 A time for nostalgia
Cricket, especially of the domestic variety, was a relatively simple affair 40 years ago. It was in that respect no different from most things in life. Harking back to the sixties and league cricket as it was played in the Madras of that decade, it is easy to see how the game has evolved since then, especially in its trappings, in the facilities players enjoy, the length of the matches. The crowds that came to watch those matches back then were quite sizable, sometimes running into thousands, unlike today’s games which are often watched by the proverbial two men and a dog, and maybe one of the players’ wife, girlfriend or parent.
So it was, that simple and uncomplicated as it was, league cricket of yesteryear was glamorous! The players enjoyed huge fan following, even if they came to the ground in their whites on a bicycle or scooter, with their shoes carried in a small Air India attaché case, while today any self-respecting league cricketer will be ashamed to arrive in a Maruti 800, for besides being so boringly pleb, it can hardly hold his huge ‘coffin’ and other paraphernalia. I have heard that M J Gopalan, the double international, would dismount from his bicycle at Chepauk after his day’s work inspecting the petrol levels of the city’s many Burmah Shell pumps, to the accompaniment of the crowd’s roar of ‘Gopala, Gopala’ and go straight to the middle to join his hockey team at the ‘bully’. Though, I never saw that spectacle, I have been witness to one of the most charismatic batsmen Madras has produced, K R Rajagopal, Raja to everyone, hitching a pillion ride from my cousin P S Narayanan on his Lambretta, with his shoes rolled in an old newspaper, and nary a care in the world about his appearance, only to go into the ground and score a brilliant hundred.
It was nice to catch up with Raja recently at the wedding of the son of one of his old teammates, K Bharadwaj. At the reception were a galaxy of former cricketers, but Raja was easily the star of the show, though he continues to be as simple and unaffected as ever. It was an emotional moment for many of us present, and that included Narayanan, A K Vijayaraghavan, N A Sivaraman, the brothers S Veeraraghavan and S Venkataraghavan, P K Dharmalingam, V Sivaramakrishnan, V Raghu, B Kalyanasundaram, and many others.
For N Sankar, the chairman of the Sanmar Group, who was also present, it was a moment of nostalgia, as some of these had been part of the star-studded Jolly Rovers team supported by his family for nearly 40 years now. Raja seemed quite thrilled to renew contact with his boss’ son — that is what Sankar had been when Raja played for Jolly Rovers — and regaled all of us with stories of his playing days and his interactions with K S Narayanan, Sankar’s father and managing director of The India Cements Ltd, which sponsored Jolly Rovers in the sixties.
To understand how cricket back then was different, listen to this story related by Rajagopal. He was to open the innings for Madras in a Ranji Trophy match against Hyderabad with Belliappa, his Jolly Rovers and state captain, due to start at Madras, but was unsure whether he would be relieved from his official duties as an engineer working at the India Cements foundry operated at distant Nandambakkam. Came the morning of the match, and he was right in the thick of action at the foundry, having been there all night, his German boss showing no understanding of the importance of the match to him or sympathy for his plight.
It was only a chance visit by the MD to the foundry that enabled Raja to make it to the ground in the nick of time. The managing director had Raja released from duty and put him in a car with instructions to the driver to deposit him at the ground in time for the start of the match. As Raja entered the ground without his cricket kit, Belliappa, on his way to the toss, had struck his name off the list, fearing he was not going to make it. He added his name back just in time for the formal exchanging of the lists of players by the two captains. Belliappa won the toss, Rajagopal opened the innings with him, in completely borrowed gear, and surprise of surprises, scored a swashbuckling hundred!
V Ramnarayan
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