WHEN GENTLEMEN RULED THE GAME
Wednesday, 05 June 2013 | Kumar Chellappan | in Oped
Cricket as we knew it at the time of the Engineers, Contractors and Lillees, has come a long way. Today, it is more of a reality show involving megabucks, greed, glamour and backroom deals. An honest approach to the game is near zero now
The game of cricket is literally ‘cricket’ to me. I am yet to understand the difference between ‘off-spin’ and ‘leg spin’. We in Perumbavoor owe it to the ‘expatriate’ Tamils who brought the game to this small town. An industrialist by the name of M Chidambaram Chettiyar in Tamil Nadu set up Travancore Rayons Ltd, a factory in Perumbavoor in 1950 for manufacturing rayon and cellulose film. The senior staff, especially the managers and engineers, were from Tamil Nadu. They brought cricket to Perumbavoor as a pastime since there were no other avenues for entertainment in this town.
One fine morning we saw a fleet of cars at the gate of the Government High School. There were Ambassadors, Fiats, Heralds, Standard Pennants and of course the lengthy Plymouths and Dodges. The Rayons’ cricket team was playing a friendly match against Kannan Devan Company. As a student of Class 5, I stood and watched in awe as players wearing white pants and shirts bowled, batted, ran between wickets and fielded. Oh! I almost forgot, there was a huge scoreboard at one end of the stadium, operated by Ambi Swamy, the local know-all and a friend of the Rayons team members.
The wicket-keeper of the Rayons team happened to be the brother of Sundar, one of my classmates. Though I asked Sundar how this game was played, he just dismissed me saying that I wouldn’t be able to understand cricket. I approached Gopalakrishnan, owner of Ajanta Tailors, in the school neighbourhood. Gopalakrishnan was the official dressmaker to the Tamil expatriates in the Rayons Colony and had developed a strong bond with them. At any given time, one could see numerous Tamil youth in his shop, bantering and combing their hair. “You will not understand this game... It is played by engineers, contractors, doctors and vakils…” said Gopalakrishnan.
By that time I had read in the Malayalam newspapers that there were players by the name Farokh Engineer, Nari Contractor, Hemu Adhikari and even a Sarvadhikari! Sundar’s father was an engineer, and I knew that cricket was not for me. Still, the urge to know more made me listen to radio commentaries and read up whatever was published in newspapers about the game.
Dicky Rutnagur and Suresh Saraiya, the All India Radio commentators, were heard telling listeners that Bishan Singh Bedi was bowling with a short leg and a long leg! How cruel of the captain to make a physically challenged player do that! Are there no players with two equal legs to play? And EAS Prasanna was always bowling maidens! No eve-teasing laws in vogue?
Another commentator was heard saying, “Chandrasekhar was a leg-spinner...” One whose legs are always spinning? I watched the final of the 1983 World Cup live on television. The Indian team led by Kapil Dev Nikhanj, a Haryana lad, won the tournament. It was a big boost to India which had been thrashed 7-0 by Pakistan in the 1982 Asian Games hockey finals. Cricket became a national obsession as well as the common man’s game. My knowledge of the game was limited to Kapil Dev and Mohinder Amarnath who, I understand, became the richest Indian cricketer during the 1983 World Cup. He was twice awarded the ‘Man of the Match’ prize, which increased his bank balance by a few thousand pound sterling (a big amount those days since it took another eight years for the Congress and Mr Manmohan Singh to devalue the Indian currency).
My tryst with cricket began with GR Viswanath, the Karnataka-born Indian batsman, and ended with Dennis Lillee, the legendary pacer from Australia. Viswanath came to Trivandrum in 1986 as a member of the Karnataka team to play a Ranji Trophy match against Kerala. I was working as a transmission executive in Doordarshan Kendra, Trivandrum, and the Station Director, K Kunhikrishnan, immediately granted permission to my proposal.
I met Viswanath at the Trivandrum Club, where the star was in high spirits and playing a game of billiards. The man was so simple and felt a bit uncomfortable at the VIP treatment which he was getting from all of us.
Dennis Lillee was fun all the way. He refused to give any television interview. “My dear fellow, TV means money… You come with money… Then we will speak.” he told me when I rang him up at the MRF Pace Foundation. “Sir, I don’t want you to speak about cricket. Please allow me to take some shots of you teaching the trainees”, I told him. “Come at sharp four. Just 10 minutes”, he said and hung up the phone.
At the MCC School ground in Chetpet, we took more than an hour of Lillee’s time. He spoke on everything under the sun. It was a soft-spoken Lillee whom I interviewed. Lillee allowed me to take leave only after a hot cup of coffee. At no point of time did it feel that I was speaking to one of the all-time greats in sporting history.