Review of Capturing Cricket: Steve Waugh in India

 

Two decades ago, Steve Waugh brought his all-conquering team to the Indian shores with the hopes of capturing the ‘Final Frontier’ as he called it. The mission proved unsuccessful and one of cricket’s most successful leaders had to end his career without winning a Test series in India. The Waugh that we encounter on our screens in 2021 has grey hair to go with a bit of a paunch, has a small team of three, and doesn’t look half as tough as the man under the Baggy Green looked when he came out to toss in Mumbai, the venue of the first Test match two decades ago. His ambition this time though was in no way smaller than his ambition from two decades ago.  

In Capturing Cricket: Steve Waugh in India, the veteran of 168 Tests takes on the challenge of capturing the country’s unparalleled obsession with the game through the lens of his camera. He has the company and the guidance of photographer Trent Parke as well his friend Jason Brooks who provides the flavor of humor in the documentary. With these two mates, Waugh travels across India in his pursuit of capturing the passion for the sport. At the end of the 17-day journey across multiple Indian cities condensed into an hour for the viewers, one can say Waugh does a lovely job.

Capturing Cricket does take the slightly predictable path of juxtaposing the country’s passion for cricket with its poverty as we see the visuals of Waugh photographing kids playing in the dusty bylanes of Dharavi. However, what makes it better as it progresses is that its evolution is guided by circumstances and not purely by the script. As a result of that, we the viewers don't merely walk on a predictable path but join Waugh and Co. on a fun adventure trip across multiple cities where we extract joy from things that happen to them.  

In trying to capture the love for the game among the affluent, Waugh travels to Vadodara and finds himself bowling in a palace to Maharaja of Vadodara, a man in his 50s whose determination to not get out to the former Australian captain becomes comical after every ball. Waugh’s inability to connect the bat with the ball while seeing (and suspecting simultaneously) Brooks do it with ease while trying to decode Blind Cricket with Cricket Association for the Blind in India evokes genuine laughs. There’s also a 3-year-old child prodigy whose cricketing talent wows you as much as his outburst on his Australian guests with nothing but the plastic bat tickles you. The documentary isn't all about success as we see Waugh returning empty handed from Taj Mahal due to fog which bowled his ambitions of capture cricket played in the shadow of the famous monument with a wrong un.  And that's why the viewer also feels the team's joy of finding cricket being played in a dumpyard at some distance after the Taj disappointment. There’s also this beautiful moment where the coach in him leaps out as he sees a young girl with the gear trying to perfect her batting technique in Mumbai’s Oval Maidan.

Waugh’s documentary also takes the help of three of possibly the most reliable names in Indian cricket – Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, and Harsha Bhogle. While we never get to see him, his narration does the good work of putting a smile on your face. It’s impossible to not pay attention when Rahul Dravid speaks and although he looks slightly jaded throughout the documentary, his description of what makes cricket so special in a country of a billion people keeps you glued. Sadly, we don’t see him share the screen with Waugh who does get to meet his old nemesis Sachin Tendulkar though as the two men come together to meet India’s oldest living First-Class cricketer Vasant Raiji. Thanks to the relaxed setup, Waugh manages to capture on his camera ‘Sachin, an old friend and not Sachin Tendulkar,’ a telling statement about the country’s love affair with the game and its superstars.  

The documentary, while focusing largely on India’s relationship with cricket, seamlessly weaves Waugh’s relationship with the country, photography and even fame. We get to see footage from Australia’s tour of India from the 90s’ of Waugh travelling with a camera in his hands along with former Australian off-spinner Gavin Robertson, giving us a peep into his love for exploring countries his cricket took him to. Former teammate Adam Gilchrist and wife  Lynette Waugh throw light on different aspects of Waugh’s character from inside and outside the dressing room. None of it seems to disturb the flow of the documentary though and makes the viewer enjoy the bits even more where the man with more than 10,000 Test runs takes the bat to play with the locals.

The unplanned moments of serendipity and the beauty that emerges out of Waugh and Co.’s interaction with them elevate Waugh’s documentary from being yet another documentary trying to find what’s been found a million times before to something special and heart-warming. Do catch it on the Discovery+ app.