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Talking about cricket. This article is the result of a question Lochan unsuspectingly and totally innocently asked me in that thread about ‘spilling the beans’. "Talking about cricket. What did you specialize in Robin?" - Lochan The only thing I consciously specialized in at MH was swimming. I got into the first XI cricket team by default. When I came back for HSC - I was suddenly 5' 9", about 150lbs and 16 years old. Plus - I could bowl a consistently good length medium-pace ball at the off stump, had a leg-break that I could pitch in an awkward spot, batted with a straight bat and was able to get my body behind the ball while fielding. Most importantly, however, they needed an eleventh player – that awkward spot right in the middle – not quite a batsman – not quite a bowler – not quite a fielder . . . That's about it . . . but it seemed to be enough to get me into the team. That and the fact that I showed up for practice everyday! Here are a couple of the ‘highlights’ of my cricketing career at MH. At one of the games we played against the NP 1st XI, their opening-bowler, Baab [sp?] Kesang had come in to bat low in their batting order and was slogging our best attack [Sherab Namgyal, Miti Adhikari, Arjun Jhangiani – wooops! Can I mention names?] to all corners of the field. Actually, he was hitting mostly to the leg side – around square leg – except for the occasional mis-hit that went flying over the slip fielders’ heads for 4 to the surprise of everyone including the batsman. Boundary after boundary – ‘volleyed and thundered . . .’, if you know what I mean. As this was at the NP ground - you can imagine how the NP Khud-Side was erupting with each blow to the boundary by this tail-ender . . . In desperation - Sherab beckoned at me. As I approached him . . . I could see the hesitation & doubt in his demeanour . . . I could read his thoughts, 'Has it come to THIS? I have to ask TALAY to bowl?'. In fairness to Sherab, I should confess. Early in the NP innings I had been fielding at Backward Point & Long On in alternate overs. As usual, it looked very much like John Taylor was getting well settled. Where he had had a few tentative moments early in the innings, he was now beginning to look menacingly confident. After a few overs of relative inaction [i.e. no ball was hit in my direction], my mind began to wander to the fine time I had had over the winter vacation at Gopalpur-on-Sea in Orissa. What a vacation!! That ‘Bay of Bengal Blue’ is still burned in my brain today. The waves had been perfect for some exhilirating body-surfing. The hot sand & warm temperatures at the beach had made the cool water ‘bracing’. I could almost taste the fresh crab, lobster, shrimp, betki & sardines that it had been our delight to eat every day. I stopped following the game. It was at this point, when I was fielding at backward point . . . but drifting far away on the waves of my memory . . . that I suddenly heard the whole world shouting, “Robin!!!! Catch that!!!!” My heart skipped . . . no . . . jumped . . . in my rib-cage. I looked up and in a flash saw: John Taylor frozen at the crease where he had just cut one uppishly straight at me, Sonam – our Wicket-Keeper – with his hands up in the air Arjun caught in mid-step in his follow-through Sherab at first slip – pointing at . . . THE BALL!!! . . . which was on its way to the middle of my forehead!!!! Reflexively [is that a word?? It sounds like a word!] my hithertofore [is THAT a word??? Good grief!!! Where are all these WORDS coming from?] idle hands galvanized themselves into action – I promise I had nothing to do with it – they just moved upwards. Before I knew what had happened, the ball had hit the palms of my hands – the thumbs interlocked and fingers crossed, pointing diagonally upwards in classic, Text-Book fashion in front of my face. I watched that ball all the way from about halfway between the batsman and me [about 20 yards] till it hit my hands . . .. When I looked up, ten fielders, two batsmen and two inscrutable umpires were looking at me. Only the batsmen were smiling. I couldn’t blame Sherab for being reluctant to give me the ball. However, he was shrewd enough to know that desperate times called for desperate measures and he couldn’t let Baab keep hitting without trying something new. After a long, hard look at me - followed by a long hard look at everyone else on the team, including Sonam Wangdi our wicket-keeper, he tossed the ball to me – looking for all the world as if he hated himself for doing it – and said . . . 'Get him out.' I think he included the word ‘him’ in that command out of courtesy and some crazy idea that cricket is a gentleman’s game or something. I should have felt at least a little slighted at his attitude . . . but I was so thrilled at having the ball in my hand that I forgot to be offended. I should have been nervous about bowling that over but I was just too excited to think of what would happen if I got hit for 36 runs. Here’s how I looked at it. My mind had been meandering in the outfield where Sherab had been trying to hide me from the onslaught. I had been getting bored ‘shiftless’ and now I was actually getting to play. After the first four balls missing the tip of his off stump by millimeters and Sherab saying after each delivery, “Pitch it up. Pitch it up.” [how do you tell your captain that you don’t know what ‘pitch it up’ means?] I finally got the guy out on the fifth ball!! I sent his off stump cartwheeling [not really – but it sounds good – no? :) ]. My last ball of that over almost got out the next batsman to come in [dropped catch!!!! My payment for dropping John Taylor, I guess]. A fine over by Robin – if he says so himself. Maiden | Wicket | Dropped-Catch . . . Even Bhuntay [our esteemed and revered Principal – along with Benu Chatterjee [MH - 1961] & Mr. Lahiri of St. Paul’s Darjeeling – one of the best cricketers I'd played with or against] shouted a good word at me from the main road – where he had been watching from the school Jeep After the next over, [which Sherab bowled now that Baab the Destroyer had been demolished by Robin the Ruthless], there I was walking up towards the bowlers spot when I realized that he had given the ball to Miti Adhikari. Talk about “SECONDED”!!!! I even asked him, “What – you’re not going to give me another over?”, with my jaw dropped as low as it could and a look of pained betrayal flooding my eyes. It didn’t work. “Go field at backward square leg.”, was his mollifying [NOT!!!] instruction to me. Well . . . I never. If that was Sherab’s idea of gentlemanly . . . Still – I had got the guy out who had been hitting all the ‘heroes’ to the boundary! I said that to myself like a mantra till I started feeling better. Second over or no second over – I still felt like a cricketer again. I looked every other fielder confidently in the eye. I even shouted the occasional, “Good ball!” and, “Well fielded!”. I felt even better when when another slogger who was beginning to wreak havoc – I remember his face, he was also a fast bowler, but I forget his name – hooked one that I had to run about 15 yards and catch on the boundary. Now for that one I actually got some good words from the skipper and the other players. **************************** Early the next year, NP had come to play us at MH. I went in to bat 6-down. The field closed in. I had 5 fielders & the ‘wickie’ breathing down my neck sensing easy prey. Mr. Daniels was the Umpire from our school & held his hand out till I was well ready - then gave me an encouraging wink as this Italian guy, Marini, started his run-up from the fence at the Fern Hill end of the field. In the half an hour that it took him to get to the crease & deliver the ball - the close fielders - especially Cowper the brilliant English NP Wicket-Keeper – was making these comments about how dangerous a bowler Marini was when he took that long run-up and how he was probably going to bowl a bouncer . . . no . . . a yorker . . . or a beamer – ‘head-breaker’, I think, is what they called it . . . As it happened - Marini bowled an over-pitched one outside the off-stump. CRACK!!! That was one of the two shots I could play. I could play it in my sleep. Off-drive - right off the meat of the bat - right between the legs of a jumping silly-mid-off who looked like a ballerina in 'Prancing Monkey . . . '. Wait . . . I'm thinking of 'Crouching Tiger . . .' – that’s not a ballet . . . well . . . not STRICTLY speaking at least, though some of those fight sequences are poetic in their beauty . . . Anyway - 4 runs - silly-mid-on moves back a few paces - a hint of embarassment clouding his countenance . . . Marini starts his marathon run-up and sends down a blistering delivery - over-pitched & outside the off stump. Same spot. WHAAACK!! Off the meat of the bat. First bounce in the exact spot where prancing monkey's right big-toe had been a second ago at not-so-silly-mid-off . . . GONE!!!! Smacking into the low, concrete fence just above Mrs. Rongong's house . . . Muttered curses from Cowper behind the stumps . . . '^%$#^% - they send a straight bat in at 6-down !@^#$*!@&#^" . . . are drowned by wild cheering from the Gym . . . 8 runs – two balls. In acknowledgement of my my growing confidence, I reached down and adjusted my abdominal [box] guard. I now ventured for the first time to take a slow turn to look the leg-side close fielders squarely in the eyes as if to say, “If you think those two were well-hit . . . pray that he doesn’t bowl one down the leg side.” Things got quiet on the field as a visibly rattled Marini began his Odyssey from the fence. For the first time that day, he looked good to me. I could see that the long run-up was taking its toll. But he couldn’t abandon it because it was supposed to be his big weapon. When he let that ball out of his hand I smiled inwardly at what I was seeing – a third one in the exact same spot. CRAAACKK!!! Not quite off the meat of the bat, but still enough ‘juice’ on it to prompt another nifty pirouette at mid-off. He was beginning to look positively graceful by now. I could almost see the tutu over his whites. The wild cheering from the gym was incremented by a hundred screaming girls’ voices from the Girls’ Dorms. It was an ovation to hear. It was a sight to see. All across the top of Main Building – girls were leaning out of their windows yelling, “Talay! Talay! Talay!” My heart swelled with pride. From behind the stumps, a bemused Cowper asked B.G. Kar, the absolutely brilliant fielder at short square-leg, “Talay???? . . . What’s ‘Talay’????” John Taylor [the NP Captain and as fine a cricketer as I have seen weild the willow] at first slip said, in his usual understated manner, “Baldy . . . Liar.” I somehow connected the short, rising delivery Marini sent down next and got a four over an outstretched B.G. Kar . . . and then cut a short one outside the off-stump past gully for four to end the over that had started out so well for Marini with 20 runs to my name. The rest of the game is pretty much lost in the haze of time – but unlike Ved Prakash, I prefer not to have anyone “shake the dates” off the palm-tree of my memory! We did win that game – that much I DO remember. This episode has a moral: never believe what an English wicket-keeper says about an Italian fast-bowler. Footnote 1: These memories are not to be construed in any way as boastful. I refer the reader back to my opening statement, “I got into the first XI cricket team by default.” I had a couple of good games. That’s about it. No centuries, no hat-tricks, no diving catches at first-slip, no brilliant captaincy. Footnote 2: Some parts of the above narration were added strictly to add spice – also known as ‘masala’ – and references to a hundred girls leaning out of the Main Building girls’ dorm windows shouting, “Talay! Talay! Talay!” should be taken with a pinch of salt. After all . . . ‘Talay’! By : Robin Sengupta Graduated : 1971/1973 Date : 22/8/2003 10:49 |
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