MEMORIES OF CRICKET IN JAIPUR

 

The lockdown may have eased but the government advice of ‘Stay Home’ for 65+ remains. This provides plenty of time for an old fogey to dig into archives and refresh old memories. With the cricketing season on and India acquitting valiantly to save the Sydney test against Australia, I found a piece I had written 25 years ago which I thought deserved a revival.

On 04 March 1996, I happened to be in Jaipur when West Indies was playing Australia in a World Cup group match. A dear friend and fellow member of St Xavier’s Cricket team in our schooldays, Yadu Sahai, and I went to watch the match. Yadu was then the Director City Palace Museum and very knowledgable on the history of Jaipur. During the match, he educated me a lot on the Cricket aspect of it.

The first record of a Cricket match in Jaipur dates back to 01 March 1821, well before the city became ‘pink’. A match was played at what was then Maji Ka Bagh, where now stands Sujan Raj Mahal Palace Hotel. The teams included Capt J Stewart, the resident British doctor, British officers and various ADCs. “A few native khidmatgars were posted in the deep to retrieve the ball”. High tea after the match was provided by Mrs Stewart on the Sahen Ka Chabutra, opposite the ancient baradari which the Maharaja had converted into a bedroom.

Cricket remained confined to the ‘gora sahibs’ till the great famine of 1867 when the sport-loving Maharaja Sawai Ram Singh II embarked on a massive relief programme with Major Swinton Jacob, Chief Engineer of Jeypore (the British spelling of the name of the city) Public Works Department.

This gave birth to the famous Ram Niwas Gardens which included cricket and football fields, croquet grounds and a gymnasium. A Jeypore Cricket Club, one of the oldest in India, was founded in 1873 and a clubhouse-cum-pavilion built in 1875, the walls of which were adorned with records of notable performances by local boys. 

Cricket equipment was imported from Henry S. King and Co., 65 Sornhill and 45 Pall Mall, London, and consisted of ‘Patent or Single re-percussive cane handle bats which would not jar the hand or break in the handle, has a beautiful spring and will drive the ball much farther than any other bat made, superior cricket stumps, tubular India rubber gloves and leg guards, stuffed with the best cotton for the batsmen, wicket-keeping gauntlets made from the very best white buckskin and yellow doe leather, and best match balls for a mere seven and a half shillings’.

The first international team to come to Jaipur was the Silver Jubilee Overseas Cricket team (SJOC) on a tour to India on the invitation of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) celebrating its silver jubilee. The persistent efforts of Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II, who was then the Rajpramukh of Rajasthan, resulted in Jaipur being included in the itinerary. The match was played on the lush polo ground of the Jaipur Club with the greenest grass I have ever seen. On a visit to Jaipur just a few years later after I had joined the NDA, I went on a search to feast my eyes on the verdant grass only to find that it had given way to a concrete, unimaginative housing colony! 

The SJOC was drawn from Commonwealth countries and included famous players like Frank Worrell, Sonny Ramadhin and Roy Marshall from West Indies, Sam Loxton from Australia and Peter Loader and Reg Simpson from England. Our team was named Rajpramukh XI and had a few Maharajas and members of royal families but more importantly, some of our cricket idols like Vijay Hazare, Vinoo Mankad and Polly Umrigar. 

Imagine our surprise when due to the influence of our well-connected cricket coach, Father Mackessack, the three great Indians came to our school ground for practice and even asked us to bowl to them. It was a delight to see from close quarters the cover drives of Hazare and the legside glances of Umrigar. For once we didn’t mind chasing balls all the way to the boundary or, when invited to bat, getting bowled by the vicious spin of Mankad. But the icing on the cake was provided by our very own pacer Shamsher Khan clean bowling Mankad!

On the appointed day, Yadu Sahai, Krishen Bhargava and I went to watch the match. Security was negligible at that time when compared to the fortress-like atmosphere of present times and there were just a few policemen stopping us from getting close to the players. However, we observed that photograhers were being allowed to do their job. A strategy was planned to overcome this hurdle. Rummaging through junk in his attic at home, Krishen found and brought a camera branded Donald Duck, one generation after the first pin-hole one! On the second day as the players went to and from the pavilion, Krishen, holding aloft his camera, charged to photograph the players while Yadu and I slipped past to get their autographs. Needless to say, the camera would have yielded no photos even if it had a film!

Right upto late 1960s, Jaipur had no proper cricket stadium. A lot of matches including Ranji Trophy ones were played at the Maharaja’s College grounds just a stone’s throw from our home. The Rajasthan team of the 60s was very strong and repeatedly reached the Ranji finals where, sadly, it could not conquer the mighty Bombay. If I was in Jaipur during a match, I would walk up to the College and watch Rajasthan greats like Hanumant Singh, Salim Durrani, Raj Singh Dungarpur and Kailash Gattani. Even Vinoo Mankad, Vijay Manjrekar and Subhash Gupte played for Rajasthan off and on.  

On one occasion, I was on leave when Bombay was playing a Ranji Trophy match with Rajasthan in Jaipur. A schoolmate, an ardent fan and a proficient cricketer himself, Vinode Pareek, who was then working for Indian Oil in Bombay, was also in town. He was friendly with a number of Bombay players and invited them for a drink in the staff quarters at St. Xavier’s. He was kind enough to think of me too and I cherish the memory of splitting beer with Farokh Engineer and other Bombay players. 

It was again Maharaja Sawai Man Singh who decided to correct the deficiency of a cricket stadium in Jaipur. He donated land opposite the Rambagh Palace and got Pandit Nehru to lay the foundation stone for a stadium in 1963. Finally Jaipur had a cricketing venue of modern design with the picturesque Moti Dungri fort keeping a watchful eye over it from one end. Since then, the stadium has regularly hosted international fixtures including World Cup One Day Internationals and Day and Night T-2Os. Perhaps the most famous match was the February 1987 Test between India and Pakistan with the latter’s President General Zia-Ul-Haq flying to Jaipur to watch it. 

To the credit of the administrators, improvements and additions have been constantly made to keep the stadium updated. For the March 1996 ODI, two giant scoreboards were installed just in time.

The match was keenly contested. Ricky Ponting scored a century but impressive fast bowling by Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh kept Australia in check. A cool, calm and well-paced partnership between Richie Richardson and Brian Lara helped the Windies to a comfortable win and kept them going in the World Cup.

That match was played exactly 175 years after the first recorded match in Jaipur.

Now it is 200 years!

I remember:

Playing solo cricket at the age of 8-9 in our Bharatpur house courtyard by bouncing a tennis ball on a wall and batting on the rebound.

In a match between two neighbourhood teams, Seniors v/s Juniors, Vinode Pareek, Captain of the Seniors, struck a ball with full force. Fielding at deep mid-on for the Juniors, I saw the ball flying low to the boundary and instinctively extended my hand towards the ball. Amazingly, the ball stuck to my palm and Vinode was out. We had got their star player and went on to win the match. The hand hurt a lot though and I can still feel the sting even as I write this! 

In an intra-school match at St. Xavier’s, I was captaining one side. I had the pretense of being a batsman and seldom bowled. On a hunch, I opened the bowling for my side. I must have surprised the batsmen for I got two wickets in the maiden over. I knew I should not push my luck and brought on the regular bowlers. The opposing side never recovered from the early shock and lost the match.

Our School team was invited by officials of a cement factory in Lakheri, a small town between Kota and Sawai Madhopur. Batting at number five, the first ball I faced was a flighted one and I charged down the pitch and missed it completely. As I turned to regain the crease, the wicket-keeper whipped off the bails. The Umpire, who in such matches was usually from the batting side, started raising his finger but quickly brought his hand down dismissing the appeal. I regained my composure and went on to score useful runs and we won the match. The Lakheri side muttered complaints during the lunch that followed but as Diego Maradona said, it was the ‘hand of God’, or perhaps ‘the moving finger’ in this case, that prevailed.

In the NDA, I often indulged in book cricket during boring academic classes. I was never caught as to the teacher, it would appear as if I was making copious notes.

Not being a bowler or an extraordinary batsman, I started keeping wickets in order to secure my place in a team. While doing the Gunnery Course as Sub Lts, I was performing that task when with my right thumb sticking out of a torn glove. I was hit by a ball and fractured my thumb. I felt I was not in a position to continue and consulted our Course Officer who agreed. I had to come back to Cochin next year to do it with the 16th Course but at that time, it gave me wicked pleasure to see my coursemates running around parading and sweating while I sat in the classroom reading a novel and relaxing!

Shortly after that, for about 25 years I played no cricket apart from occasionally joining Ruchir and Shumita and some neighbours’ kids on the lawns of Chatsworth Court, our house in Singapore. In 1987, a match was scheduled between Commonwealth diplomats and a Singapore XI at the Singapore Cricket Club. Despite the long hiatus and my nearing 50 years, I volunteered to keep wickets for the diplomats' side. I would have thought twice if I had known that our side would consist of a few pace bowlers of English County standard. But it was too late and I had to face the music or more appropriately, the fast swinging red sphere. In the event, I did not fare too badly. The Tiger beer that followed never tasted sweeter.