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Cricket was not at all times the many-splendoured spectacle it has now develop into. There have been occasions when there was little or no cash in it and nearly all gamers have been amateurs. When a participant retired, they used to move the hat round and acquire cash for the poor soul’s retirement.
Earlier than the warfare, the preferred match was the so-called quadrangular in Bombay, later enlarged to pentangular. There have been 5 groups within the latter – Hindus, Muslims, Parsees, Europeans and the Relaxation, which means principally Anglo-Indians. No one took these ‘communal’ divisions critically. There have been completely different gymkhanas in Bombay for every of those sides they usually determined the groups.
Right this moment, you may see these gymkhanas alongside Marine Drive, going through the ocean. Every gymkhana had its pitch or pitches the place the gamers practised. We, schoolboys, crowded across the nets to look at the gamers and infrequently did some fielding. It was all very casual and a few of us have been usually invited contained in the gymkhanas for a mushy drink and pastries.
I first noticed C Ok Nayudu there, as tall as a palm tree, hitting balls like no one’s enterprise, usually throughout the Marine Drive proper into the ocean. He was the preferred participant of Hindu Gymkhana and permitted younger boys like us to fetch the balls. And if you happen to stayed lengthy sufficient till the sundown, he would reward the ball to you.
However the man within the public eye, who made cricket fashionable in Bombay – and maybe the remainder of the nation – was a fast-talking barrister known as Bobby Talyarkhan, who sat along with his mike hour after hour in Brabourne Stadium and gave a operating commentary on All India Radio that was fairly a feast for the ears. These have been the times earlier than the warfare when there was no TV and only a few properties had radio units. In our constructing, there was just one household with a hi fi, out of a complete of about 40 and that was our solely dwell reference to the matches. We squatted on the ground, about 20 or 30 of us and listened in pin drop silence to Bobby’s mellifluous voice as he described in his clipped British accent how Amar Singh’s ball sliced by way of Mushtaq Ahmed’s wicket or Nayudu hit certainly one of his sixers, as the entire world got here to a standstill whereas wickets fell and centuries have been scored amidst the roar of excited crowds within the packed stadium beside the ocean.
The pentangulars have been performed through the Christmas season when Bombay was at its greatest. We took a practice or usually a tram to Churchgate, then as now, a preferred terminus and made our technique to Brabourne Stadium lower than a furlong away. Regardless of enormous crowds, we may at all times handle to get a ticket – usually for not more than a few rupees – and after fortifying ourselves with mushy drinks, made our manner into the crowded stadium, which on the time was solely a few years outdated.
If there have been no tickets, we might go to the closest Irani restaurant simply throughout the street from Churchgate and sit there listening to Bobby, downing cup after cup of candy tea underneath the watchful however pleasant eyes of the proprietor. The person, additionally a cricket fan, usually took pity on us and gave us one thing to eat, sufficient to maintain us going till the stumps have been drawn. We sat as shut as attainable to the hi fi, hanging on to each phrase from Bobby and when a wicket fell or Nayudu hit his favorite sixer, somebody would exit and purchase a garland of recent marigolds and put it gently on the hi fi because it crackled above the roar of the crowds.
Then got here the warfare, not the very best of time for a sport like cricket and our pal Bobby disappeared from the scene, and the stadium itself, we heard, was taken over by the military. The gymkhanas shut down one after the other and the pitches went dry till instantly at some point, the warfare was over, and it began once more.
However that, as they are saying, is one other story!
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