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Authors: Soumya Bhattacharya
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landladyâs grown-up son by shouldering arms to balls outside the off stump. (A rare Indian quality, though I say it myself.) There was nothing restrained and passive about the action of leaving the ball, though. I left balls not with a wary uncertainty but with a contemptuous glare, arms swirling in an ostentatious arabesque.
Bowlers were my villains, a notion strengthened by the West Indian pacersâ intimidating performance against India in the 1976 series. The grace and fluidity of a fast bowlerâs run up, the guile and subtlety of a spinnerâs art were lost on me. Bowlers were there, in my view, to allow batsmen to be heroes, to assume centre stage, to appropriate for themselves the pivotal â and most memorable â moments in the narrative of a match. In the two years in Bankura, I had batted and batted whenever I played and cried and cried (and was deemed young enough to get away with it) if someone knocked over my stumps or caught an ill-timed, cross-batted swat.
By the time I arrived in Kolkata again, all I wanted to do was watch a proper batsman in action on an international cricket field.
The time wouldnât be long in coming.
* * *
Block J at the Eden Gardens is one of the worst places in the world to watch cricket. It runs from about wide midwicket to deep backward square leg if the batsman is at the pavilion end, so you are about as well placed to see the turn of a ball or the authenticity of a shout for leg before or the swiftness of a batsmanâs reflexes as he pivots for a short-arm pull as you would be standing on the road in front of the stadium. Before the 1987 World Cup final it was uncovered, leaving spectators exposed to the merciless midday sun. And the cheering, jeering, raucous crowd (those who had begged, borrowed or stolen for an inexpensive ticket to a dayâs cricket) were the kind of people that the members of the Cricket Association of Bengal, from their stands on either side of the pavilion, looked down upon with a mixture of contempt and deep-seated resentment. (âGod, what do
they
want to come to the cricket for?â)
None of which was of any consequence to me as I found myself on my concrete bench on 2 January 1979.
On one side of me was one of those irritating teenagers who seem to believe that because they are fat and need a hell of a lot of space to accommodate
both
their buttocks on the concrete, the boy next to him is obliged to sit with his knees pressed together
all
the time. On the other side was my aunt, who was exactly the kind of cricket follower that I, later on in life, would scornfully avoid while discussing cricket (ânot a
real
fan, not one of usâ; by then I had become a member of the Cricket Association of Bengal), but who had kindly volunteered to chaperone me on the final day of a Test match that had sparked to life. In front of me was a tall, broad and loud man who effectively blocked out my entire view. I had to stand on the seat to get any real sense of the play (and risk being pelted by oranges, abuse or worse) or else crouch forward till I practically had my head in a lock between the sides of the men sitting in front of me. My uncle (a
real
fan, I would admit then as well as later), who had actually got me the ticket, had not been able to get three seats side by side; he was on the other side of the ground.
Perhaps they werenât ideal circumstances for my baptism but I was determined not to let the small matter of being unable to watch the game take anything away from my sense of awe and occasion.
From where I was sitting, the players seemed like midgets. The faces were blurs: the only way you could tell who was who was from the thickness of a waist, the swinging of an arm or the tilt of a cap. But I chanted with the rest of the crowd, clapping till my palms were red and sore for days afterwards, screamed till my voice broke and felt, well, so
grown up
to be a part of this sea of grown-ups. Before coming to
Bowlers were my villains, a notion strengthened by the West Indian pacersâ intimidating performance against India in the 1976 series. The grace and fluidity of a fast bowlerâs run up, the guile and subtlety of a spinnerâs art were lost on me. Bowlers were there, in my view, to allow batsmen to be heroes, to assume centre stage, to appropriate for themselves the pivotal â and most memorable â moments in the narrative of a match. In the two years in Bankura, I had batted and batted whenever I played and cried and cried (and was deemed young enough to get away with it) if someone knocked over my stumps or caught an ill-timed, cross-batted swat.
By the time I arrived in Kolkata again, all I wanted to do was watch a proper batsman in action on an international cricket field.
The time wouldnât be long in coming.
* * *
Block J at the Eden Gardens is one of the worst places in the world to watch cricket. It runs from about wide midwicket to deep backward square leg if the batsman is at the pavilion end, so you are about as well placed to see the turn of a ball or the authenticity of a shout for leg before or the swiftness of a batsmanâs reflexes as he pivots for a short-arm pull as you would be standing on the road in front of the stadium. Before the 1987 World Cup final it was uncovered, leaving spectators exposed to the merciless midday sun. And the cheering, jeering, raucous crowd (those who had begged, borrowed or stolen for an inexpensive ticket to a dayâs cricket) were the kind of people that the members of the Cricket Association of Bengal, from their stands on either side of the pavilion, looked down upon with a mixture of contempt and deep-seated resentment. (âGod, what do
they
want to come to the cricket for?â)
None of which was of any consequence to me as I found myself on my concrete bench on 2 January 1979.
On one side of me was one of those irritating teenagers who seem to believe that because they are fat and need a hell of a lot of space to accommodate
both
their buttocks on the concrete, the boy next to him is obliged to sit with his knees pressed together
all
the time. On the other side was my aunt, who was exactly the kind of cricket follower that I, later on in life, would scornfully avoid while discussing cricket (ânot a
real
fan, not one of usâ; by then I had become a member of the Cricket Association of Bengal), but who had kindly volunteered to chaperone me on the final day of a Test match that had sparked to life. In front of me was a tall, broad and loud man who effectively blocked out my entire view. I had to stand on the seat to get any real sense of the play (and risk being pelted by oranges, abuse or worse) or else crouch forward till I practically had my head in a lock between the sides of the men sitting in front of me. My uncle (a
real
fan, I would admit then as well as later), who had actually got me the ticket, had not been able to get three seats side by side; he was on the other side of the ground.
Perhaps they werenât ideal circumstances for my baptism but I was determined not to let the small matter of being unable to watch the game take anything away from my sense of awe and occasion.
From where I was sitting, the players seemed like midgets. The faces were blurs: the only way you could tell who was who was from the thickness of a waist, the swinging of an arm or the tilt of a cap. But I chanted with the rest of the crowd, clapping till my palms were red and sore for days afterwards, screamed till my voice broke and felt, well, so
grown up
to be a part of this sea of grown-ups. Before coming to
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