Cricket and I

As a young boy, I was very fond of cricket. Within the compound walls of the building (chawl) complex in Bombay, where I was staying, we played underhand cricket with tennis balls and stumps drawn on the walls of the building. There would be a lot of excitement when we played matches between teams. Invariably it got abandoned midway since some player would break the glass of a window of one of the houses while hitting a six and the householder would come running after us, cursing. Later on, we moved to the Matunga Gymkhana grounds opposite R.A. Podar College, which had a number of cricket pitches. where we began to play with a proper red cricket ball.. If a pitch was not available, we would fix the stumps in any open space available and start playing. But I had a problem. I started wearing glasses from the age of 11. When I broke the first pair within six months of getting them, my father warned me that he could not afford to buy new glasses every time I broke a pair. To ensure safety he got me an old fashioned frame, the type that Mahatma Gandhi wore, which went round the ears and protruded below the ears. When my friends started teasing me and calling me `Budda`, I stopped wearing the glasses until it became difficult for me to see the ball clearly or read what was written on the blackboard in class.. Because of the ‘spectacle’ issue and my fear of losing or breaking it on the cricket ground, I was relegated to the position of the second wicket keeper, standing way behind the wicket keeper to stop the ball when he failed to collect them in his gloved hands. Over the weekends, there were matches played on the pitches between popular teams. On Sundays alone, there would be so many matches, so many fielders and so many balls that it was difficult for onlookers to know who hit which ball where! It was all great fun! Later on, when I was doing my B.Com. in Podar College, I had the pleasure of rubbing shoulders with the likes of Farokh Engineer, Indian wicket keeper (who was my classmate) and other popular local cricketers whose names I have forgotten.. Farokh was a very handsome `Bawaji`, always surrounded by pretty girls. I used to envy him. ( The bloated Farokh today continues to look handsome!. I wonder if the girls still chase him?) In the absence of television, running commentary on the radio was very popular among cricket lovers in those days. Vijay Merchant, Vizzy (Maharaja of Vijayanagaram), Sarbadhikari, Balu Alaganan, Anand Rao were very popular commentators who brought the cricket field to life, with their commentary. In spite of India losing most of the matches, the interest in the game was as high then as it is today. Even if the Indian team drew a match with another team, it was considered an achievement. If a batsman stayed on at the crease for a long time, even without scoring, he was considered a great batsman. If a bowler bowled several maiden overs without taking even a single wicket, he was considered a great bowler. Indian Cricket has surely come a long way since then. Throughout my student days, I longed to watch a test match at the Brabourne Stadium of the Cricket Club of India (CCI), but could not do as I could not afford it. Today even when I am offered a pass for the Pavilion enclosure in the MCC in Chennai, I don`t accept it because my interest in cricket has waned. I only watch a few IPL matches when my favourite team CSK is playing and that too when they are batting. What a comedown for a cricket crazy guy who used to maintain a scrap book containing Press Cuttings of all the famous cricketers of the time! That is life! Extracted from my autobiography titled `Courage My Companion`.