 Abject surrender
It was my first season in the Ranji Trophy. Those who did not play for Hyderabad in the 1970s can never know the heady feeling belonging to that glamorous outfit could give you. It was almost as high profile a team as the Indian team, with M L Jaisimha leading the side and the other nawabs of Hyderabad cricket, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, Abbas Ali Baig and Syed Abid Ali giving it an aura quite incomparable in the annals of domestic cricket.
When we assembled at the Wankhede Stadium in January 1976, we were still euphoric from our incredible victory over Railways in the pre-quarterfinals after yielding a first innings lead of 220 runs. The day after we arrived in Bombay by train, I went to Mulund to spend the morning with a cousin and came back just in time for practice. I didn't know it then, but I was perilously close to being dropped for the match in favour of the other off spinner Noshir Mehta, though I had had a good season so far. He had been out of action ill, and the team management discussed bringing him back for this match. To make matters worse for myself, I bowled badly in the nets, tired from the long ride by suburban train to reach Wankhede. I remember Jaisimha letting me have a fusillade of harsh words when I blithely assured him I would bowl OK in the match next day.
Came the morrow, Hyderabad kept its faith in me, Bombay skipper Ashok Mankad won the toss and elected to bat, and just as I promised Jaisimha, I managed to find my rhythm straightaway when called upon to bowl after about an hour's play in the morning session. The promising Bombay University lad Vijay Mohan Raj was my first victim caught behind by Vijaya Paul deputising for P Krishnamurti, away in New Zealand with the Indian team. Left-handed Vijay Mohan Raj nicked one to the keeper and pretended he had missed the ball altogether in typical khadoos Bombay style, but luckily for me, the umpire was not fooled.
The Bombay team that day had a number of newcomers and soon I was dominating the batting despite impressive contributions from opener Sudhir Naik and skipper Mankad. Both their dismissals gave me great satisfaction. In the case of Naik, it was one of those rare dismissals resulting from a plan that actually succeeds. The beauty of it was that my captain Jaisimha and I were in perfect non-verbal communication, with the skipper slowly but steadily moving over after over into a position at midwicket where we both wanted him. We managed to lure Naik into mistiming an ondrive, the flighted delivery drawing him forward and dropping just short of where he expected it to be, and Jai was by now standing precisely where the miscued ondrive was landing.
Ashok Mankad was a master batsman in Indian conditions, against spin in particular. That I was able to get past his impeccable defence and force him to edge one to backward short leg was a matter of great satisfaction to
me. His younger brother Rahul Mankad, making his debut, charged out to the first ball I bowled to him, but the ball dipped and spun viciously to ricochet off his bat towards short leg Jyotiprasad who threw the stumps down.
Rahul was run out without attempting a run! Here was a wicket which was morally mine, at least partially, though it was Jyoti's brilliant reflex action that really dismissed him. Sandip Patil, also making his debut, was
out to the same bowler-fielder combination, again off the first ball he faced, but he was out caught by a short leg fielder in the same class as Eknath
Solkar.
When the ninth Bombay wicket fell, with seven of them falling to me, Jaisimha walked up to me and instructed me not to get the last man out! He wanted to prolong the Bombay innings to close of play so that our openers
would not have to come out to play out an awkward few overs that evening. I did not know how to bowl not to get a wicket and the aggressive tailender Abdul Ismail made merry at my expense. I was also tired from bowling more than 30 overs on the trot in hot, humid weather. Bombay were eventually all out for 222, with my bowling analysis reading 35-7-68-7. It was a proud moment for me, but the Times of India correspondent had a slightly different view of the proceedings from the general perception that we had bowled Bombay out on a perfect first day wicket. Among other things, he said I was helped by an unusual Wankhede wicket which took turn surprisingly on the first day, and that I stopped flighting the ball the moment Ismail launched into my bowling. Thus are reputations made and broken by our experts of the fourth estate!
We took a lead of 59 runs. Hyderabad had won the Moin-ud-Dowla Gold Cup that season, and I claimed in a boast to my friend Mumtaz Hussain that as I had brought the team luck, we would also win the Ranji Trophy, now that we had gained a first innings lead. "You don't know Hyderabad cricket Ram, we can
still lose this match," Mumtaz said, dampening my enthusiasm. I was really upset with this negative approach, but Mumtaz's words proved prophetic and we lost the match, thanks to a combination of negative tactics, timid
batting and total lack of self-belief. In the second innings, when Ashok Mankad launched a fierce offensive after the loss of a few early wickets, we employed medium pacers from both ends, set ultra-defensive fields, but could
not stem the flow of runs. Mankad made a glorious century and declared, leaving us just over three hours of batting. We folded up without a fight against bowling that never rose beyond the accurate. Leg spinner Rakesh
Tandon took six wickets, at least three of them with full tosses or long hops, and veteran Padmakar Shivalkar mopped up four more, to leave us losers by 70-odd runs. It was abject surrender of the worst kind. Mumtaz was right and my dreams came crashing down.
V Ramnarayan
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