Love at First Sight
My first tryst with cricket was way back in the winter of 1982 when as a youngster, I remember seeing on television how Imran Khan mesmerized the Indian batsmen with his in-dippers. While most Indian fans would want to forget the series merely because we lost the 6 test match contest 3-0, it left an indelible impression in my mind. A handsome Pathan with unruly hair running in, followed by a lethal leap as he hurled the ball at break neck speed, the next moment you see the rattle of the timber as one of the most famed batting line ups of that time crumpled like ‘nine pins’. It all seemed to be so romantic. Imran, who had claimed 41 wickets to win the “Man of the Series”, tormented the Indian batsmen but admittedly, he was instrumental in instilling in me an everlasting love for the game.
Today, at thirty seven, as I reminisce over the last twenty seven years, I feel that cricket has given me much more than it has taken. My studies did suffer as my addiction for the game grew by the day and I can never forget the bewilderment of my infuriated father as he had to silently tolerate the long hours I spent watching as he called ‘ball to ball’ live telecast of almost all of India’s matches from 1983 to 1993.
The real defining moment in my love story came in the following summer when the whole country watched Kapil Dev lift the Prudential Cup on the balcony of Lords. I started breathing cricket. Kapil Dev became my instant idol. For the next decade till his retirement, I would always be more interested in how many runs he scored and how many wickets he took in a match rather than whether India
It was much later and again courtesy Lords, that I found my second love, Sourav Ganguly. Admittedly, he was a hero, not an idol. About a year elder to me, Sourav was the pride of Bengal . He was a fighter who represented a race long wiped off from the face of Indian cricket so much so that the chauvinistic Bong started comparing him to Tagore, Ray and Amartya Sen. But then, we Bongs have always been known to be that passionate- emotions run high in our blood and our lives border on a thin line of demarcation between heroism and insanity. Dear reader, forgive me but we still love to believe Sourav is greater than Sachin – (of course on the offside).
Garden of Eden 1983-84
A father would give anything to fulfil the dreams of his son, my father was no exception. So it was no surprise that he decided to take me to see a test match for the first time in Eden Gardens Kolkata when the Windies played against us in the December of 1983.
It was a disastrous test for the home team where we lost by an innings, being bowled out for less than 100 in the second innings after Clive Lloyd scored a marathon century to thwart our bowlers, my only consolation being that I got to see my idol Kapil Dev score a typically breezy 69 on the first day.
Leaving statistics aside, I still recollect my personal emotions.
The feeling for me was ethereal as I entered the ground on a cold winter morning. As is wont with most Bongs, we carried a lunch box full of bread, boiled eggs, fried cauliflower and a bottle of water, not to forget a bagful of oranges. If it was Eden Gardens
The lush green outfield, the two captains in white coming out to toss, the fielding side getting into the ground, all those things we read in the books were happening in reality.
Gavaskar c Dujon b Marshal 0
So the first ball that I saw in a cricket match turned out to be a disastrous one for the Indian team. (Jinxed as I may be, till date, India has lost most of the matches that I have watched at the Eden Gardens, most notably the Nehru Cup loss to Pakistan and the 1996 World Cup semi-final loss to Sri Lanka.)
One could only sympathise with the Indian batsmen as a cordon of four to five huge West Indians stood at slips with a gully, a forward short leg and even a silly point. The saga was indeed no great. Anshuman Gaekwad, Dilip Vengsarkar, Mohinder Amarnath, Ashok Malhotra and Ravi Shastri all followed one after another till Roger Binny and Kapil Dev joined in a rear guard action. The tall Indian skipper just tore into the West Indian bowling reminding one and all that just a few moths earlier, this man had scored a mercurial 175 not out at Tunbridge Wells.
As the West Indian fielders ran to get the ball from the boundaries, I realised that there was so much difference between what we saw on television and what happens on the ground.
The feeling was captivating. Nearly a lakh of spectators clapping as Andy Roberts charged in and delivered a bouncer and before you realised anything, I saw Kapil Dev playing a characteristic Nataraja shot and the ball ricocheting off the fence.
I could go on and on describing the single day although a good twenty eight summers have gone by but that would be digressing from the topic.
The description would not be complete without alluding to the quintessential Bong cricket fan. In those days, a man with a paltry income would blow up a fair share of his savings to spend a day at the Eden Gardens
I have always been amazed by the knowledge the average Bong possesses about the game and the players. They would prophesize accurately which batsman would come in next, which bowler would come on from which end, how the breeze from the Ganges would prompt the fielding captain to take the new ball, why he would not have a third man and so. Even the ladies would accompany their husbands with their knitting paraphernalia.
Last but not the least, the Calcutta
For the purpose of comparison, I would like to contrast the above experience which I narrated to my experiences when I went to see a one day match in 1994 at the same ground. It was the first time I went to see a day night affair, a game in which we saw the ‘Men in Blue’ take on the ‘Springboks under the floodlights.
Everything was so different, the white ball and coloured clothing, lots of lofted shots, fours and sixes by scores and dozens and acrobatic fielding ; in summary I had my full share of entertainment.
I was entertained but not captivated; so the event did not remain etched in my memory as the earlier test match, in fact I have even forgotten who opened the batting for India and most other details, all I remember is that Mohammed Azharuddin scored a match winning ninety.
I was happy that we had won, I was satisfied that I got the entertainment worth the money I spent but I left feeling the game had gotten poorer. Something had changed that made me abhor the idea of going to the cricket ground again.
So what has the limited over version done to the game?
Positives
“Do not cherish the unworthy desire that the changeable might become the unchanging.”
In this fast world, time is the most precious commodity. As the rationalist would argue, no one has time to sit back and watch a game for five long days, with no guarantee of a decisive result. For them, it is a never ending duel between bat and ball meandering to a tame draw. In fact, as one would say, it is a perfect cure for insomnia.
The limited over version provides a rush of adrenalin and test of nerves as we see even lesser known batsmen slog the bowlers to attain the unimaginable. In a nutshell, limited overs cricket acts as a stimulant and has resurrected the lost interest in cricket.
Cricket was earlier a winter sport. As I mentioned , if it was cricket, then it had to be oranges, it had to be pullovers, it had to be the chill wind across the ground. It also meant that cricketers were virtually resting from June to September unless they played in England Melbourne
Cricket now provides us unadulterated entertainment for nearly 365 days in a year. Players have become multi millionaires. BCCI is one of the richest cricket boards in the world. All these have a positive effect on the economy.
Technology developments have progressed by leaps and bounds. Today we have stump microphones to prevent players from swearing and sledging. The extent and scope of human error is minimised by things like the “hawk eye” and the snicko-meter. Today even simple decisions on run outs and stumpings are referred to the television umpire to weed out the possibility of human inconsistency.
Negatives
Cricket has lost its artistry; players have lost their artistic touch. The slam bang slog version of modern day cricket has become a bowler’s nightmare. It is an oft quoted fact that even Kapil Dev, the greatest exponent of swing bowling, lost his killer instinct because of excessive one day cricket. The Haryana Hurricane who tormented batsmen world over with his “banana outswing” was a shadow of his former self as he started concentrating on restriction rather than destruction. In fact, with restrictions like one bouncer per over, power plays and so on; asking a bowler to roll his arm over is akin to a gladiator being asked to face hungry lions at the arena so much so that it is a matter of debate as to whether aspiring youngster would want to be a spinner given the plight of spinners in the limited overs version. I am afraid; we may not get to see one more Erapalli Prasanna or Srinivas Venkataraghavan in the future. Brilliant bowlers will strive for wickets, average bowlers will try to contain the batsmen and wait for the batsmen to make mistakes.
We have all read about Abhimanyu being trapped in the Chakravyuha in the Mahabharata. I remember seeing it in Test matches when you had one unfortunate batsman surrounded by three to four slips, a couple of gullies, a silly point and even a forward and backward short leg. It was an intense battle and as spectators we would bite our nails in suspense. It had its own beauty, and it created a very unique impression in our minds. The slips going sown together as the bowler started his run up, all of them up in a flash to appeal. All that is no longer there today. Today that kind of a field setting cannot be imagined as teams score 400 runs in a day’s play of 90 overs; the fielding captain would be termed a lunatic if he tried to attack the batsmen on a rampage.
Test cricket was all about talent, technique and temperament. While talent continues to exist in abundance, technique has changed according to the need of the hour. Test match temperament, the willingness to occupy the crease for long hours etc is a thing of the past. The question now is that whether modern day cricket will give rise to a Sunil Gavaskar or an Everton Weekes whose principal strength was to occupy the crease for hours and hours and test on the bowler’s patience. For that matter, we may not get to see another GR Vishwanath or a VVS Laxman who were more artists than plunderers. Batsmen world over have realised that they cannot afford to play the waiting game unless of course the team is in dire straits and then one would need a Rahul Dravid to help them save a match when a win is clearly impossible.
In modern days, when you see the reaction of a bowler at having dismissed a batsman, the way he swears, abuses, exults and so on; one wonders whether they were playing a game or vying for each other’s blood. They tend to forget that it is a game. We tend to forget Frank Worell’s benevolent gesture when Charlie Griffith hit Nari Contractor, yes they too were cricketers. The lure of money and fame has turned cricketers into warriors. All this is killing cricket. Earlier there was a phrase used “this is not cricket”. That, I am afraid, cannot be said any more.
Finally there is too much of cricket today. I can feel the frustration of my hapless dad a good twenty five years ago as he felt my studies were being affected because of too much cricket and that too when there were not so many matches around. Life has gone a full circle. Work comes to a standstill, productivity is hampered and the scenario is such that once in a while I genuinely hope there is no match today.
As far as my dad is concerned, the old man does not miss a single match in his retired days. I fret and fume as I cannot watch any other program on the television. Probably his way of getting back at me. Ha Ha.
All said and done, while cricket boards have become rich, cricketers have become millionaires, in the turn of events; cricket has become poorer.
