Howzat?!

 

When I first thought of starting a blog, I didn’t know whether anyone would be interested in reading my little outpourings. On April 23, 2022, I put up a tentative, hesitant piece on Cricket - my first blog. In this 44^th blog, I return to Cricket, my favourite game to watch, especially the Test variety. 

Cricket is a game which builds character, so goes the saying. But then, there are some “characters” who make cricket what it is.

 

While growing up, our hero was B.S. Chandrasekhar, the legendary leg spinner who also was then the only bowler in the Indian team who could bowl a bouncer. There was nothing more glorious than watching him run in to bowl, shirt tail flying and the batsman’s expression of pure terror! Before the era of neutral umpires and India acquiring serious cricketing financial heft, Indian players used to be victims of abject racism, from the players, from the crowd, and most of all, from the home umpires when they visited some of the white-skinned countries. In Eden Park test at New Zealand in 1976, India managed a lead of 148 runs in the first innings and were anticipating a favourable result. In their second inning, the hosts were reduced from 161 for 2 to 182 for 8. Then their umpires came to the aid of the party. Chandra was beating the bat regularly and having his appeals turned down again and again and getting increasingly frustrated at the blatant umpiring bias. Finally, he bowled Wadsworth and the stumps were flattened. Although a truly gentle cricketer, Chandra went up in vociferous appeal. The umpire was confused and responded with, “He’s bowled.” To which Chandra came back snarkily with, “I know he’s bowled, BUT, is he out?!!”

 

During his playing days, Imran Khan, the captain of the Pakistan Cricket team met Australian captain Allan Border in an informal meeting in Sydney. During a chat, Imran told Allan Border “AB, give me Sunil Gavaskar and B.S. Chandrasekhar from India, we will beat Australia.” In a shocking reply, Allan Border said “Imran, just give me those two Umpires from Pakistan and we will beat the whole world. Imran Khan was left speechless and furious. It is believed that Border later apologised to Imran.

 

One hears about bowlers terrorising the batsmen but there was one batsman who used to terrorise the bowlers – Viv Richards. Just his walking in to the crease with that swagger and the exaggerated gum-chewing used to make nervous wrecks out of bowlers. In a county match in England, a bowler called Greg Thomas was bowling to Richards and getting a few to whizz past the bat. After Richards played and missed another one, Thomas said: "It's red, it's round. Now try playing it!" Richards proceeded to hit the next ball out of the ground. Richards: "You know what it looks like, now go and get it.”

 

Viv Richards again, Swansea 1993. Viv was on strike to Malcom Marshall in a county match between Glamorgan and Hampshire. Malcolm sprinted in, but at the split second of his delivery stride Viv pulled away, very angry. Everyone was quiet. Viv marched forward, smouldering, and screamed, "Hey!" He was most of the way down the pitch now, marching faster with each step, luckily past Marshall and also past the umpire. "You!" Again, nothing, except the horrified look on the spectators either side of and above the sightscreen. "That's you! " He was close to the boundary now and pointing to a spot just above the sightscreen, at a man who was sitting alone, lost in the newspaper hiding his face. "You!" Nudged by those around him, the man looked up from his newspaper and, startled, pointed at himself with, "What, me?". "Yes, you!!!" You've got David Gower and Robin Smith at slip; you've got Malcolm Marshall, the greatest fast bowler in the world, bowling to Vivian Richards. And you reading the ***ing newspaper?!" Priceless. 

Gavaskar looked a staid guy but post-retirement, the more I see of him, the more amazed I’m about his deadly sense of humour. In a TV interview, the anchor was asking him about the “switched at birth theory.” Sunny replied, “What do you mean ‘theory’? It’s a fact.” The anchor said, “But you were too young. How would you remember?” Gavaskar showed a small hole on his left ear. The day he was born, his uncle came to see him and noticed that his nephew had a ‘holey’ ear. The next time he came to visit his nephew at the hospital, he couldn’t see the hole in the baby’s ear. He reported this to the hospital management. They went around the general ward and found that baby Gavaskar was switched at the bath. Gavaskar, who would go on to be one of the greatest batsmen ever, was found next to a fisherwoman. After this narration, Gavaskar said, “That one incident affected me my whole life. The number of times I got out fishing outside the off-stump …”

Dilip Doshi bowling to Javed Miandad in a Bangalore test. After every delivery, Miandad kept asking Doshi, “Ei, ei, tela loom number kya hai?” Doshi kept avoiding any verbal engagement until the questioning became unbearable and asked, “Tujhe kyon chahiye mera room no.?” Miandad, “Taki tele loom mein chhakka maaroonga …” 

During India’s tour to Pakistan in March 2004, Virender Sehwag was blazing away with the bat in the first Test at Multan. A frustrated Shoaib Akhtar was unable to trouble him so he began to bowl short-pitched deliveries and Sehwag kept ducking under them. Exasperated, Shoaib began to suggest Sehwag to hook – with exaggerated miming, gestures and action demos. After his third such “suggestion,” Sehwag loudly asked him, “Tu bowling kar raha hai ki bheekh maang raha hai?” (“Are you bowling or begging?”) The Pakistani fielders burst out laughing and Shoaib did not offer any more “advice.” Sehwag went on to score 309 and earned the sobriquet, ‘Sultan of Multan’ for his efforts.

 

Thomas William George Goddard, right-arm off-break bowler of England, once bowled 42 consecutive overs under heat wave conditions in a county match. Finally, he complained about his unthinking captain, “Why the hell doesn’t the bloody bugger take me off?!” raved he. At that moment, it was gently pointed out to him, by amused team-mates, that skipper Basil Allen had left the field  a good few hours earlier. Allen had in fact asked a colleague to lead the side in his absence, the colleague being Goddard himself!! 

Melbourne Cricket Ground, 1921. A certain Mrs. Parks was sitting in the VIP enclosure, smugly knitting away. At one point, her ball of wool fell down. She bent to pick it up, dusted it off, and looked up. In that blink of an eye, she had missed the entire international career of her husband, Roy Parks! The poor bloke debuted in that game between England and Australia, was bowled by the first ball he ever faced in international cricket and never got to play for Australia national team again!

In the days when a Nottinghamshire batsman George Gunn used to play, the game usually began at 11.30 AM with the players withdrawing for lunch at 1.30 PM, but occasionally there might be a change to the schedule with the game starting at noon and lunch being taken at 2 PM. In one of these games, Gunn started walking towards the pavilion at the stroke of 1.30 but the umpire restrained him and said, “For today, I’ve changed the lunch time to 2.” George Gunn came back to the crease, deliberately got out to the next delivery, tucked his bat under his arm and headed towards the pavilion, muttering to the umpire as he passed by, “George Gunn lunches at 1.30.”