a page-turner,then read no further,for Smith is not for you. Unlike the recent sports bestsellers,there are no confessions of crystal meth loaded injections (Open),or vivid descriptions of orgies on the eve of a cricket match (To the Point). Smiths book is rather a celebration of the spirit of competition,one that enthralls its readers with an intense and intoxicating dose of his lifes two great passions sport and literature.

To put it more simply,it is about being a fan,a follower,a hero-worshipper. If youve ever surrendered to the magic of just following a game or a team or a player and wondered why it begins to rule your life,then with his divine craft of philosophising the everyday,the author justifies that love,putting mania into perspective with a wonderful personal journey as a man obsessed with cricket,rugby,authors and poets.

Diagnosed with cancer in January 2006,Smith a Welsh-born professor of literature at Tonbridge School in Kent sets forth on a journey with son Ed to India,the spiritual home of the game of cricket. While the subcontinent and the places traveled (Rajasthan mainly) hardly take centrestage,his pilgrimage inside his sparkling mind does.

The mental odyssey encased within a physical expedition hence forms the foundations of the book. Worried that the cancer may crush his will to narrate a compelling and powerful tale of idolising his literary and on-field gods,Smith begins to log entries on stray pieces of hotel paper in India sheets that would eventually be published by Peridot Press.

I was quite nervous about how this book will be received,to be very honest, says Smith,a quintessential Englishman. I did see an opening for a genre where literature and sport could co-exist in the same page of a book,and decided to go ahead with it.

It is almost impossible to classify the book within any popular genre,for it carves a literary niche of its own. While the premise is about following and writing about his sons long and successful domestic career (he also played three Test matches for England in the summer of 2003) with Kent and Middlesex in retrospect,Smith sifts through topics and timelines with enormous ease.

With the smoothest of transitions,you read about his man crush on Welsh fullback JPR Williams (The greatest of any generation),his chance tea meeting with Don Bradman in Adelaide (A ledge,a true legend),screaming into the mirror to stare cancer in the eye like a batsmans stares a bumper bowler down,not watching Rachel Weisz and Ralph Fiennes have sex in the film A Constant Gardener on his flight to Delhi,creating the dream teams of Literature XI and Cricketers XI,remembering vividly those who insulted his son in the stands during his Test debut in Trent Bridge,smoking a cigarette in the dressing room after becoming school captain,getting stuck in a cow jam in Udaipur (he refers to women beggars as mothers),and,of course,recalling every superstition while following the game of cricket one that has been a constant source of worry and happiness in his enriching life.

But the most pleasing chapter is the one about his most famous pupil at Tonbridge Vikram Seth. It took me less than fifteen minutes to sense that the boy Seth would not be needing me or anyone else to help him,but that realisation only made the lessons with him all the more exciting, he writes. Describing Seths first homework assignment,Smiths explanation captures the essence of his book perfectly a perfect blend of sport and literature,juxtaposed intricately to mesmerise the readers.

The sharp but light touch,the penetrating point,the elegance of the phrasing,the flick of the wrist,the quickness of mind,the range of shots,the sense of a hidden armoury,the timing and the feel of the sentences,the ease of the comparisons,the art that hides art,it could be Tom Graveney,it could be Tom making 267 against the West Indies,or it could be Barry John,the Welsh fly half of the 1970s,gliding so easily through a packed defence,and you whisper Wow! How about that! to yourself and you look out of the window and you nod to yourself and say out loud to the empty room, Has this guy got it or what!

All through The Following Game,the readers reaction is no different from the authors in the above passage.