Unique personality of MS Dhoni

In 2004 the BCCI began a system by which young talented cricketers around the country would be identified and short-listed. The idea germinated from the fertile brain of Makarand Waingankar, a freelance journalist from Mumbai. Makarand, very rightly, believed that young players from the distant corners of the country were being neglected by the junior and senior national selectors.

Former first-class cricketers were appointed by the BCCI to watch every representative match and to inform the Board of potential talents. PC Poddar and I travelled to Jamshedpur to watch the players in action in the one-day senior inter-state championship in January 2004.

After watching our respective allotted matches at the end of the first day, PC Poddar and I were exchanging notes when he confided, “Raju, today I saw a young man hitting the ball with awesome power. Never before have I seen anybody hitting a ball so hard. Tomorrow have a good look at the Bihar opener with long hair.” Coming from a man of Poddar’s deep knowledge and wide experience, I was very curious to see the player.

Next morning, as I alighted near the Keenan Stadium pavilion gate, I saw a long-haired, strong lad in his mid-20s wearing a tight tee-shirt and denims park his motor cycle. Instantly two dogs came towards him and he brought out some biscuits from his pocket to feed them. The young man’s affection for the road-side canines bowled me over completely.

I asked the Bihar coach, if he was the opener who hit the ball very hard. He replied, “In my Bihar team everybody hits the ball hard. But this boy from Ranchi is an exceptionally hard hitter. He is playing first-class cricket for about 4 years. No one has ever taken any notice of him yet. Why are you so keen to know about him?” By the end of the day, when he had scored just about 40 runs, I realized that I had seen an uncut diamond.

That January 2004 evening both Poddar and I sent our report to the chief Talent Resource Development Officer (TRDO), Dilip Vengsarkar, specifically mentioning the immense power of the young man’s strokes. I wrote, “…his exceptional power and positive approach can demolish any bowling attack. He should be looked at without delay.” As it transpired, BCCI took serious note of the report and the career graph of a young talent from a neglected part of India took an upward curve within a few months.

Author Gulu Ezekiel wrote of the incident in his book Captain Cool in 2008. Later Makarand Waingankar mentioned the significant event in various articles in The Hindu to highlight the success of the talent-scouting system of BCCI. Other sports in India would do well to follow a similar scheme to unearth talents from the obscure corners of the country.

Dhoni’s career graph is a unique case in Indian cricket. Hailing from a family of very modest financial background, he had little option but to accept whatever job came his way. The Indian Railways gave him a job based at Kharagpur in Bengal but, true to tradition, decided that a man from the eastern region would not be good enough for the all-India Railways cricket team!

The Railways recruited him for his cricket ability, yet it appeared they had no faith in their own choice! The Railway employee Dhoni never got a look in from the very people who were given the responsibility to handle the Railway cricket team.

As disappointing were the selectors of East Zone. Although he had already played for no less than 4 years for Bihar in first-class cricket, not one selector – zonal or national – ever thought that this man had any exceptional ability in him! Such were the former cricketers who were entrusted with the job to select talent. Based at Kharagpur in Bengal, he could have been selected for Bengal as well. But no selector from Bengal from 1996 to 2003 ever thought of him.

The tough, talented youth had little exposure to the ‘big names’ of Indian cricket when he was at Ranchi and Jamshedpur. He picked up the finer points from various sources as he went along without ever forgetting his first school coach, “Banerjee Sir” as Dhoni still most respectfully addresses him. He kept his ears and eyes open in the India dressing room to observe what Tendulkar and Dravid were doing to prepare themselves for the battles ahead. Off the field, his cool and composed personality was just the right ingredient required for a person craving to learn the ways of the world.

Reams have been devoted to his exceptional abilities. I shall not repeat those to bore my readers. But I would like to relate that never before have we had a leader in India as exemplary as the man from Ranchi. He led India to the inaugural T20 world cup trophy with all the top names of Indian cricket missing! A young set of keen lads helped the relaxed captain to bring off one victory after another. Before leading India, did Dhoni ever lead a cricket team?  Honestly, I doubt it.

The magnificent man went on lead India to the world ODI title. As if these crowns were not enough, Dhoni led India to become the numero uno in the Test rankings. No other Indian captain has been able to match these statistical highlights.

Despite such magnificent achievements, the cool and composed man still remains as modest and accessible as he was two decades back when he was making his debut in first-class cricket. Far from stooping to gamesmanship, he was the epitome of the ‘spirit of cricket’ concept. His classic calling back of Ian Bell in England will forever remain a great lesson in sportsmanship.

Never took advantage of his position. Never promoted players of his choice. He respected the selectors and allowed them to do their job. Never got involved with any publicity stunts. Never bothered to get into conflicts and controversies. Detested sledging and avoided verbal duels. Never resorted to any one-upmanship.

His persona was and still is such that people consider him to be the leader, whether he is formally leading the team or not. A unique leader, if ever there was one.

 

     

       Sad fate of BB Nimbalkar

Last month we had discussed the sacrifice and the magnanimity of three Indian cricketers who belonged to royal families. Today we shall have a close at another one belonging to the other extreme.

The small territory of Kathiawar based in the western part of India in the Gujarat peninsula had a ruler whose heart was as small as the land he governed. He was known as the Takore Sahab of Rajkot, Pradumansinhji.

Kathiawar was included among the teams for the Ranji Trophy championship in the season 1948-49. The Kathiawar cricket team travelled to Poona to play against the might of Maharashtra at the Poona Gymkhana ground, which was well-known to be an ideal surface for batsmen. Bowlers rarely got any assistance from the pitch.

Winning the toss, the Kathiawar captain Pradumansinhji decided to take the first strike. Kathiawar scored a decent total of 236, which included a dashing 77 by the skipper.

When Maharashtra came to bat one could feel the difference in strength and strategy between the two teams. While the Kathiawaris appeared disoriented and the leadership hesitant, Maharashtra adopted the no-nonsense approach as exemplified by their mentor-captain-guru combined, Prof Deodhar.

The two openers, MR Rege and Kamal Bhandarkar attacked from the beginning and raced to 81 when Rege left. Now, the prolific Ranji Trophy run-getter BB Nimbalkar appeared on the scene with his trademark handkerchief around his neck.

Bhandarkar and Nimbalkar added a record score of 455 runs for the 2^nd wicket in just 300 minutes. After Bhandarkar (205) left, Bhao Sahab Nimbalkar continued with his judicious stroke-play. When Nimbalkar’s individual score had reached 443, the Kathiawar captain decided that they would concede the match!

Nimbalkar was on 443 just 9 runs short of Don Bradman’s the then world record of 452. It was a most unsportsmanlike decision on the part of the Kathiawar captain, Pradumansinhji, who happened to be a distant relative of Ranjitsinhji.

Nimbalkar was denied a world record by his own countryman. It appears that so enamoured was Pradumansinhji by the supposed ‘superiority’ of white-skinned people that he did not want a fellow Indian to overhaul the white man’s achievement.

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PG Wodehouse and Cricket             

The creator of ‘Jeeves’ was an ardent cricket fan. This might not be a surprise considering that Wodehouse was an Englishman and was up at Dulwich College, an English public school, at the turn of the 19^th century.

But the link between England’s arguably greatest comic writer and England’s national passion runs much closer than that. PGW actually appeared in flannels no less than six times at the Lord’s cricket ground. In fact, his first captain at the cricketing Mecca was none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse was knighted in 1975, long overdue at the age of 93. He died just 45 days later. Perhaps the comical irony of the situation overpowered him. He adored the game just as he adorned literature. He needed no title. The burden of the award literally took away the simple pleasures of life that he loved and treasured.

PGW gave birth to Jeeves, the patron saint of all butlers in English literature. The name ‘Jeeves’ he pilfered from that of a Warwickshire county cricketer, who had lost his life at war in 1916 in France. However Wodehouse, typical of his whimsicality, always maintained that he saw Jeeves playing for Gloucestershire!

He played regularly for Dulwich College as a medium pacer. He once observed that while he began with the new ball, from the other end bowled Knox, the future Test cricketer. And then in his self-deprecating style added, “Yes, Knox was 10 at the time.” Actually, Wodehouse was 18 and Knox 15.

Later even when he had settled in USA, his attention was never diverted from his juvenile passion. He kept in touch with cricket, particularly English university and county cricket, through journals and newspapers and the books that John Arlott, the doyen of cricket commentators, would send him.

References to cricket were regularly seen in his writings. But a touch ironical was his utterance in an interview to BBC in 1975 where he mentioned that he preferred baseball to cricket! Was this a typical wodehousian sense of dry humour? Or, was it for real?  This could not have been his actual feelings. For PGW was totally engrossed with cricket. So much so that even in USA he was a regular at the cricket meets at the Hollywood Cricket Club in Hollywood where famous actors such as Charles Aubrey Smith (former England Test cricketer) and Boris Karloff dominated and entertained.

However, when asked why did he prefer baseball to cricket, PGW answered that at cricket you may go to the ground and find your favourite team fielding the whole day, whereas at baseball you are certain to see them perform and get an immediate result as well.

Nevertheless for a man with such deep-roots in traditional cricket, it is difficult to digest that he actually thought the shorter version was more to his liking. If this be really his actual view of cricket, then most surely he would have welcomed Twenty 20 cricket with open arms.

In Hollywood in the mid-thirties he enjoyed his conversations with Gubby Allen, the then England captain, particularly about the exploits of Larwood and Jardine in the ‘bodyline’ series of 1932-33. Wodehouse did not come in touch with Bradman who had spent his honeymoon playing 4 one-day matches in Hollywood with Arthur Mailey’s team in August 1932. Most unfortunately, Wodehouse was not present in any of the fixtures and so two of the greatest entertainers never did come face to face.

Cricket and literature have always been bedfellows: subtlety and grace, form and content influenced one another. The leisurely pattern of the game attracted the poet and the novelist. The apparel and the manner of the players gave cricket an elevated position in the eyes of the sensitive writers. In cricket, they found courage and character; fortitude and intelligence; modesty and charm. The twists and the turns of the long drawn affair developed a special affinity towards cricket.

Wodehouse’s prolific work contained numerous references to cricket, its technicalities, its tactics. Decades before his death when one-day cricket and run-restrictive bowling were not in fashion, the highly knowledgeable Wodehouse mentioned, “... six yorkers per over and can’t be scored off.” Even today, with T20 matches proliferating, not many coaches realize the importance of this tactical acumen.

Wodehouse has written on cricket with deep interest, wide knowledge and ardent feelings. Revealing a distinctive style of his own: the laid back approach of a sensitive, enquiring, observant mind. No sensationalism clouded his vision; no excitement rattled his composure. He was always his own man. An elegant writer of fluid style. His wit is typically dry British humour, but with a dash of originality that elevates him beyond the realms of the humourous story-tellers.

In 1941 he was in an internment camp in Upper Silesia. At the time he was 59, but the love for cricket still raged. Wodehouse surprised his guards and other inmates as he turned his arm to bowl slow leg spin. His batting never really flowered. He said that he was very consistent with zero as his favourite score! He further added, “I would have made a century if the boundaries had been closer.”