An era to savour

At a point in life when one is through with boyhood, but has not yet discovered how to be a man, it was my fortune to travel with the most marvelously appealing of teams.

Thus begins Roger Kahn’s dazzling Boys of Summer, a book about growing up with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

The Tendulkar era produced some marvellous Indian cricket teams. Over 24 years he played alongside four generations of cricketers – the Kapil-Shastri-Vengsarkar-Azhar era with cricketers who began in the late ‘70s and ‘80s; the Kumble-Srinath-Ganguly-Dravid-Laxman era that started in early-to-mid ‘90s; the Sehwag-Zaheer-Yuvraj-Dhoni era that kicked off in the first half of the millennium; and the Kohli-Dhawan-Pujara-Rohit era of the late noughties and early ‘10s.

Personally, the period that resonates the most is between 1996 and 2011, fifteen years split by a scalding match-fixing scandal, a turbulent phase during Greg Chappell’s reign as coach, and the ugliness of Sydney ’08.

This stretch covers the heartbreak of the 1996 World Cup semi-final, the ghastly 100 and 66 in Durban, the shambles in Barbados in 1997, conceding 952 in Colombo, the triumph against Australia in Chennai and Kolkata in ’98, the champagne in Sharjah in ’98, mayhem in Taunton in ’99, the hole in the heart in Chennai in 1999, defeat to South Africa in a home series…

… a giddy Champions Trophy in 2000, the unforgettable highs of Kolkata and Chennai in 2001, trench-warfare in Headingley in ’02, a sizzling run in the World Cup in ’03, three joyous triumphs in Adelaide, Multan and Rawalpindi…

… crushing defeat to Australia at home in 2004, historic series wins in the Caribbean and England, emptiness in the 2007 World Cup, pleasant shock in the inaugural World T20, a gallant fight in the Tests in Australia in 2008, a victory in the CB Series…

… rising to the top of the Test heap, winning a series in New Zealand, drawing one in South Africa, and clinching a World Cup after 28 years and sending a country into raptures.

Over the past ten years, I have written (on this blog and elsewhere) about what some of those matches meant to me. I have written both from the point of view of a reporter as well as a fan. And I have tried to explain why this particular era, and these group of cricketers, meant so much.

Here is a list of articles, tributes, interviews, and reports. All of them weren’t written in that 15-year timeframe but they try and capture the essence of the era and the men who made it special.

Sachin the Innocent: When a young and carefree Tendulkar put Australia to the sword with a sponsor-free bat

Degrees of fandom: The scoreboard at the Chinnaswamy Stadium was important: because on so many, many days it showed R Dravid

Javagal Srinath and the bridging of a gap: He won only four Test matches away from home. But he was anything but a loser

Why Durban matters: India’s 1996 series in South Africa left scars that would take many years to heal

Kumble – the clinical colossus: The reason he was different was because he didn’t try different things

Chennai 1999: That day, those memories: How does anyone get over such a loss?

Dear MS Dhoni: Lessons from India’s mess-ups in the World Cups gone by

The Y and Z axes: The Champions Trophy in 2000 heralded a new dawn

Ganguly takes his shirt off: A brattish upstart brings the tone of Lord’s down a notch or two

Dravid and the mastery of the struggle: Why an ideal Dravid innings needs a most challenging pitch

Watching Sachin leave: A masterclass in Lahore

Slash and burn: Sehwag goes bananas in St Lucia

Thou shalt not pass: Dravid’s lesson in the art of defence on a Sabina Park minefield

India lacked muscle and hustle: An uninspiring bunch go out of the World Cup

That special something: Dravid on the unique charms of playing in England

Coffee with Maharaj: From black sheep to main man, Sourav Ganguly has come a fair distance over a year

Team unity delivers glory: India’s series win in England belonged to everyone in the squad

Sachin and Sourav illuminate the haze: An opening combination for the ages

A legacy that lost its way: Dravid risks being seen as walking away when he was needed by the team

A hurricane with a calm in his eye: Dhoni’s rapid rise

Will and grace: When Dravid’s grit combined with Laxman’s flair to produce a magical day at the SCG

A regal knock: The SCG lays out a red carpet for Tendulkar

A frustrating end: Ugly might be an understatement to describe events on the final day in the SCG

Laxman shows his very, very steely side: The beauty of graft

Smells like team spirit: History at Perth

Tendulkar does a Don in Adelaide: The skies were clear but it would have been fitting if a rainbow hung over the arena.

The victory of the lambs: India’s CB Series triumph pointed to a new beginning

‘If there’s commitment, that’s victory for me’: MS Dhoni on captaincy

The last Samurai: Sehwag’s monster triple in Chennai

Bye bye Kumble: Turn is temporary, wickets are permanent

Losing my religion: The change of guard in Indian cricket has pulled the rug out from under the feet of a generation of cricket watchers

The baton passes. And how!:  The Tendulkar generation rises to the top of the world

When Dravid was there: Dravid joins Gavaskar on 34 centuries

Rahul Dravid and the eternal lament: Dravid’s one-day career was played out in a parallel universe compared with his Test career

Virender Sehwag and what we don’t know: Why it may take many years to understand his greatness

Goodbye Dravid: India’s most versatile cricketer walks away

Tendulkar gets a monument. And a barroom number: A hundred international hundreds

Goodbye VVS: Cricket’s ultimate toy-artist bids adieu

Dhoni and the art of the impossible: Celebrating a badass finisher

Growing up with Sachin: How Tendulkar helped a generation of Indians make sense of their lives

When he walks out to the middle: Every Sachin Tendulkar innings is a mini Ganeshotsav, imbued with a sense of occasion, teeming with expectation and possibility.

The grand piano has left the building: Everybody has a Tendulkar story. Everybody has a hole inside them now that he has gone