CRICKET: A NOISY INSECT

"It is not true that the English invented cricket as a way of making all other human endeavours look interesting and lively; that was merely an unintended side effect. I don't wish to denigrate a sport that is enjoyed by millions, some of them awake and facing the right way, but it is an odd game. It is the only sport that incorporates meal breaks. It is the only sport that shares its name with an insect. It is the only sport in which spectators burn as many calories as players -- more if they are moderately restless."

- Bill Bryson in 'Down Under '

Cricket is a game I have always been passionate about. I have listened to commentaries at odd hours, watched all levels of matches at the grounds , kept scores  on the giant score board as well as  on official cricket scoresheets. Once, in a B  Division league match at Jamadoba Stadium in Dhanbad, I even stood in as a stand - in umpire.  My umpiring debut ended abruptly when I wrongly declared a star batsman out hit wicket even though the bails had been dislodged by Manna Da, that rogue slip fielder, who had chucked a pebble at the stumps. A mini riot of sorts broke out  in the ground where, much earlier, I had  witnessed centuries by  Ashok Gandotra , Chuni Goswami, Daljit Singh and the most stylish of them all, the incomparable Ramesh Saxena.  

I kept a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings, read  a staggering amount of literature on cricket including old Wisden Almanacs and almost every issue of Khalid Ansari's Sportsweek and ABP's Sportsworld whose first editor was the Nawab of Pataudi. I remembered each of the series wicket hauls of Bhagwat Subramanya  Chandashekhar, the Magic Man  who was a  batsman 's bugbear  and a bowlers' bunny. The Mukesh fan with a polioed hand , who shared his birthday with mine, once had identical figures of six for fifty two in each of the innings at Melbourne in 1977! 

I was a walking encyclopaedia on cricket trivia and could tell you why Kallicharan resumed batting the following day even though he had been adjudged run out to the last ball the previous day and all about Dennis Lillee's aluminium bat experiment. I even remember the most memorable , if not the most famous, cricket reporting ever. No, it was not from John Woodcock or Tony Cozier, but by G. D' Souza, our school Games Teacher who, while reporting about a famous victory by our school team,   announced in the assembly: SSSSS or Shankar Sharma's Six Secure Success!!

I remember the Lord's pavilion celebration of 1983, the Audi ride at Melbourne, the Miandad Chhakka at Sharjah, and the bespoke farewell of Sachin Tendulkar at Wankhede. In 1974-75. While celebrating a four in the dazzling 91 runs partnership between Vishvanath and Ghavri at Madras, I had knocked a servant carrying  a bowl of hot mutton. I have  survived shoes and sandals  raining  on my head as friends tossed their footwear in the air with gay abandon when Gavaskar hit his 29th at the Kotla. During the Eden Test of of 281 by VVS, I was amazed to see a septuagenarian Australian, who was sitting in the rear of Club House, knit a sweater even as she wrote down scores of Hayden and Slater on the opening day!

But I have not merely been a fan, scorer and  a substitute umpire. I have played the game, too. Like most of you, I have played it on different surfaces - on matted wickets, on the Eden turf, on the colony roads and bald grounds, the cemented verandah of my home and  in the corridors and lawns of my college hostel. I have played with ordinary rubber balls, cambis balls, tennis balls, plastic balls, 'corket' balls, rubber 'duze' balls and the more expensive 'duze' or what is the proper Red Cherry. Stumps have ranged from the genuine wickets, bricks, brick or chalk markings on pillars to  sets of  three stumps grouted to a wooden block . Lime markings and string of chappals have served as the crease and an assortment of things, including proper cricket bats and hockey sticks , as bats.

I have played 40 minutes' cricket matches during the  school games periods, 20 overs a side matches, night cricket, block cricket, one- tip out cricket, French cricket and of course, book cricket with the thick Chamber's Dictionary . Run-outs, lbws, dropped catches, disputes over fourer and sixers , 'cheatercock' umpires and the owner running away with his bat have been occasions for fights and sulks. Putush shrubs, rose bushes, berry branches and cacti have bruised and lacerated me many times as I would go  to retrieve the ball.

Apart from a broken tooth to a shooter off Abhijit Dasgupta  at the Indian School of Mines Ground and the occasional knocks on the shin bone and fingers , I have suffered no major injury. I mean nothing as  compared to my friend Anupam's  in his first and last ball as a wicketkeeper. He  had  left a gap between his gloves at eye level to fast rising delivery from Jude,  and  even as the ball struck him under the left eye and sped away for  four rubbing -salt -in -the -wound  byes, the debutant wicketkeeper flew to the slips while his specs went towards the leg slip. 

As an all rounder, I wasn't very bad if the bowling or batting was not very top class.Although in the year of  the Audi ride by Ravi Shastri I never reached double digits and once dutifully joined all my team mates in a procession of run- outs against Zakir Husain College Hostel, I had, on may occasions, served my hostel team with some distinction. 

Personally my best was a fighting 65 not out in a losing cause for SP's XI against the DM's at Cooch Behar on Republic Day of 1991. On the previous Republic Day at Burdwan, I had scored a useful 22 in a win. The following Republic Day,  when posted as SDPO ,  Tamluk I was asked to play for SP's XI at Midnapur. I was quite excited because these Republic Days were proving to be lucky for me. Moreover, this would be my first innings before my young  wife, Simi,  whom I had already narrated my sterling cricket abilities. Besides, the trip to Midnapore was my only occasion to socialise. Tamluk had a revolutionary history of  police firing, establishment of the Tamralipta Jatiya Sarkar in 1942, and Matangani Hazra's martyrdom but in 1991, there was little life left except the occasional films screened by its  excellent Cine Society. 

So we went, in the Willys Jeep, my wife and driver on my  either side with  my gunman Amit behind. As I entered, I saw the  match already underway in the sprawling Midnapore Police Lines which had once served as Mustering Ground for  troops against the Marathas in the 18th century. Small , domed baroodkhanas  dotted the edges of this ground. As expected in West Bengal, that great Land of the Microphone and of the Greater People Behind the Microphone,  a radio commentary was  in progress . Just as I seated my wife in the senior officers' family bay, up went a roar as a wicket fell down and SP's XI were 11 for 2. The Reserve Inspector came forward and took me away.

" Sir, your batting next,  let me help kit you," and he put on two persons to 'kit' me. 

Two fellows helped me put on my pads, offered me a choice of bats, gave me brand new gloves and sheepishly passed on the abdomen guard. As I slipped in the abdomen guard, patted the bat on the pads, twisted my body around  there was another roar. A wicket had fallen yet again. We were now three wickets down at the same score. I walked in. The SP,  a great raconteur who was also to become the subject of greater raconteurs, smiled  in an avuncular manner and wished me luck. I wove through all the prying eyes to exchange a glance with Simi and walked in. 

The SDO (Sadar)  who was captaining the DM's XI shook hands to welcome me. I remember the District Sakhorata Officer and the BDO, Goaltore who were in the slips, along with Bhambal Dasgupta, the ARCS, Tamluk,  the wicketkeeper , also smile a welcome. So did the Najir Babu who also waved in from short extra cover. I called out the non - striker,  DIO II Inspector Nabarun Guhathakurta to enquire about the bowler whom I spotted  marking his  ominously long run- up at a distance with a  disquieting thoroughness.

"Saar, he is Nobendu Babu, the Jilla Fisheries Officer. He is going to bowl his first  over today, and I have heard he had played for Vidyasagar University," he informed before commiserating, " ek tu dekhkhe khelben ( play cautiously)."

Officers of the Fisheries Department which had been set up in 1911 primarily , as per its website,   '… for two purposes:- (1) Love of fish in the diet of every Bengali family and (2) increase in population),  were one of the rare sets of  officers of Bengal's bureaucracy who loved their job. Giving the bowling to an officer so high on motivation against a non -fish eating star batsman of the opposition was a tactical masterstroke.That he was uncharacteristically tall and suspiciously muscular for a Bengali aded  an uneasy mystique around him.

"Right arm, round the wicket," the White coat announced with a flourish.

I asked for the  middle  and leg guard, marked it on the crease with my boots and surveyed the field before settling down  - even though settling down against bowlers bowling round the wicket was not always possible. As the bowler started his run up, I could hear the Panchayat o Gramonnoyan Officer on the microphone at a distance. 

"Ebar eshchhen khoob i naamkora batsman , SDPO Tomluk Sri Bibek Shohai ( now comes Vivek Sahay, SDPO, Tamluk, a very famous batsman) ," he mispronounced my name on expected lines, and to complete the theatrical, he punned on my surname,  " dekhi tini SP Shaeber oshohai Elebhen ke  ki shahojjo korte paaren ( let us how he can help the SP's helpless  XI). "

The crowd didn't really have to wait long to realise how useful I could become for the SP's oshohai XI. It was a good length ball and I went forward at it, bat and pad close together and missed. The ball hissed past me and I immediately heard THE sound. That unmistakable sound of the cherry on the stumps- it has a rattling sound and a more rattling effect as well. Up went the White Coat's finger, the fielding pack rushed towards the Fisheries Officer, congratulating him for a big 'catch' and the commentator exulted, repeatedly making a mention of a first ball duck, and celebrated as if he himself had bowled me.

Those who have played the game at the highest level would surely know that being out first ball is not the hardest thing to stomach in cricket. A much harder task is to walk back to the pavilion, smiling sheepishly, avoiding glances - more so when you have gone in as a star batsman. It is not that this has not happened to you. Yes, it has happened to you, you and you also, don't lie! But not many have had the mortification of suffering thus when  debuting  in front of  a newly wedded wife. I looked at the SP to say a non verbal sorry but he was too disinterested to even acknowledge . The team mates kept quiet, more out of  deference to my seniority than anything else. In a swift second, I shot a glance at  my wife and exchanged our embarrassments. And unlike  at the beginning of my innings when two- three guys had come forward to kit me , none came forward to help me take off my pads.