 The men behind the scene
P R Man Singh was perhaps the first cricket administrator I met in Hyderabad, and that was through my late friend P Krishnamurti's offices. He had suggested my name to Man as a possible inclusion in his Hindustan Breweries XI taking part in the Moin-ud-Dowla Gold Cup in 1973-74, if I remember right. I played in the tournament, going from being an unknown league player to someone the selectors started watching out for within a fortnight, but not before the State Bank captain Hanumant Singh snatched me from the Breweries team to play for the bank.
My meeting with Man had been brief and I never really got to know him till years later when I was already a Ranji Trophy player. He was a good host on the rare occasion we cricketers visited him at home; normally you were summoned to his shop, Ram Singh Agarwal and Sons, where he sold spirits as a dealer. Usually, the conversation was brief and to the point. It could be: Were you available to tour Australia (or it could be the West Indies or the USA and Canada or the UK) with the Hyderabad Blues? Occasionally, there would be the subtly probing question to gauge the general mood in the cricketing community towards the cricket association of which he was the secretary. Of course, Man soon realised it was a waste of time asking me such questions as I was a total ignoramus in such matters. In the long run, I came to respect this man who has devoted a lifetime to cricket.
In time I was to make the acquaintance of a few more officials who served cricket in Hyderabad either as committee members or lent their services as selectors or managers. S R Mehta was probably the oldest of them in the 1970s. He had been an all-rounder in the thirties and forties, a member of the first Hyderabad team to win the Ranji Trophy. It was my misfortune or at least my embarrassment to replace his son Noshir in the state team. It hadn't been easily achieved but it did happen during Mehta's chairmanship of the selection committee and we had the most cordial relationship, he, very much the father figure. The rather flamboyant Dastagir Quereshi and the genial Durga Prasad, both of them good cricketers in their time, were a couple of other selectors, with whom it was a pleasure to talk cricket.
That gentle giant, Ghulam Ahmed was, of course, the elder statesman of Hyderabad cricket, and I learnt soon enough into my first-class career that he had taken a liking to my cricket. He was chairman of the South Zone selection committee when I was included in the zonal squad for the first time - as the third off-spinner after Prasanna and Venkataraghavan! He let us down somewhat when we players were involved in a standoff against the administration and he went back on his promise of neutrality and fairness, preferring the status quo to justice as we saw it. Yet, he was a towering figure in Hyderabad cricket, and his stature was in no way diminished by what happened on that unhappy day. The details of that incident have been briefly mentioned elsewhere in this series
('The tracksuit
episode') but I may never tell the whole story of the most exciting (mis)adventure Hyderabad's cricketers ever experienced, because I was the one victim of that episode to lose out, and it is never easy to talk about your own personal losses.
There were several other dedicated cricket administrators big and small, who made it possible for us players to go and enjoy the game - Shamlal, Shaam Rao, 'Major' Ranganatha Rao, Dr Rammohan Rao, Ranga Reddy, and so many more. Each of them had a personal agenda no doubt, no one serves cricket entirely selflessly, but their love of the game was genuine, and though you did not agree with them every time, you doffed your cap to them for the time they spent and effort they put in beyond the boundary line. They also served!
V Ramnarayan
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