V. Ramnarayan - Third Man: Recollections From A Life In Cricket

THIRD MAN

RECOLLECTIONS FROM
A LIFE IN CRICKET

THIRD MAN

RECOLLECTIONS FROM
A LIFE IN CRICKET

V RAMNARAYAN

westland ltd

61, 2nd Floor, Silverline Building, Alapakkam Main Road, Maduravoyal, Chennai 600 095

93, 1st Floor, Sham Lal Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110 002

First published by westland ltd, 2014

First ebook edition: 2015

Copyright V Ramnarayan 2014

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-93-84030-82-7

Typeset by PrePSol Enterprises Pvt. Ltd.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, circulated, and no reproduction in any form, in whole or in part (except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews) may be made without written permission of the publishers.

To my party

Contents

Tamil Nadus Best And Karnataka,
My Favourite Team

FOREWORD

A search for himself

I must admit to being a bit biased in writing about this book. Ramnarayan takes me back to a wonderful world of cricket in Hyderabad; listening to it and reading about it as a child and playing it as a young adult. As I read it, the names sprang from my computer screen and started playing in front of my eyes. Not just the Pataudis, the Jaisimhas and the Abid Alis but so many others who made Hyderabad cricket such a treasure of tales.

He writes of those formidable SBI and SBH teams and the class of Jaisimhas MCC. And names like the many Ramprasads (B, N and H) come alive along with John Tarachand, the friendly B Mahendra Kumar, the wayward genius of Mumtaz Hussain and the frittered talents of Abdul Hai and Sultan Saleem. And Nagesh Hammand, I can see him in front of my eyes, a fine University player I watched more than any other and against whom I had the opportunity to play for Osmania against SBI. And that lovely story of Sam Swaminathan with his acquired English accent. I relate to it easily. In an inter-college game when a difficult pick-and-throw had produced a run out at the bowlers end he turned to me and said, Now that..(pause for accent!) was brilliant.

I relate too, to the frailties of Hyderabad cricket, as I do to its many charms. And of the many intrigues that occasionally beset it. Ramnarayan tells the stories simply, occasionally with pain but we are one in our affection for the lovely Fateh Maidan.

Ironically I disliked Ramnarayan when he first came over from Chennai. I had no reason to. I hadnt seen him bowl, I had no appreciation of his high quality off-spin. But he took the place of one of our players, Noshir Mehta whose father too had been a fine Hyderabad player and finds mention in the book. Then slowly word spread that he was, in fact, a better bowler and I began warming to him. All this, remember, is the irrationality of a child fan!

He writes with equal, if not greater, feeling about Madras cricket. You always remember the people you played with first with most fondness and though I dont know all the names (Belliappa and Ramesh and Venkataraghavan and VV Kumar were of course known beyond Madras), their stories are worth a read. For this is not only the story of Madras cricket, it is a snapshot of one of the most cricket loving cultures of India. I use the world culture carefully because there is more to cricket than just playing it.

The word sits comfortably on Ramnarayan for not only does he have interests in the arts (quite distinct from the art of off-spin!) but he married well too. His wife Gowri is a familiar by-line and of robust lineage and I know of no other cricketer who, in his later years, became editor of a magazine on the performing arts. I fear that the generation of cricketers who might have managed that path is long gone.

In a world before liberalisation, and where a public sector job was an insurance for life, Ramnarayan was a probationary officer in the State Bank of India. If you do not understand the significance of that in the India he grew up in find someone who will tell you about it. Essentially, all of India applied to be a PO in a nationalised bank. SBI was the icing on the cake. I point this out because there was an era in our cricket when you had to be otherwise qualified because cricket gave you respect and memories but not the wherewithal to run a household. I wonder sometimes if mine is the last generation that even knows of this phase in Indian cricket.

There is another reason this story needs to be told. Indian cricket is rich in stories and dire at story-telling. And with the television induced urge to follow the stars, life just underneath is a tale untold. What chance do characters from club cricket have! But they too are part of Indian cricket, they build the base on which the players and spectators give Indian cricket its power and riches.

The amateur is the true cricket lover for he gives to the game generously. His stories are innocent and there is charm in the small achievements of a man not cut out for bigger things. You will find many of those in this book and if you have time to pause from the incessant coverage of international cricket (and I am part of that story!), spend some time relating these anecdotes to some of your own.

But my favourite part of the book is reserved for the nuggets on off-spin bowling. In an era where the easiest way to impart nip and turn is to bend the elbow, these lines are a beacon in the darkening world of finger spin. His friend and mentor Rajamani tells Ram .you whip the ball as if you were spinning a top, the arm comes down fast but the ball travels in a parabolic loop. There is much discussion on length and the adherence to it amidst variations in flight and pace.

I sense this book, and its acceptance, will bring Ram peace. His life has been a search for himself within a game he adored. Now he has given back to it in a manner few do. Writing it has been time well spent.

Harsha Bhogle

A proper reverence for tradition

In Ramnarayans essay for Wisden India Almanack on players who were good enough to represent India but didnt, two things struck me. First, he recognised, We are dealing with cricketers unproven at the highest level no matter how distinguished their record in first class cricket. Sportsmen too can rise to their level of incompetence.

More interesting was his choice of off spinner. He picked Hyderabads Kanwaljit Singh. Did Ramnarayan think he himself was not good enough? Did he place modesty above cricketing judgement? Or did he assume that it just wasnt cricket to pick himself? Perhaps he went by record (Kanwaljit had 369 wickets to his own 96)?

It intrigued me, and I recalled conversations with the great spinners who were Ramnarayans contemporaries. Erapalli Prasanna felt that Ramnarayan didnt get enough opportunities. Bishan Bedi considered Ramnarayan an intelligent spinner who made the transition from performer to writer smoothly. Venkatraghavan thought Ramnarayan superior to the Hyderabad off spinners of the time. Some alleged off spinners have played for India, which must make Ramnarayans disappointment at missing the bus acute. But he can also take some consolation from the fact that it took two of the best Prasanna and Venkatraghavan - to keep him out of the Indian team.

In an era when cricket was not the paying profession it is now, Ramnarayan switched from Tamil Nadu, where had learnt his game, to Hyderabad where he saw better opportunities. Perhaps it needed not a shift from a state where Venkatraghavan was well established, but to another zone where Ramnarayan might have played more first class matches than the 25 he eventually did after making his debut at 28.

For South Zone were richly served. There was Prasanna himself, Venkatraghavan, V V Kumar, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Shivlal Yadav, Narasimha Rao, all of whom played Test cricket, and the likes of Noshir Mehta, Mumtaz Hussain, B Vijaykrishna who might have, in another age and time.