A TRUE FRIEND

 CR Chandran

(Our friendships with teammates and rivals are what most of us cherish long after our playing days. I was distinctly lucky in this department. Here’s an example of selfless friendship from my cricketing years).

“Why don’t you play for us, as anyway you are not a regular in the full SBI Hyderabad eleven?” The man who put this question to me was the captain of the SBI Secunderabad team, a poor cousin of the star-studded SBI Hyderabad ‘first XI.’ “Good cricketers like CR Chandran play for us as guest members of the team,” he added. Fresh out of college, Chandran was a talented medium pacer all rounder, who was freelancing for the bank’s second team. This was a couple of years before Andhra Bank started recruiting cricketers and Chandran joined them.

Chandran and I hit it off straightaway, one reason perhaps being that I am called Chandran at home. We were to become Ranji Trophy teammates in later years, and in a minority of two as vegetarians amidst a bunch of carnivores. He was a great fan of Amitabh Bachhan, styled his hair and wore clothes and shoes to imitate his hero, but I found him to resemble Vinod Khanna much more, especially after he started wearing glasses to correct his myopia. He was a natural ball player, an attacking opening batsman who loved to entertain, risking his wicket just to set the spectator’s blood racing. A showman, in short. He was also a more than useful medium pacer who became quite an expert swing bowler in time. He had surprisingly small hands, which meant he frequently injured his fingers batting or fielding. Towards the end of his twenties, he started putting on weight, but when I first met him, he was quite an athlete. Off the field, he was a very gentle person, soft spoken and somewhat introverted. He enjoyed a good joke with close friends, but rarely laughed out loud, doing so silently with his shoulders heaving. He was the perfect companion of an evening, especially when accompanied by Mr McDowell, our preferred beverage. He was a smoker, too, like many of us misguided cricketers of the era. The habit proved prematurely fatal as he simply could not give it up even when it meant his only hope for surviving a dread disease in his forties, but we are going ahead of our story here.

The late Murtuza Ali Baig, an Oxford blue and Abbas Ali Baig’s younger brother, was Manager, Personal Banking Division, at SBI Secunderabad, where I was serving part of my training period in the bank. Baig knew me as a very dispensable bit player in the bank’s first XI, and had no hesitation in allowing me to turn out for the B team, which was a motley assortment of Secunderabad staff plus guest players like Chandran.

Our first match that season was against Nizam College, which included the likes of K Jayantilal and Abdul Jabbar. By this time, Chandran and I were thick as thieves, and I wagered him I would get Jayanti’s wicket. I won that bet dismissing the former India opener quite cheaply, and even started dreaming of routing the rest of the college XI. Unfortunately, the lefthanded Jabbar had other ideas, and I have never forgiven him for that. He launched a savage attack against our meagre attack, scoring 176 in about 150 balls, until, leg-weary and demoralised, we were ready to plead for mercy.

As I said earlier, Chandran soon joined Andhra Bank, and I continued in SBI for four or five more years, achieved belated recognition, and became a Ranji Trophy player, things really looking up for me. But, as Bertie Wooster repeatedly assures you, fate has this nasty habit of having a go at you when you least expect it. My boss and my boss’s boss took an intense dislike to my face, and launched a merry campaign of psychological harassment against me. Picture this scenario: Superboss wakes up on the wrong side of the bed, and reads the gloomy news of the Prime Minister’s disappointment with his bank’s progress in her 20-point Economic Programme, and asks himself, ‘What can I do to brighten my day today?’ Two cups of tea later, he has a brainwave, and calls his underling, the Boss. “I say, when did you last send a nasty memo to that cricketer-blighter Ramnarayan? Last week? No, no, this won’t do at all. Draft a juicy one today, no two, better still let’s send him three today. And if and when he replies, fling counter no. 123 at him. Use words like unsatisfactory and unacceptable. What, spelling? Ask your steno Venkateswarlu. Spelling was never my strong point.” This game went on for a year, and wonder of wonders, miserable as I was, I could do nothing wrong in cricket.

My first season in first class cricket was quite successful, and with help from my all rounder friend Jyotiprasad and his boss CS Shamlal, I joined Andhra Bank as a senior officer after answering a newspaper advertisement. Amazingly, I reported for duty at the Osmania University ground, where the bank’s team was playing a visiting Ceylon Tobacco Board XI, which had quite a few Sri Lanka players in its line-up. You know by now that I rarely miss a chance to do some self-promotion, so you won’t be surprised when I tell you I took eight wickets that day.

The match was made equally memorable by our batsmen, openers Chandran and Inder Raj, both champion hookers (in a strictly cricketing sense) and pullers, not to mention their ability to drive on the up, and their devil-may-care attitude to batting. One of CTB’s new ball bowlers, Ranjan Gunatilleke, was genuinely quick, but ‘Inder and Chander’ were unstoppable. They hammered him and the other bowlers including left arm spinner Anura Ranasinghe to all parts of the ground, taking advantage of the pace and bounce of the matting wicket.

Chandran and I met every day for the next five years, as we worked in the same department of the bank in its Central Office. Both of us reported to Shamlal, who managed the affairs of the bank’s cricket team, one of the strongest in our part of the world. Our work kept us busy but the load was manageable, and we could leave for net practice at 3 pm. We also enjoyed doing crossword puzzles together and, with his husky voice, Chandran entertained the cricket team with a very decent imitation of John Arlott’s commentary.

We were involved in two traumatic experiences connected to cricket. In the first of them, we were both on the same side, and Chandran’s team spirit and steadfast friendship came to the fore. Andhra Bank was given entry into the Moin-ud-Dowla Gold Cup, but with the proviso that we must field four Test players. With Narasimha Rao, our only Test cricketer, away playing league cricket in the UK, ‘importing’ Test players was the only way we could meet the HCA’s requirement. Our management was very keen on participation, but the players were not, as it would mean dropping four of our regular players. Vijay Paul was our captain in the absence of Narasimha Rao. Our protests went unheard, and the bank went ahead and invited S Venkataraghavan, Aunshuman Gaekwad, Surender Amarnath, Duleep Mendis and non-Test cricketer Ved Raj to turn out for us. The whole experience was eminently forgettable, with Paul yielding the captaincy to Venkat, and Chandran, the vice-captain, opting out of the playing eleven, after we originally decided to discard one of our pacemen—who opened the bowling for South Zone in the previous season, but was out of form and unfit now. It was one of the most wretched days in our cricket, with plots and sub plots being hatched against a team merely wanting to play cricket, with a well known journalist playing a prominent role in uncalled for interference in the strictly local issue of Andhra Bank’s team selection. I tried my best to dissuade Chandran from dropping himself, offering to stand down myself instead, but he refused to be swayed by me. He warned me that as an off spinner, I could easily be misunderstood to be protesting against India off spinner Venkat’s appointment as our captain in place of Paul. It was one of the noblest gestures I had come across in my cricket career.

The whole mega plan bombed. All our guest batsmen failed against an attack in which Shivlal Yadav was prominent and Andhra Bank collapsed for below 150, with the last wicket partnership the highest in the innings (D Meher Baba 38, V Ramnarayan 18 not out) against a Hyderabad XI led by P Krishnamurti, who smashed a spectacular 125 or so, snuffing out any hopes we might have entertained of a fightback.

Not long afterwards, I was thrust right into the middle of a huge, unsavoury fight between players and the administration, and this time, Chandran was an establishment man, and I was on the players’ side. Very briefly, the whole Hyderabad team was dropped on disciplinary grounds on the morning of a match against Mafatlal XI in the Moin-ud-Dowla Gold Cup (that tournament again), and a brand new team led by Chandran—not in the original squad—took the field on the opening day. My teammates and I were all banned from playing any cricket until further notice, and the events that followed the ban were straight out of a political thriller. I am not going into the details now, but the saddest part of it all was that my ‘best friends’ Krishnamurti and Chandran on one side and I on the other took up adversarial positions, leading to some unpleasant conversations. Later, I was angry with myself for things I had said in the heat of the moment, but all’s well that ends well, with Murti and Chandran showing great magnanimity. Had we not hugged and made up soon afterwards, I could never have forgiven myself, for neither Chandran nor Murti lived much longer. Vijay Paul, too, is no more.

ON BOWLING

 ON BOWLING

(Written some years ago)

Bernard Hollowood wrote in his book Cricket on the Brain that at “appreciably more than medium pace he (the English fast bowler Sydney Barnes,1873-1967) could, even in the finest weather and on the truest wickets in Australia, both swing and break the ball from off or leg. Most deadly of all was the ball which he would deliver from rather wide on the crease, move in with a late swerve the width of the wicket, and then straighten back off the ground to hit the off stump".

Bernard Hollowood who played with Barnes for Staffordshire in the 1930s, quoted his father, Albert Hollowood, as saying: "Oh, yes, he could bowl 'em all, but he got his wickets with fast leg-breaks. Marvellous, absolutely marvellous, he was. Fast leg-breaks and always on a length."

Break the ball from leg to off and off to leg? Did new ball bowlers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries bowl off breaks and leg breaks, and that too with the accuracy and vicious effectiveness of Barnes who had the incredible career bowling figures of 189 Test wickets in 27 Test matches at an average of 16.43 and strike rate of 41.6? If you go by the match reports and player profiles of that era, it seems many bowlers regularly did so. They bowled swing, seam and spin, all of it—including spin—at considerable pace, with no attempt to flight the ball.

Growing up in Madras cricket of the 1960s, I frequently heard of bowlers who bowled off breaks and leg breaks with the new ball.

There were a couple of fast bowlers in the local league, tall and quite rapid, and capable of steep bounce. They were both a handful on the coir matting wickets of Madras. One of them, BR Mohan Rai, was for a brief while considered a Test prospect. The other, PR Sundaram, could bowl a wicked googly off his full runup as the very first ball of a match. He once clean bowled a bewildered opener with one such delivery. The batsman’s facial expression was priceless. Of my father, a club cricketer, it was said that he bowled a natural outswinger that broke back on pitching, and for this ability he was likened to Alec Bedser. Did Bedser really bowl an outswinger that became an off break on landing? Was spin as a variation once the norm among pace bowlers?

Today, we have fast bowlers resorting to off breaks and leg breaks as their slower delivery, and quite often without much control over where the ball will end up. We do not come across pacemen who can consistently employ spin as an attacking variation. How much more exciting will the game be if in the middle of a good spell of quick bowling a Dayle Steyn or a James Anderson could actually bowl a genuine off break or leg break? How thrilling can it get if a genuine spinner could learn to bowl swing or reverse swing with perfect control? Or if international teams had chinaman specialists as their frontline bowlers and not as some freak sideshow?

We have heard talk of Australian efforts to unearth and train ambidextrous fielders. Ambidextrous bowlers would take a lifetime of training to produce, but if we did have such prodigies playing competitive cricket, the game would be turned upside down. Team selection would be a dream, with the same bowler doing two different jobs, though the batsman’s life could be a nightmare, with the potential for the bowler’s rough being exploited on either side of the wicket by the same bowler, who could switch his bowling arm as the situation demanded. He would bowl offbreaks to left handers and left arm orthodox to right handers! This is of course too fanciful even for schoolboy fantasies.

But wait, didn’t a certain Sachin Tendulkar mix legbreaks and off breaks, outswingers and inswingers, leg cutters and off cutters, all within the space of an over or two, baffling some world class batsmen in the process? (I wonder if the boy in him ever decided to bowl left arm in a first class match, in the manner of his Mumbai senior “Mr Gavaskar” who once batted left handed to remain unbeaten on a rank turner at Bangalore).

With ever increasing bat weights and shortening boundaries, the doosra and carrom ball virtually outlawed, a new breed of all round bowlers would seem to be the only hope for the balance to be restored in favour of the bowler, Bowlers and bowling coaches of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your dot balls!

[My friend Anbu Selvan's son Nivethan Radhakrishnan, an ambidextrous spinner-all rounder is now part of the Tasmania squad in Australia squad where the family moved a few years ago]

V Ramnarayan

 https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4291663922019221317/7949020824115864456?hl=en-GB

5 of 8 Launch of book, Third Man, Westland, by V Ramnarayan

An aristocrat among cricketers

CD Gopinath was the aristocrat of the Madras team of the 1950s. Not only was he from an elite social background—his father CP Doraikannu was general manager of Indian Overseas Bank—his cricket too was quite regal. He batted with panache, and seemed to have the kind of time to play his shots that tends to invest batting with an air of majesty. Of erect stance and equipped with a range of shots all around the wicket, he averaged over 50 in Ranji Trophy cricket during an era of uncovered turf wickets and matting. He scored two brilliant hundreds in the year Madras won the national championship for the first time under Balu Alaganan’s stewardship, sharing the batting honours with his younger teammate AG Kripal Singh. He scored 122 against Bengal in the semifinal and 133 against Holkar in the final. Remarkably, those were the only two Ranji matches he played that season, and they also happened to be his first two hundreds in the championship. He had debuted as far back as the 1949-50 season, starting most inauspiciously with a pair against Mysore. His 74 and unbeaten 53 against Mysore at Bangalore in the 1950-51 season must have cemented his place in the side.

The late Alaganan who lauded Gopinath’s role in that success—along with those played by Kripal Singh, indubitably the star of the season, MK Murugesh, AK Sarangapani and others—also credited Gopinath with vital tactical inputs. He said, “In the semifinal, C D Gopinath plotted Pankaj Roy’s dismissal on the hook shot off the bowling of BC Alva with his fastish offbreaks. We had a fielder about halfway to the boundary, Alva bowled short and Roy could not resist the temptation.” (Alaganan and Gopinath had played for college and club together as well. In an interview, Alaganan once related with much delight an anecdote involving young Gopinath, who did not see eye to eye with the Madras Christian College principal’s view that his cricketers could not play for other teams. According to Balu, Gopinath played for a club under an assumed name and scored a hundred once).

Gopinath who became state captain the very next season following Alaganan’s retirement, came to be known for his capable leadership, but could not repeat Alaganan’s success, though he continued in his role till 1963. He had been much more successful as captain of the Madras Cricket Club in the local league, leading the team to the Palayampatti Shield title in his very first season as captain in 1957-58. He repeated the feat the following season, and twice again in 1960-61 and 1965-66. As captain of Madras, Gopinath relied on his spinners led by the champion leg spinner VV Kumar, and played a key role in the development of his bowlers. In the league, however he had to rely on swing and seam, with N Kannayiram, all rounders MK Balakrishnan and MM Kumar, and Burmah Shell’s HW Joynt leading an effective pace attack.

Gopinath’s nine first class hundreds included a highest of 234 against Mysore in the Ranji Trophy and a grand 175 versus the touring New Zealand team in 1955.

He made an impressive Test debut in 1951-52, playing two lovely innings of 50 not out and 42 against England in a drawn match at Bombay. It must have been a daunting experience for the young man to bat at No. 8 in a line-up that had Roy, Mantri, Umrigar, Hazare, Amarnath and Sarwate and Adhikari bat ahead of him in the order and Vinoo Mankad after him! He seemed to have coped very well, scoring a fluent half-century in a first innings total of 485. The story was different in the second innings. India were 77 for 6 when Gopinath went in, and soon 88 for 7, before he and Mankad put on 71 for the eighth wicket. He made 35 in the final Test at Madras, which India won, its first Test victory over England.

Gopinath fared quite well in an unofficial Test series against the touring Commonwealth team, a fighting unbeaten 67 that helped India to ward off an innings defeat the highlight of his performances.  He made a few runs in the limited opportunities that came his way in Pakistan in 1954-55, after declining an invitation to tour the West Indies a couple of seasons earlier! Those days, it was not unthinkable for a player to make himself unavailable for Test cricket for business reaons.

Omitted for the tour of England in 1959, but brought into the team again in the final Test against Australia at Calcutta in the 1959-60 season, he played a fighting knock of 39, topscoring in the first innings as India collapsed, but made no run in the second innings—when India fared much better. He was Richie Benaud’s victim in both innings. He never played for India again.

It is difficult to resist the conclusion after studying Gopinath’s career records, and having watched him bat with great style and confidence, that he did not receive a fair deal from the selectors. His was certainly a talent worth nurturing. In domestic cricket, he continued to bring joy to the Madras partisan, with several top innings of great authority. This writer had the pleasure of bowling to him in a local match in the 1960s. None of his skill had left him, though he was by now essentially a Sunday cricketer.

After his playing days, Gopinath became a national selector and toured England in 1979 as the manager of the Indian team. Today, he comes across as a thoughtful commentator on the game, when approached for his views. At a recent function to launch the Wisden India almanac, he gave the audience some amusing glimpses into the past by recalling the infinitesimal “smoke allowance” Test players received in his days, and the nature of the accommodation they enjoyed in Pakistan: a railway compartment! He also suggested that 20-20 cricket be renamed as something else than cricket, just like snooker and pool as different from billiards.

Nowadays 83-year-old Gopinath and his wife Comala, a champion golfer in her day, live at their Coonoor residence.

Bishan Bedi: a modified version

http://epaper.dnaindia.com/story.aspx?id=49355&boxid=16796&ed_date=2013-7-27&ed_code=820009&ed_page=18

At the Madras Cricket Club

Excerpted from The Spirit of Chepauk, 1998

I first set my eyes on the beautiful English village green-like outfield of that elite Cricket club of Madras, the Madras CC, in the Sixties. Every youngster dreamt of playing there one day, of diving full length on its springy, velvety grass, without bruising himself badly as he was likely to on any other ground. The only other exception to the general rule of matting wickets and less than adequately grassed outfields prevalent then in all of Madras was another lovely ground, this one in distant Tambaram, inside the sylvan campus of the Madras Christian College.

There was magic in the air as I stepped into the old pavilion of pre-stadium vintage. Everything looked as I had imagined an English clubhouse would look like, from years of being brought up on a diet of Wisdens, Sport and Pastimes and Test Match Specials. There were wrought iron chairs — and cane ones — there was a coir carpet on the wooden floor, the bathrooms were tiled and there were lockers for players to keep their stuff in. It all seemed luxurious and ever so stylish. The names of Indians and Europeans, Test teams and other first class cricket elevens who played at Chepauk inscribed on the wooden panels on the walls lent just the right touch of nostalgia and enchantment. C P Johnstone and H P Ward figured in so many places. Nailer was someone I had heard my uncle P N Sundaresan describe, with rapture in his voice, for the daring of his strokeplay. There were other names which ex­cited my interest for more immediate reasons. A W Stansfeld was someone who lived not very far from my home and to realise that he had batted, bowled and fielded on this very ground all those aeons ago was to feel a quickening of the pulse.

I could not wait to change into my cricket gear and run on to the ground to knock a few around or take some catches or merely take in lungfuls of Chepauk air. I dashed out of the gracious old clubhouse, past the lawn and on to the tree-shaded ground only to find that half my teammates were already there showing rare alacrity and athleticism while they were making the most of a rare opportunity. Can today's young cricketer who has so many first rate cricket grounds and such splendid facilities to choose from, ever un­derstand the thrill we felt in our hearts on our first outing at Chepauk?

It was what is known in Madras cricket parlance as a practice match, meaning nothing was at stake beyond aching bones and good natured leg pulling at the end of the match — no trophy, no title, no points won or lost. My team, Nungambakkam Sports Club 'A', was led by the irrepressible D Ranganathan, popu­larly known as 'Don' Rangan, a fiercely competitive wicketkeeper-batsman who singlehandedly leased the Pithapuram ground at present day Nandanam and provided top class practice facilities for his players as well as anyone else who wanted to have a regular net. Rangan felt his team could beat just about any side and entered every match with that kind of cocky self-assur­ance. It was hardly surprising then that he approached the Madras CC pavilion that morning more than 30 years ago and announced to all and sundry how we proposed to pulverise the opposition.

Talking to Rangan recently, I came away with the story that we had thrashed the Madras CC in that match, though my own memory suggests that it was a drawn encounter in which we finished on more or less level terms with our redoubtable opponents. Whatever the result, the match was an unforgettable experience. For most of us, it was our first experience of a turf wicket. I remember that fielding was an undiluted plea­sure that day and we all chased, dived and picked and threw as we had only seen happen in Test matches.

I also remember that the Chepauk wicket was a truly sporting one. It had some purchase for the quicker bowlers as well as the spinners, without offering much turn, but the bowlers could hardly complain of lack of life in the turf. Batting on it was sheer delight. Even I, normally a tailender, enjoyed a measure of success, driving off both front and back foot. I had on that occasion my first glimpse of the teasing swing of Bala, the accurate medium pace of M Subramaniam and the relatively quick bowling of Prabhakar Rao. I was to play strokes with a freedom seldom experienced by me on matting.

There were loud guffaws from the close-in fielders every time I sent the ball to the boundary and I was puzzled if not hurt by their seeming amusement at the way I batted. It took me a while to realise that they were actually pulling the legs of their bowlers; it was all part of the camaraderie and sense of fun that characterised the Madras CC's matches — the practice matches at any rate.

Before all that, I had my first and, perhaps, last glimpse of C D Gopinath's batting. The veteran was no longer very active in cricket, but all of us could easily see that he had been a class batsman, very correct and stylish. His timing was admirable as was that of M K Balakrishnan, whose elegance and assurance took my breath away. Bala was easily the best batsman I had seen up to that point at close quar­ters, and why this versatile sportsman did not play for India was a mystery to me that day. It still is.

I don't remember achieving any great success as a bowler on the occasion, though that was my area of specialisation. Rangan, however, assures me that I bagged six of the best. I think I got one or two wickets at the most — and if that was hardly sensational, I didn't disgrace myself either.

That was my first encounter in a match situation with one of the most popular characters of the Club, the late Phil 'Clubby' Clubwala. Clubby was the sort of person you had to see to believe. His close-cropped hair, soupstrainer moustache and ruddy complexion gave him a distinct, military bearing even if his bow-legged walk and easy affability did not. His essential good nature, sense of humour and gregariousness made him popular in more than one sport at the Club, but, here, I shall try to paint a picture only of the extraor­dinary devotion with which he pursued cricket. Clubby practised with the singlemindedness of a Bradman. He would be the first person to arrive at the BS Nets on the north side of the ground and get his quota of bat­ting on the coir mat wicket there. Playing and missing countless times, he would frustrate the poor bowlers who, being the optimists most of us are, lived in hope — hope that one day they would find that elusive edge or that, when they did, the snick would go to hand. Then he would send down some elaborately delivered off-breaks which, more often than not, went straight as an arrow. Clubby wouldn't be satisfied with all the huffing and puffing that went into all this hectic activ­ity. He would troop off to the Madras CC net and get a solid 45 minutes of batting on turf, engaging the markers and ballboys and some unsuspecting college crick­eter he whisked away from the BS Nets.

For all the practice he did, Clubby was a strokeless wonder in matches, once remaining 37 n.o. in a full day's batting. His bowling had more sting than did his batting and everyone admired his wholehearted effort and cheerful demeanour, regardless of success or fail­ure.

From 1981 to 1990, I played regularly against the Madras CC in the TNCA League and, while the oldtimers of the Club fought gamely on, the inroads made by corporate teams could not be resisted for long. And the Club eventually got relegated to the Second Division.

I had the pleasure of accompanying to Australia the Madras Occasionals, consisting mostly of Madras CC members and led by Ram Ramesh. I was one of two guest bowlers who bore the burden of the attack, much in the manner of the early professionals in En­glish and Australian cricket, while the Madras CC bats­men made merry at the expense of club teams in Austra­lia. The two Arvinds, Gopinath and Subramaniam, made tons of runs. Arvind Gopinath looked particu­larly stylish and classy as he dominated some quality attacks on that tour. He, like many of his teammates, was an excellent ambassador for his country with his polished demeanour on and off the field, but his laidback attitude to cricket, though blessed with oodles of talent which should have taken him much farther, puzzled me. When I probed further, he admitted he didn't pursue cricket with the dedication of his father because he did not wish to face the heartbreak of disap­pointments and dejection that can befall any sports­man.

The men who surprised me on the tour were those cheerful fringe players who I had assumed had merely come to have a good time. It was an assumption based on their seemingly blase attitude to matters cricketing. I was to soon find out how mistaken I was. On the few occasions their services were required, Jaspal Singh, Navtej Singh and Kumar Calappa showed that for all their casual exterior, they gave 100 per cent on the field. It was important for every one of them that the Club's fair name be protected — and, as a consequence, they, as much as the more regular players, contributed to our unbeaten record on that tour during which we played at some wonderful venues and against at least one Test cricketer, Ross Edwards. A couple of young­sters who showed considerable promise on that tour were leg-spinning all-rounder Renjit Kuruvilla and wicketkeeper-batsman 'Sunny' Ramesh. Both had an excellent tour. Kuruvilla has gone on to do extremely well for the Club, with his clean hitting and his fastish leg-breaks, and still turns out for it, while Ramesh, who has represented the State, no longer plays for the Club.