 The Little Master
The first time I played for Hyderabad against Karnataka, we yielded a first innings total of 462 for 8 declared after getting through the top half of the batting order for under 150, including the scalps of the great G R Viswanath and the brilliant Brijesh Patel cheaply. It was a proud moment for me to have Vishy caught at short leg by Jyotiprasad a ball after he had extra-cover driven me for four. Tiger Pataudi had run up to me and said, “Stop experimenting and bowl properly.” And as if on cue, the next delivery landed on the perfect spot and fizzed and turned. I was sure it was divine intervention, because I had been upset by Tiger’s remark — it was just a great shot by a great batsman. I was the last bowler to experiment at a time like that — and would have been happy to have Viswanath block that ball quietly, instead of which he gave me the huge bonus of his wicket.
But soon, we found out that God was angry with Hyderabad that day, particularly with me, for some past sin. There was a talented young batsman in the Karnataka XI called Sudhakar Rao who was making his debut that season along with a couple of others like Roger Binny and myself (for Hyderabad). He looked a compact little player with a neat array of strokes, but more important than all that, he had that phenomenal quality called luck in ample measure. In addition to surviving chances and half chances, he was out on five different occasions before he reached 50, only to be reprieved every time by the umpire. I happened to be the bowler each time. The errors were so obvious that the correspondent of The Hindu, N Ganesan, actually mentioned each bad decision in his report the next morning. The net result of the gods smiling on Sudhakar Rao and frowning on me was that he made 200 and got selected to tour the West Indies later that season with the Indian team, and I, ending up with figures of 2 for 125, missed getting into the South Zone playing eleven, my other performances that season notwithstanding.
Unfortunately, that is how cricket, and indeed life, pan out often, and you learn to grin and bear it. I came away with my head high and spirits soaring at the end of the first day’s play when GRV walked up to me, tapped me on my shoulder and said, “That was a good ball.” Sometimes the most fulsome praise is delivered with the most modest words. Vishy’s appreciative look said it all for me. That compliment and another from him next year when I got him out for 67 brilliant runs, I have treasured all my life.
That second time I dismissed Vishy, he played a gem of an innings. He drove our medium pacers repeatedly through midwicket when they bowled outswingers with three slips and a gully. One by one, the slips kept disappearing into the onside to stop the flow of runs. Unfortunately for us, he started gliding the same deliveries past third man by dropping his wrists in the very last moment, after initially pretending to play them to midwicket. Anyone who has seen GRV at his peak will remember that on such occasions, he would actually give the impression of looking towards midwicket while waving his magic wand of a bat at the ball to send it speeding down the off side. To me, and many of my contemporaries, he was The Little Master.
V Ramnarayan
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