For a decade now, we have been seeing the ?Men in Blue? play with the Sahara brand name on their chests. So just in case anyone missed the point, Sahara seems to have decided to push it further with this cricket-crazy nation. So how do they do it? They compile a coffee table book, The Golden Era, with pictures of India’s cricketing glory over the past ten years, since Sahara became the team sponsor. As a consolation, there are a few pictures of the yesteryears, like Ravi Shastri, Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar having dinner with the Sahara family. Initial pages tell the story?the book is much more about Sahara than it is about Indian cricket.
Clich?s are clich?s because they more often than not hold true. ?Never judge a book by its cover? is definitely one. With stalwarts like Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Dhoni and Sehwag beaming at you from the cover, along with the sheer size of the book, one feels that he is in for a treat inside. But all you flip through are photographs of Indian cricketers during matches, award ceremonies, get-togethers, practice sessions and random fun sessions.
The captions are another big disappointment. Sample this: ?Sachin tries to prevent the ball from rolling on to the stumps? with a picture that shows exactly the same thing. Add to that some pictures being grainy and unclear. If value addition was a consideration, it seems to have been edited out of this compilation.
Any cricket lover would have expected Sahara to add more to what is already known, seen, registered and remembered about Indian cricket, over the past ten years at least. With the kind of access the publishers have with the team and the BCCI, a lot more could have been achieved and presented through this coffee table book. Of course, being a commemoration of a sponsor, there are those customary pictures which qualify as nothing more than Sahara ads.
On a slightly positive note, the book still seduces you to flip through it once, to savour the moments of triumph of the Indian cricket team over the past one decade. It has two-page hall of fames for players such as Sachin Tendulkar and Saurav Ganguly, which again could have been a lot better. The book tries to trace the journey of Team India and chapters are divided according to series and tours. It deserves some attention, but that would be because of the status cricket has in this country.
The book itself doesn’t bring anything new to the table and one is just left thinking about a hundred ways that could have made this book what it really could have been? a collectors? item.