The Delhi winter is known to be harsh, by Indian standards. I have no recollection of the winter of '92-'93 in Delhi, but I remember the English cricket team toured India in January, and this forms my first recollection of watching cricket on TV. To be honest I was far from appreciative of the spectacle.
Let’s start at the beginning. It must have been a Sunday and us kids were dressed up and send down, to wait for Pappa who had just gone down the road to catch a Taxi. This was exciting, getting a taxi meant we were really heading out into the city beyond the church to meet some relatives, from Pappa's side. I was always excited to go to a relative's house, primarily for the food.
It was a long drive, the roads in Delhi back then seemed really endless, and so did the traffic snarls. It was amidst one of these traffic hold ups, that I started listening to the droning of the radio in the taxi. I had never really watched cricket on TV before as Pappa wasn't really much into cricket at that time. In fact I'd like to think it was only my interest in cricket in later years that got him to watch along with me, and at times win the majority vote at home on what channel to tune into during a match.
So here I was dozing off to the droning voice "dayein haat ke gaind baaj Emburey .. Bai haat ke balle baj Vinod Kambli...” And then suddenly there was an eruption on the radio "Aur yeh chok...” the rest of it was drowned by the familiar crowd bursts that accompanies a four at stadium. The Sardar behind the wheel jumped and his turban padded the taxi roof from a more disastrous dent. I was peeved at being woken up from wonder land that the Sunday sun was putting me into. It was still February, and the sun was still desired. This was just the start of it all. We get to our destination and even there three generations of cousins are glued to the TV watching Sidhu and Kambli batting. I went and took my place on the floor, waiting the cycle of edibles to filter down to me. My eyes wandered towards the box, a blur of green grass, white flannels, and 40,000 faces of spectators. This I am told later was the Wankhede, and the game was India defeating England by an Innings, in a match where Kambli and Sachin had remarkable 190 odd run stand. Kambli off course the man of the match for his knock of 224.This tournament was a total white wash for the English team. The first team to tour India and have lost every game they played. I have the reliable espn-cricinfo almanac of scores open here just to jog my memory.
It also happened to be my birthday earlier that weekend and I was gifted my first cricket bat. A junior sized wooden bat, with a bearded Chetan Sharma in bowling action sticker. Might have been one of those sponsored by Miandad. Who in their right minds would market a bat with Chetan Sharma on it? I still had no Idea how to use the bat. Whatever time I spent playing from there on with friends, who took the sport like I did after the hype of the white wash series was batting all wrong. I stood looking over my left shoulder, like a right handed, but my grip was that of a south paw. It must have been months of sucky batsmanship and sore wrists from the cross grip on the handle getting in way of my swing. My bowling was another mystery. I used to walk up to the crease and release a side arm bowl that unknowingly got released with my wrist turning forward, hence breaking away from the batsman on pitching. An unintentional leg break bowler. My uncle called me a leg break bowler the first time he saw me that summer. I remember how confused I was with the nomenclature, as it was my hand that was breaking with the weird action. That summer I spent some time with my cousins in Gwalior before heading to Mysore. My cousin brother, had been signed up at a cricket coaching camp there, and when we went out to play a game at his place, he corrected my grip to that of a right hand bat. This wasn't working out I knew I had better control of the bat with my left hand being the bottom hand and I quickly switched back to the wrong grip. It never occurred to me or my cousin of coaching experience that there was a whole new perspective to be gained on my mind. That evening we got back indoors, and I guess it was out of embarrassment to my cousin of coaching experience that he started making me shadow practice my shots. It was weird he kept making these clicking noises every time he played a shot. Yeah as if hitting a ball clicked on your bat? But we kept at it both of us clicking away waiting for dinner. In the middle of the click-a- thon his dad walked in and turned me around and left. So now I was looking over my right shoulder and my hands were not crossed in the grip any more. Ahaaa.
I started playing cricket more often in months and years since, obviously being a lefty had its share of disadvantages but at least I was playing better and not getting wrong footed in my efforts to dance down the track. My bowling changed from the awful hand breaking leg break, to a round armed and side on loopy off spin like Rajesh Chauhan, I'd like to think. It kind of sucks that I had either him or Nikhil Chopra to look up to, but I really did try my best to mimic his action. Cricket in Delhi was at the school-cum-marriage grounds in Saket. We played Leg side only as we did not have the numbers to set a full field. This meant offside only for me. This again came naturally as my dominant hand was my top hand i.e. the right hand, and it was an ideal scenario for a lefty playing offside shots. There is a reason why Ganguly is called the king of the Offside. I read somewhere that Ganguly who was a righty, switched to batting southpaw, to model his batting after his elder brother, who himself was a celebrated club cricketer in Kolkata.
The '96 world cup was the first time I was able to see a lot of countries playing each other. My cricket knowledge so far was only limited to the teams that had toured India between 93 and 96. As we did not have cable, I did not bother with India's international tours. But 96 was different, it was my first world cup and it was so colorful with all the teams. I have vivid memories of Saeed Jaffrey presenting the opening ceremony at Eden Gardens and muffing up the cricketers name big time. Also for some weird reason Azaruddin was driven around the ground with the recently crowned world beauty, Rai or Sen. To this day I blame them for destroying the playing surface for the infamous Srilanka v India semifinal. The Pakistan game to date is one of my favorite world cup games. I loved Jadeja's down the order batting in the first innings that really gave a boost to our score. Off course he being my namesake was a matter of pride at that time. I was also a fan of Kambli, who had promised a lot earlier when I started following cricket but leading up to this tournament he wasn't really the first pick to be in the team. The semifinal game and his breaking down at the end of it was the last straw for me. After that I always I got disgusted with his selection in any team and as it turned out it wasn't a year or two later before he was slowly weeded out. I would definitely watch Kambli of old, stylishly dance down the track with his princely back lift, but no more of him in the form he was.
The greatest thing about the world cup was that the team suddenly changed completely in the tournaments that followed. We had Ganguly come in for Sidhu at the top of the order, Dravid instead of Manjrekar; Laxman started playing games on and off. It was a team that was starting to look good.
In 98 I moved to Chennai. I remember the Ausies toured India and got thulped in the Test series. My most vivid memory is one of the tour games in the new stadium in Mumbai, where Sachin scored his maiden double century in first class cricket for Mumbai XI and I think they beat Australia by 10 wickets or so. Warne was so beaten up by the end of that Mumbai XI game that he went into a shell for the test series. Australia came back to win the Pepsi ODI series, part of the same tour. But then later on in the Sharjah cup Sachin played to back to back innings that won India the Tri series.
In Chennai I signed up for cricket coaching camps over a couple of summers, and even at school we played regular Sunday cricket with the seniors and teachers. It wasn't the most popular sport in our school; basketball and soccer were more popular. But the two or three years we had our seniors in school, we had some great games on weekends.
When I was in the 11th grade, I switched to bowling pace, made possible by a better fitness level that I had experienced thanks to running around the field playing Ultimate. I could bowl a mean swinging ball, but this period of fast bowling lasted only the year, after which I switched back to dibbly dobly spin.
My first game at Chepauk was a fund raiser day and night game played between Australia and India, as part of the great 2001 series. One of my class mates had got us tickets to the game, and we sat in the then Bru stands, square of the wicket. The running joke for the day was about my classmates old driver who was night blind, and wasn't informed of the day and night game in advance. Ever since that day I have made it to several of the matches at Chepauk mostly alone. I used to get a season ticket for the test matches at the cheap stands, and be there in and out for all the five days. I have had some of the best biriyani Chennai has to offer just off Walajah road leading up to the stadium. Every one who's been to these test matches at Chennai knows, how the crowds swell up just before tea on the fourth day. you better have your lunch early and catch your best vantage point. Strange things happen to the pitch, and it starts turning square a few overs before tea, and then post tea its a bloodbath for the batting team.
The last time I played proper cricket was the season of 2007-8 with my friend KK's club called Runs and Wickets. My batting was quite average, I was used as an opener in a few innings and then went back to the middle order. Here again I started experimenting with my dibbly dobly, and speed variations, and they paid off. The teams captain, often opened the bowling with me, and I remember around 2 or 3 four wicket hauls coming my way, just with that.
Hope to run onto the field again soon, with the whites, and my bucket hat.
Cheers
Ajay
