That was more than Cricket

I gulped back emotions on my way home as I read an eveninger the day the Southwark Crown court judge pronounced his verdict against three Pakistani cricketers for spot fixing. "It's not cricket", observed the judge. Cricket has been tarnished and the supporters cheated, said an outraged world, which watched the transformation of the game, over the past decades, from being a passion to a money spinner. As the cricketing fraternity groped to come to terms with another crisis, I regaled over how the game brought me happiness and joy as I grew up at a non-descript place, far away from the facilities of a modern city.

My tryst with cricket started towards the end of 1976, when Glenn Turner’s New Zealand visited India. We were living in Sahibganj then and my uncle bought me a transistor to listen to the commentary. I do not remember how as a six-year-old, I  got hooked to cricket then but can still recall the names of all the players of the Indian side. Bishen Bedi was the captain and with his battery of magical spinners, Chandrashekhar, Prasanna, Venkatraghavan, literally stripped the Kiwis off all their cricketing might. India won the series 2-0 and my liking for cricket was set rolling.

Anand Setelwad, Balu Alaganan, Rajan Bala, Sushil Doshi, Murali Manohar Manju were the commentators then and on weekends, I would sit all day next to the transistor with a scorecard – dotting every odd ball and noting every boundary, imagining as if I was seated among the players. (Pavilion and Press Box were not part of my vocabulary then.)

After the Kiwis left, Tony Greig’s England visited India to play a five test series. I do not know why the visiting side was called the MCC. Tony Greig with his flamboyance mesmerised those who were lucky to watch him play as the visitors thrashed India. The hosts only managed to win the test at Bangalore where Bedi took six wickets in the second innings. The Indian skipper was my hero then and the day India lost at the Eden Gardens I literally cried and refused my lunch, inviting ridicule from relations who would tease me, saying that as the players enjoyed in their hotels I cried at home. My liking for Bedi continued even as I grew older and despite his maverick behaviour, so as my dislike for John Lever, who became infamous for the Vaseline controversy during the same series.

Cricket was not an all year phenomenon then. Our winter vacations, after annual examinations, were packaged with no studies - either in the morning or in the evening, oranges in the bright afternoon sunshine, Joynagar-er Moa (a winter delicacy in Bengal), Barodin-er cake (Christmas cake), family picnics, circus, a trip to the zoo and of course cricket. There was no television then but transistors would provide our minds with a more intense view of what was going on and off the field. For a very long time I dreamt of becoming a commentator, often commentating of mock cricket matches and drawing wrath from the elders,

The over exposure of cricket now has dried up the tremendous appetite I had for the game. But during the school winter holidays if we would go on any trip outside Kolkata, I would make sure that a transistor was with us. Remember the series that India played in 1977-1978, when Bob Simpson made a comeback as captain after most of the world-class players joined the World Series Cricket of Kerry Packer. I remember, India losing the first two tests and then making a dramatic comeback in the next two. We were then at Puri and I would get up very early every morning (due to the time difference between Australia and India) to listen to the heroic deeds of the Indian cricketers. Bruce Yardly, Graham Yallop, Peter Toohey, Kim Hughes were some of the familiar names then in the Aussie side. Finally, India lost the final test and Australia clinched the series.

Cricket then was like a fairly tale for many of us. When India was playing Alvin Kalicharan’s West Indies at the Eden gardens, I remember a young relation of mine shouting in the middle of the night as if the visitors have lost a wicket. The game stirred your imagination to unimaginable limits. When there was any test at Kolkata, we (the children in the family) would be taken in a group a day before the start of the match to places around Grand Hotel, the only place where the cricketers were put up then, and Eden Gardens. The places then wore a festive look with decorative lights all around. Strolling past the Grand Hotel or outside the Eden Gardens we would have a surreal feeling of being in the midst of the players or watching the match from the gallery. My real life entry to the Eden Gardens happened much later and on the very first occasion I took my shoes off to rub my barefoot on the grass of the ground, which enthralled my imagination and captured my dreams for years.

Within days of me joining the Financial Express, India was playing West Indies in the day and night final of the Wills World Series in Kolkata. My friend Ritwik Mukherjee had managed a ticket for me and I silently disappeared in the afternoon to watch the match. India finally won and the next day my Resident Editor Buroshiva Dasgupta called me up to express his disappointment at the sudden disappearance but spared me as India had clinched the tournament.

Cricket has been a long time love for me, a companion at times and a fantasy till I got busy with other things in life. As I read through the pages of the tabloid my mind was filled not with anguish for the disrepute the Pakistani trio brought to the game but with some sweet memories which made my life more joyous than one would have expected.

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