CRICKETING AND BANGALORE

Any sketch of Bangalore is incomplete without a discussion of Cricket. Once cricket happenned to be a favourite past time here. The difference between cricket during the 70's and the game now is that the excitement of cricket today ends in a quick surge-thanks to one day cricket and 20-20 matches unlike during the bygone era where it used to be a long drawn affair for five days. Many matches dilly-dally between becoming a draw to one of victory. The uncertainty was enthralling both to a connosieur of the game and the layman alike.

Television comes into Bangalore somewhere in the early 1980's which means in the 60's and 70's the luxury of watching a match from the home did not exist. There used to be a commentary of the match on the radio and from bus stands to offices to households almost every one had a small transistor radio clasped tight to the ears following discreetly every single word being said by the commentator. There used to be exciting moments when yelling s of the crowd at the venue would shroud the voice of the commentator and the whole world would come to a standstill to know if Gavaskar was caught in the boundary or the ball has gone for a six.

The Chinnaswamy stadium of the KSCA used to be the venue for international cricket matches in Bangalore and this stadium is very close to the cubbon park and the only stadium tuned to world standards in the city.

Bangalore as a city has contributed many cricketers to the world arena and some of them distinguished themselves. Cricket has changed a lot during the past decades from being a gentleman's game to just any other game with the present day fury with which it is played reminds someone of boxing or fencing. The skills and strategies and administration has changed drastically over the years and it is anything but gentle. My prediction some where is that the mantle of Cricket would pass from people in the metros to children growing in the smaller towns because their life-style inculcates the kind of aggression needed badly by the cricketing world.

B S Chandrashekar; Gundappa Vishwanath; Syed Kirmani; Erapalli Prasanna ; Rahul Dravid ; Anil Kumble; Venkatesh Prasad are cricketing greats that can be attributed to Bangalore. Each of them made dazzling contributions. Syed Kirmani whom I met on some occassions was the finest wicket keeper the world produced at our times. Alan Knot, Wasim Bari are few other wicker keepers who come to my mind. Farookh Engineer used to keep wickets for India before Kirmani. Many of these players have excelled at international cricketing venues and the careers of some of them came to an abrupt end though lot of the game was still left in them . I have missed out Roger Binny who also used to be a good player getting Zaheer Abbas of Pakistan clean bowled at one instance. The only cricket match I watched live incidentally was not in Bangalore but at Calicut(Kozhikode) in 1983 when the Ranji trophy match between Kerala and Karnataka was being played and happenned to see Roger Binny there and once more much later on M G Road. I might have missed out some recent players because I have stopped following the game astutely as I did before. That Bangalore has provided many players to the World is by itself a testimony of its special status in World affairs.

There must be many international cricketers who would have Bangalore stored fondly some where in their minds either for having got their centuries or for having won some match. Cricketing greats like Garfield Sobers also must have played in the city but I was too young to figure out things. But one cricketer comes live to my mind who should fondly remember Bangalore and that must be Clive Lloyd of West Indies and the setting is the test match between India and West Indies in 1974. MAK Pataudi was the Indian Captain. Clive Lloyd made more than 200 runs at that test. One of his shots; the ball shot over the stadium and fell on M G Road hurting a passer-by if gossip is to be believed. I think we lost that test and Brijesh Patel another bangalore based cricketer scored 76.

Today the growth of internet and television may be veering youngsters away from playing cricket and many natural players of the game may become a thing of the past. With Film stars and business people owning cricket teams players may become a race horse with a jockey and the task cut out to them in the future would be to race well and better just to stay in the game. W G Grace should be amused.