A Walk Down Memory Lane

Early seventies were the days Radio enjoyed pre-eminent position in public life. It was an indispensable ally of newsohoilcs, music buffs, and cricket enthusiasts.  Having a box sized Radio In a house was a status symbol and larger its size, bigger the ego of its possessor, and before the revolution of transistor  made Radio a ubiquitous house hold item like today’s mobile. Radio was also the chief vehicle that carried cricket commentary from different parts of the world.

In the mid-seventies as a primary school boy, I was privy to the excitement and curiosity generated that early morning Radio commentary of Indian teams tour to southern hemisphere countries like Australia and New-Zealand. Then Gavaskar gained prominence as a finest batsman and matching him in skill and craft was our own Kannadiga, G R Vishwanath and he was a man Friday of Indian cricket team in those days.  Gavaskar was called architect and Vishwanath was an artist. Fearsome fast bowlers, Denis Lilly and Jeff Thomson were at the peak form of their career, and Indians had a challenge to negotiate these ferocious Australian fast bowlers and barring an occasional resistance, Indian team was an easy prey to an opponent’s scheme. 

When I started perceiving the world, cricket was everywhere in my climate: in school where I studied , in street where I stayed, and in home where my brother and uncle were die hard followers of cricketing fortunes of Indian cricket team.  So naturally I took to cricket at a very young age and love for the game continued as I grew older. 

My cricketing baptism began with playing street cricket where myriad cricketing rules used to be in vogue like a hit to a particular boulder in a playground would be declared as two runs and a hit above a compound wall would be declared as batsman out.  Despite such stringent rules, there used to be very fiercely fought games and looser would always return to play a revenge game to level the series.  

     

 One of my friends had a rare collection photos of then famous cricketing heroes like Nisar Ahmed, known as a fastest bowler India has ever produced but his cricketing career was short lived before he could make it big. There were also snapshots of Saleem Durrani, Abid Ali, Abbas Ali Baig, Vinoo Mankad and many more Indian players.  My friend had preserved it so carefully that he never used to allow me to touch them by hand.

As my father had a transferable job, I had a peripatetic career and so was my cricketing sojourn.  When we moved to small town, a taluka place, by then my cricketing career was matured and I was a recognized face in cricketing circle of the small town.  I was an all-rounder and rival teams used to be in competition for my inclusion in their team.  Later invitation cricket tournaments became more popular and organizing these tournaments became best pastime for cricketing enthusiasts of the town and I donned many a times a popular commentators role in many such tournaments and a week or so time period of the tournament used to draw sizeable crowd and many fans rooting to their favorite teams and players and cheering and shouting them was a sight to behold and moment to cherish even to this day.  

In the mid-eighties when I moved to a mofussil town Gulbarga for my collegiate education, I got a wider cricketing world-view and here the game was played more intensely and sophisticatedly:  Bigger grounds, matting wickets, and better cricketing paraphernalia.  Intercollegiate cricket competition was an important fixture in the yearly calendar of events of the town.  HKES Engineering college and S B Science college teams were to be two best teams in the fray every year and competition between them used to be watched a huge standing crowd surrounding whole ground.  Santosh nick-named as a billy boy since he has had cat eyes, and Chandu Patil were stars for engineering college and Durga-Prasad, an opening bat with delectable stroke making ability was to be crowds favorite for science college. 

Club cricket was also prevalent and clubs named KCC, Lucky Cricket Club, and GCC and many more were active and inter club cricket competition was also a crowd puller and it was to be hosted on NV Matting Wicket. Products of these clubs namely Ragotham Navali and Yerregowda went onto play a first class cricket for Karnataka state and both of them played for Karnataka even in Ranji trophy.  Especially matches between Lucky cricket club (Roja  Area) and Karnataka Cricket Club used to be one reminiscent of India vs Pakistan cricket match and partisan crowd was to boo and cheer for either teams.

The only Ranji trophy match held in the early eighties between Karnataka vs Kerala In a newly built Chandrasekhar Patil stadium, Gulbarga, was my first occasion of witnessing a first class cricket. A sea of crowd gathered at the stadium still etched in my memory.  Karnataka had a star studded team including players like Brijesh Patel, Rojer Binny, GR Vishwanath and more and on the other hand Kerala were minnows and they meekly surrendered to Karnataka.  The packed stadium that was bursting at seams went delirious and people ran helter-skelter all over the ground to see and shake hand with their favorite players and the police had a harrowing time in controlling the mob.

Then famous inter university Rohinton Baria Trophy was and is a tournament of national importance. In those days, it was a springboard for many aspiring cricketers to knock at the doors of state level team selectors.  It is said the famous cricketer Gavaskar had come thru the ranks of this tournament.  It was the finest and the last major cricket tournament held in Gulbarga, as far as my memory goes.  In the finals it was Bangalore University pitted against Gurunanak Dev University, Punjab.  Watching Punjab players who were wearing turbans of myriad colors on the RED soiled N V Grounds was a real treat. It caught the attention of the town and especially  young one were drawn to the ground in large numbers  and despite the best effort from Bangalore University they could not register a victory and they conceded the match to Gurunankdev University Punjab.

A year’s stay at Dharwad in the mid-eighties gave me a ringside view of the cricketing culture of the twin cities of Hubli and Dharwad.  The twin cities clubs were also prominent in KSCA invitation cricket tournaments and an AK Industry Sports Club was a leading club that produced several talented cricketers who represented Karnataka State in the Ranji Trophy. Ranji cricketers like Avinash Vaidya, Somshekar Sirguppi, Anand Katti, Srivatsa Puranik and an international cricketer Sunil Joshi are the products of the Hubli and Dharwad cricketing lore. 

   

In the early nineties, I had come to Bangalore in search of an opportunity to work instead I loitered around and spent most of my time watching cricket in the Chinnaswamy Stadium.  But before, in 1987, I had watched the famous India Pakistan test match in the same stadium.  It was also the last match of little master Sunil Gavaskar and in the virtual mine field of turning track, he faced the hostile spin attack of Iqbal Kasim and Abdul Qadir and fought lone battle in a losing cause but this innings of Gavaskar is considered as one of the greatest innings of his sixteen long years cricketing career. He defied Pakistan attack single handedly over seven hours to score 96 runs.  

Cut to the early nineties again, as I was in Bangalore in the months of August and September and was also the time cricketing season begins and I had a chance to witness cricket matches played for S A Srinivasan Trophy and competing teams came from different zones of all part of Karnataka.  Bangalore city had around four teams in which Rahul Dravid was part of one of Bangalore’s city clubs lead by Deepak Kini and I remember other players like Rakesh Mehra, an opening bat, Arun Kumar then budding and promising cricketer and other talented cricketers like Vinay Badami, a wicket keeper batsman, Omkar Bilki, Sitaram and many others and one Arjun Raja, a left hander was a very promising young cricketer, later he also made his debut in Ranji Trophy for Karnataka and hit a couple of double centuries and was considered next big thing for karnataka but he surprisingly left his cricketing career and it was said, he pursued a career in corporate.

Then in his college days, Dravid already was recognized as a player to be watched for the future.  I also saw him playing on KSCA matting wicket where his coach Keki Tarapore was also to be present to watch his wards progress and Dravid’s cricketing heroics are history now. And nineties was also the beginning of another golden era of Karnataka Cricket and many young and talented cricketers of the state namely Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, Javagal Srinath, Venkatesh Prasad and Sunil Joshi were knocking at the doors of national selection committee and all of them made it to Indian team. 

Anil Kumble’s debut series is still fresh in my memory where he was selected to play for India in England tour and we friends keenly followed the series on BBC in that good old box sized Philips Radio in one my friends house where his aristocratic family had still preserved it resembling today’s generator set and hearing typical exciting English commentary in the afternoon was an experience of ethereal joy........