Remembering Merchant

India's favourite game returns to the Brabourne Stadium, one of the glorious old ladies of Indian cricket, and it is in some style that this is happening. Those fortunate to be watching matches at the Cricket Club of India will find it difficult to return to the Wankhede Stadium, where difficulty and inconvenience prevent good viewing, unless you're in one of those plush corporate boxes.

The Cricket Club of India is a far more attractive venue - it's stands are orderly and welcoming, a far cry from the concrete monstrosities that intimidate at the Wankhede. The outfield is superbly even, and the one complaint could be that the boundary ropes are as short as 65 yards at some points, and this might mean the spinners take a bit of tap. Then again, that's what the spectators love.

The actual club house at the CCI is a testament to the care and affection the president of the club, Raj Singh Dungarpur, has for the game. Every corridor is lined with pictures of the past greats, and each room talks to you in words from the cricket lexicon. The biggest conference hall is named after CK Nayudu, the legendary Indian cricketer. One restaurant calls itself Allrounder, while the other, serving oriental cuisine, calls itself Chinaman. The bar is Wet Wicket, a far cry from the absolute belter out in the middle. If you stroll across to the terraces, there's Polly's Pub, named after Polly Umrigar, that legend, who happily lent his name, and even inaugurated the place.

And the CCI certainly know how to invoke an atmosphere of awe and respect for cricketers gone by. Before the media session on the eve of the Sri Lanka-West Indies clash, a group of people that call themselves The Legends Club, met, to honour the memory of Vijay Merchant, on the occasion of his 95th birth anniversary. On the dais, among others, was Dungarpur himself, who traipsed down memory lane, recalling how Alec Bedser once told him that Merchant was the "best overseas batsman he had bowled against after Sir Donald Bradman." Madhav Mantri, who has closely followed Merchant, spoke about how he was once asked to choose his own nephew, Sunil Gavaskar, and Merchant, when picking an opening batsman. "I always looked at how an opening batsman left the ball, rather than how he played it," said the octogenarian Mantri, choosing Merchant over Gavaskar, who did not forget this, and later wrote about it in a column, ending with the words, "And they say blood is thicker than water."

As the evening wore on, the air was thick with talk of cricket, some erudite, some inebriated, as it typically is at CCI. And Dungarpur had to skip out in the middle of it all, as he headed downstairs to be appointed the honorary counsul general for Trinidad and Tobago. All in an evening at the Brabourne Stadium.