Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Half-a-century ago
|
Decades ago, the gentleman's game was low on moolah but high on charm and sporting spirit, discovers K. SACHIDANAND MENON
|
The Hyderabad Blues cricket team, which played against the West Indies in 1975. Seen seated in the middle is P.R. Mansingh (manager of the 1983 Prudential Cup-winning team) with Tiger Pataudi to his right and the late Test cricketer M.L. Jaisimha to his left
SACHIN TENDULKAR is a lucky cricketer indeed. He can clobber lean, mean Pak bowlers and flash a dimpled smile at the end of it all to make a country go manic. But our blue-eyed boy, and the rest of the Men in Blue, can thank their fairy godmothers and corporate godfathers for being at the right place at the right time. Had today's cricketers gone willow swishing a few decades ago, they would probably have ended up with peanuts in their pockets - Rs. 250 for one Test match!
"It was a different game then," recalls Captain Manohar Sharma, a former Hyderabad cricketer who faced the first ever ball bowled in the Duleep Trophy. If the name rings a bell, it's because this is the same tournament that recently saw Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar and other top cricketers in action at the Uppal stadium.
Captain Manohar Sharma with Tiger Pataudi when the duo played for Hyderabad Blues against the West Indies in 1975
"These days, cricketers have the best of equipment. Back then we used to go about borrowing gloves, pads and bats even for the Ranji matches," he says. Driving home the point, he narrates an incident that happened in the Sixties.
"Back from the Indo-Pak series, Vijay Manjrekar gave me a Gun & Moore bat that he had batted with throughout the series. It was almost falling to pieces. But it fetched me 900 runs after I taped it together."
The moments
Not many are aware that Hyderabad was a cricket hotspot in the pre-Independence era and in the Sixties, with many famous cricketers coming to town to play in blue riband tourneys like the Moin-ud-Dowla Gold Cup. Among them were Gary Sobers, Rohan Kanhai, Jack Hobbes, Brett Stutcliffe, Tiger Pataudi and even former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri's son, Hari Shastri, who led a team called the Indian Starlits.
Circa 1987: Clive Lloyd leisurely sips a drink taking the adulation in his regal stride
"Today, we're watching the Pakistanis being whipped at Mohali. Back in 1957, however, we were the ones at the receiving end," says 71-year-old former first-class pacer Habib Khan.
"The visiting Pakistan team then was led by Fazal Mehmood and had stalwarts like triple Test centurion Hanif Mohammad. It was a one-sided match and they packed us in three days flat," Khan recalls.
While many foreign names regularly featured on scoreboards in the city's pitches, the local lads too had their share of the spotlight on foreign turfs. Talking of his stint in Harvard University's team, former first-class cricketer Murtaza Ali Baig says, "It was wonderful playing in England. I remember the weather being so cold that we used to field with three sweaters on. The batsmen, on the other hand, used to remove their sweaters when they started perspiring while the innings progressed."
Jaisimha regaling the home crowd
With bowlers chucking, betting rackets, batsmen playing for personal glory and captains swearing on an off the pitch, cricket hardly comes across as the Gentleman's game today.
But there was a time when the game was just that and much more. P.R. Mansingh, manager of the Indian cricket team that won the 1983 Prudential Cup sums it up, "It was truly a gentleman's game then. Sportsmanship was the essence of the cricketer.
There was a game I played in Colombo in which I pulled a ball and the leg umpire got hit. I left the crease and went towards him but got run out by a fielder.
Abid Ali at his elegant best
I think the fielder was unaware of the accident. He wouldn't have knocked the stumps had he known it. Anyways I left the pitch."
Now which of our cricketers would do that today? Guess, cricketers don't come like they used to anymore. Howzzat?
Beyond the boundary
The Maharana of Mewar was a huge fan of the gentleman's game. But being a Maharana, he was used to being treated like a king. While fielding, when the ball was sent over the boundary, the king used to walk sedately to the boundary where three turbaned bearers would already be awaiting after collecting the ball. They would then present the cherry to the Maharana on a silver platter covered with a velvet cloth.
In the early days of the Moin-ud-Dowla tournament, there was much pomp during the matches. Attended by the Nizam, there were elephant, cavalry processions and a proper music band to add to the shows.
Cricketers playing in the Ranji matches were entitled to an allowance of Rs. 2 for each day of the match. Those playing Test cricket earned about Rs. 50 for a day!
When he started out, Tiger Pataudi played for Delhi, the North Zone and, of course, for the country. Later, he applied for a transfer to South Zone.
On the November of 1965 at Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore, Pataudi was captaining the North Zone against the South Zone, when at 9.15 am he got the green signal to move over to the South. So on that very day, the captain of one team changed sides and played for the opposition!
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
|
