V Ramnarayan

Remembering the glory days of the Hindu Trophy

One of the oldest limited-overs in India used to be a thrilling affair, with Test and club cricketers fiercely competing for the title

V Ramnarayan

05-Apr-2014

When the ECB introduced T20 cricket on the county circuit in 2003, I was one of many who thought it would never catch on. I believed the format was too short to enable players to express themselves, score enough runs or get enough wickets. Little did we sceptics imagine that the format would one day threaten Test cricket, with its twists and turns and spectator appeal, based on pure entertainment.

I should have known better as a veteran of 30-over cricket in the hugely popular Hindu Trophy of Chennai for many seasons. That uniquely Madrasi slam-bang affair started in the 1950-1951 season, in its original avatar as the Sports & Pastime Trophy for "companies and bankers". Sport & Pastime, brought out by the publishers of the Hindu newspaper, was by the way arguably India's first sports magazine, whose closure following a workers' strike led to the renaming of the tournament.

The format of the tournament suited the essentially happy-go-lucky approach of the typical Madras cricketer of the period. The inaugural tournament was won by Binny's Recreation Club, which defeated the Hindu's own team in the final. Both companies offered jobs to cricketers (and other sportsmen), and so did many of the other firms that contested the tournament, a trend that had started earlier with the likes of Burmah Shell, M&SM Railway, the police and others. Several other organisations, like Parry, Philips, State Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank, Esso, Lucas TVS, India Cements, Chemplast and India Pistons continued to support cricket through the decades, and the Hindu Trophy provided an exciting platform for some of the best talent in the city to compete.

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India's need for bowling variety

Why their traditional strength, spin, ought not to be forskaen in favour of pace

V Ramnarayan

20-Mar-2014

In my last post, I recommended a return to a more balanced bowling attack for India - comprising two spinners and two pacemen, discarding the present approach of a pace-oriented outfit, especially overseas. In the course of doing that, I seem to have given the impression that I favour one type of bowler over another in the Indian line-up.

True, no spinner today promises to win matches for India, and I do believe that in any attack, the best four bowlers should be the ideal mix, regardless of specialisation. I do maintain, however, that Indian cricket should not mindlessly forsake traditional skills in favour of pace, just as Indian hockey should not give up dribbling skills for brute power.

My argument has been that when India's seamers have repeatedly failed to trouble opposing batsmen, they may be better off with greater variety in the bowling department. It can be nobody's argument on available evidence that India has demon fast bowlers, or even great swing bowlers among the current lot, with Zaheer Khan's sustained effectiveness on the wane. Among the spinners, while Ashwin should be given the benefit of doubt despite his recent lack of success, I reiterate that Pragyan Ojha deserves to be given a decent run as a Test bowler.

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India should pick two spinners in away Tests

The team has no express fast bowler, so it's time when touring to put faith in two slow bowlers bowling in tandem

V Ramnarayan

09-Mar-2014

Not long ago, I expressed the hope in this very column that the best of Ravichandran Ashwin was yet to come, inciting howls of protest from readers who pointed out that the offspinner's successes came almost entirely on Indian wickets. My optimism regarding Ashwin's progress as a Test spinner was based on what I perceived as a conscious effort on his part to go back to the basics of genuine spin, line and length, with less of an emphasis on unfurling a new trick every other ball. Ashwin's wicket-taking ability has since declined noticeably, especially, as predicted by my critics, on foreign soil.

The Indian team management's response to this development has, however been ill-advised, to put it mildly. To go into a Test match with not a single specialist spinner in the playing XI, as India did in New Zealand, must rank among the most naïve cases in Test history of the overestimation of a team's bowling resources. To expect a trio of medium-pacers and a lone part-time spinner to take 20 wickets on a good batting track, even if it was endowed with some life in the mornings, was wishful thinking of considerable density.

Come to think of it, when did India last bowl an opposition side out twice in a Test match abroad? One Test victory in South Africa, and another in the West Indies, with India's seamers and spinners collaborating effectively in 2010 and 2011 were the last such happy conclusions.

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Gavaskar's stunning entrance

For Indian cricket fans of a certain vintage, the Caribbean summer of 1971 was the most glorious of all

V Ramnarayan

16-Feb-2014

Nothing can equal the thrill of listening to the unprecedented batting exploits of Sunil Gavaskar as he amassed 774 runs in the four Tests he played in the West Indies in 1971 - if, like me, you happen to be someone who watched cricket through the 1960s and '70s.

We were by then used to being let down time and again by Indian batsmen who often flattered to deceive. The batting had revolved largely around the courage of the captain, MAK Pataudi, and flashes of brilliance from the supporting cast, which included the likes of Ajit Wadekar and the mercurial Salim Durani, with Chandu Borde no longer around to lend it a semblance of stability. Dilip Sardesai had promised much but his best was yet to come.

Happily the first Test of that Caribbean tour at Sabina Park saw Sardesai at his best as he hit a powerful 212, with the next-best score coming from Eknath Solkar, who made 61 in a total of 387. India enforced the follow-on with a first-innings lead of 170 to the complete puzzlement of the rival captain, Garry Sobers. Rain had reduced the match to four days and you only needed a lead of 150 in a game of that duration to put the opposition in a second time. With Rohan Kanhai (158 not out) and Sobers (93) in roaring form, the match was comfortably drawn, but India had gained the confidence that they could challenge this West Indies side in a post-Wes Hall-Charlie Griffith transition period.

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A wizard called Vishy

Remembering a magician who invariably rose to the occasion when conditions favoured the bowlers, especially the fast men

V Ramnarayan

29-Jan-2014

I had just finished reading a glowing reference to GR Viswanath in James Astill's recent book The Great Tamasha, by cricket journalist Haresh Pandya - lamenting the relative lack of recognition outside India of the little Karnataka bastman's greatness - when I serendipitously opened a cricket anthology by Andhra author Prasanna Kumar at a page devoted to describing GRV's double-century on his Ranji Trophy debut.

It struck me how similar my own - and I'm sure thousands of other Indians' - thinking on the subject had been, for I have always believed GRV belonged to the highest class of batsmen, though western writers have rarely accorded him the same status as they have other Indian greats, past and present.

I vividly remember the physical director of my college laughing at me after Vishy's first Test innings, in Kanpur in November 1969. "Your man scored a duck!" he cackled, because he knew I had been a diehard fan of the young batsman ever since I saw a couple of his brief but classy innings in the Duleep Trophy. Vishy had been the last of the rash of youngsters whom the chairman of selectors, Vijay Merchant, had blooded that season - at the insistence, I learnt, of the captain, MAK Pataudi.

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Time to make leg slip a regular fielding position?

Too often batsmen get away with playing loose shots behind square on the leg side. Maybe a change in the laws will help

V Ramnarayan

14-Jan-2014

"What is unlucky about being caught behind down the leg side?" asked Samir Chopra in a recent blog post. He set me thinking about a cricket problem that has puzzled me for years.

Why is it that some of the greatest batsmen in the game fail to, or do not care to, keep the ball down while glancing or flicking it on the leg side? And why are such shots not considered poor except when the batsman is caught (and even then it may be regarded as a piece of bad luck or a fantastic catch by the keeper or both), when even a thick outside edge that goes for four is described as one?

The answer is quite simple, in my opinion. You can get away with playing the ball in the air (actually, the batsman is rarely in control of the leg glance or flick off quick bowling, just as he is not with a poorly executed hook shot), because there is rarely a leg slip in position until after a missed opportunity, and the catch can often elude the wicketkeeper's grasp.

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What's competitive about ugly on-field behaviour?

Today's on-field aggro is no better than the worst kind of bullying by schoolboy thugs. It's time to outlaw such conduct

V Ramnarayan

29-Dec-2013

"Competitive sport is so ugly," my son's class teacher said to me in a voice that suggested quietly but firmly that she knew better than I did. This was in response to my proposal that the school's children who had sporting talent be permitted to compete in local tournaments, and that the school field cricket and football teams in competitions in the city.

The school, run by the Krishnamurti Foundation India, does not encourage competition in any form. I was attending a PTA meeting, and impressed by the talent of the budding cricketers (of whom young Anand Vasu, later a prominent cricket writer, was a promising paceman) and footballers of the school, I felt that the school was unfairly denying the kids a chance to pursue sport seriously. "Why shouldn't they go out and participate in tournaments? They compete the moment they step on to the ground, don't they, even if only in intra-school games?"

I was a little annoyed with the young teacher, who spoke in a condescending tone (after all, I was a mere former cricketer), more so because I had seen her first in pigtails and school uniform as she waited for her father (my boss) at my bank office back in the 1970s. "You are speaking to a man who has spent more than 30 years of his life as a cricketer," I said. "The game has taught me so many valuable lessons - to accept defeat sportingly, to be a team person, to accept the umpire's decision without dissent, to be magnanimous in victory. The game is ideal preparation for the ups and downs of life," I went on, all to no avail.

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Ashwin in the offspin pantheon

He is among the most successful bowlers of his kind, and excitingly, his best may yet be ahead of him

V Ramnarayan

09-Dec-2013

The success of India's young offspinner R Ashwin in international cricket has prompted me to revisit my memories of some great bowlers of his tribe I have watched over the last five decades.

I never saw my earliest offspinner hero Jim Laker in flesh and blood because he did not play Test cricket in India. My only acquaintance with him was via radio broadcasts featuring the voices of the likes of Norman Yardley and John Arlott, and photographs. His immaculate bowling action, captured by still cameras, was etched in my cricket-crazy 1960s schoolboy mind - a perfect image of his easy run-up, high-arm action and perfect follow-through.

Reading about his Test cricket exploits (193 wickets in 46 Tests at an average of 21.24, an economy rate of 2.04, a strike rate of 62.3, best innings figures of 10 for 53, best match analysis of 19 for 90) and listening to radio commentary of his matches gave me a high rarely experienced afterwards.

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The art of Bishan Bedi in prose

Suresh Menon's biography on the great Indian left-arm spinner is essential reading for all young tweakers

V Ramnarayan

24-Nov-2013

Among the early mentors to guide me as a spinner was my college team-mate back in the 1960s, VV Rajamani, a medium-pacer. The one aspect of my bowling Rajamani stressed was arm speed from the top of my delivery stride to my finish, with my left leg ramrod straight and right arm falling to the left of my left thigh. ("That doesn't mean you push the ball through; you whip the ball as if you were spinning a top. The arm comes down fast, but the ball travels in a parabolic loop.")

Rereading Suresh Menon's Bishan: Portrait of a Cricketer, I was reminded of this brilliant piece of coaching that I, a lucky young spinner, received from a caring senior all those years ago. Watching Bishan Singh Bedi bowl, I was always struck by the ease with which he made the ball hurry off the pitch after holding it in the air longer than most of us could. And I was convinced that superior arm speed and sharp spin imparted by a whiplash-like tweak were the secret of the Bedi sleight of hand that often fooled innocent batsmen.

Menon's beautifully written book is one of the better cricket biographies I have read, certainly the most objective Indian account of a celebrated cricketer (written during the peak of his subject's career, Harsha Bhogle's Azhar was unfortunate in its timing, thanks to the subsequent fall from grace of its hero). It is a paean to the sardar's art, the author's admiration for the gifts of the bowler quite unconcealed, but it is also a balanced critique of Bishan the captain, activist and coach, and unafraid to have a quiet laugh at some of the great man's quirks and follies.

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Could Tendulkar have turned into a great allrounder?

One can only wonder what might have been had he persisted with his bowling throughout his career

V Ramnarayan

08-Nov-2013

It took me a long time to see eye to eye with the millions of fans who believe that Sachin Tendulkar is the best Indian batsman of all time. They would forgive me if they knew where I come from, brought up as I was on a diet of some of the finest Indian batting before him against attacks fast and slow from around the world.

Two early favourites were Polly Umrigar and Vijay Manjrekar, each a great in his own right. Though Umrigar was for long alleged to be suspect against genuine pace, especially during the disastrous tour of England in 1952, he stood tall among the ruins in another miserable English summer seven years later, and in the West Indies three years after that. It was to be his swansong, but what a swansong it turned out to be, with 56 and 172 not out in Port-of-Spain, and 32 and 60 in Kingston, Jamaica, in his last two Tests, standing out for his courage and defiance in a losing cause.

We all know Tiger Pataudi might have been one of the world's great batsmen but for his tragic eye injury, so brilliant and domineering had he been in a few classy outings for Oxford and Sussex while still in his teens against the likes of Trueman, Lock and Laker. With other accomplished batsmen like Chandu Borde and Hanumant Singh not quite fulfilling their potential, we had to wait for the advent of a couple of diminutive geniuses in GR Viswanath and SM Gavaskar to bask in the reflected glory of fearless Indian batsmanship on the world stage.

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