 A team of underachievers
Tamil Nadu have just received a hiding to nowhere from Maharashtra in the Ranji Trophy, much to the disappointment of their supporters. It is all the more frustrating because there is so much talent in the state. Obviously, it is not being channelised to a unified purpose. For years, many of us have felt that the team spirit is conspicuous by its absence here and it is difficult to believe that that has changed, given the apparent lack of direction in the team’s latest outing.
It is a huge pity that the state continues to
under perform, as the facilities in Chennai are the best in the country, with a number of Test class grounds with turf wickets, coaching, gyms, the works. Today, we have grounds at IIT, Central Polytechnic, Guru Nanak College, Vivekananda College, Pachaiyappa’s College, YMCA Nandanam, Southern Railway and Ramachandra Medical College, where our youngsters get to practise in conditions similar to those obtaining in first class cricket.
Just compare this to the conditions that prevailed in the sixties. There was only one ground with a turf wicket and that was Chepauk, where you got to play one match a year against MCC, if you happened to be in the first division. Of course, there was another such ground at Madras Christian College, Tambaram, but noone ever played there unless they happened to represnet a college team in the same division as MCC. Some of the best matting wickets were at Marina, University Union and Loyola College. The Engineering College wicket was a fiery one and some of the other grounds where we played were rather primitive. Especially, if you were in the lower divisions, you often had to travel to Washermanpet or Ambattur to play league matches. The travel could be tiring but the love of the game carried you through.
A great experience we all looked forward to was the Jain College Gold Cup tournament. You went to Mambalam and caught a train to Meenambakkam and walked the distance from there to the Jain College ground. It was a popular tournament and there would be hundreds of spectators watching the game, surely skipping classes and getting into trouble with their lecturers.
As I said before the facilities were rather basic. The shoes you wore were museum pieces, neither attractive looking nor functionally efficient. It is a miracle that we did not suffer stress fractures the way contemporary cricketers do. Lunch was not even served at the ground. We had to dash out and dash in during the 40-minute break, hoping and praying we would not bre late.
I remember one match at the Pithapuram ground at Nandanam, when my colleaue V J Raghunath and I were injured in a road accident on the way back from lunch and had to face the wrath of our captain Don Rangan for being late. There were no mineral water or soft drink available to quench your thirst. You had to make do with whatever came in a rusty bucket or in a mudpot into which many hands were dipped along with aluminium cups or tumblers. Imagine the ride back by bus or train after a hard day’s cricket under the Madras sun.
This is not a ‘those were the days’ lament. I do not envy our youngsters the facilities and benefits they enjoy. They deserve them and that is the way to promote cricket. My only complaint is that there seems to be little awareness that cricket is a team game. Otherwise, why would so many Tamil Nadu stars repeatedly underachieve at crucial junctures in the Ranji Trophy? Whatever happens to all the days and months of toil by the time our boys step out of home soil to compete with other states? Why is the team composition so unsettled that we have had a different eleven for every match over the last few seasons? Is there method in all this madness?
V Ramnarayan
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