 Noshir and the new ball
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V Ramnarayan
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Noshir was a very good off
spinner and a natural athlete, wiry and strong, someone who could bat and
field well too. His name was invariably misspelt as Naushir by the press and
cricket administration, and he never seemed to take the trouble to correct
them. The first time I saw him was at Chepauk, when he was playing for
Hyderabad against Madras in a Ranji Trophy match or it could have been a Buchi
Babu or state junior match at the Marina. He was, as I said, athletic and
tall, smartly dressed in perfectly creased flannels and a sleeveless cricket
sweater with dark blue stripes around the neck. It was as if he had stepped
out of a photograph in Wisden.
There was a reason why I
watched Noshir so closely. He was my rival. To put it more precisely, I was
presumptuous enough to believe I could one day rival him, even prove a better
off spinner. My misfortune as an off spinner was that I had been born a couple
of years after a certain S Venkataraghavan, who kept me out of every level of
competitive cricket, having made his Test debut at the ridiculous age of 19.
So it was, that when I came
to be a college cricketer, the door was slammed in my face when it came to
selection to the Madras University team. Even when Venkat moved on and
graduated, I still had to contend with formidable competition in the form of
the districts off spinner P Vijayaraghavan. Viji was a good bowler, talented
and intelligent, with a consistent record at the collegiate and university
level and his father R T Parthasarathi, a former Ranji Trophy cricketer, and
Member of Parliament from Salem, was the chairman of the Madras University
selection committee.
I was convinced that I was as
good as any of these rivals, but had precious little opportunity to prove so,
as I was confined to playing strictly local cricket, unable to break into
university or even state junior cricket. When I eventually did, I played under
the captaincy of another off spinner, J S Ghanshyam, who at that point, did
not quite seem to believe I belonged at that level of cricket, though he
changed his opinion over the years.
When I watched Noshir, I was
impressed. For a tall man, he did not have as high an action as you might
expect, as he delivered off a slightly round-arm action, but spun the ball
sharply, and was extremely accurate. He could go on for long spells landing
the ball with precision at an awkward length, and obtaining considerable turn
and bounce. He had an effective wrong 'un too, the ball that went straight
through or left the right hander’s bat, with no perceptible change in
action.
He was a very good lower
order batsman too, with a sound defence and the ability to hit the ball
cleanly. Yes, I was impressed by this young off spinner, but I was also
quietly confident I was a better spinner! The frustrating thing was that I
would never perhaps get a chance to show the world how good I was.
Noshir was firmly entrenched
in the Hyderabad team, not least because of his brilliant displays against
Madras, later Tamil Nadu, in the Ranji Trophy in a couple of matches I had
watched. Years later, when I moved to Hyderabad, it took me a while to
establish myself in the State Bank team in the local league, and when I did,
he was my next obstacle, as I knocked at the doors of Ranji cricket.
Incredibly, Noshir’s father
S R Mehta, a fine off spinner himself in his playing days, was the chairman of
the state selection committee! (Neither in the case of Vijayaraghavan nor
Noshir’s am I suggesting that they were in the team because of nepotism. It
is just that it must have been embarrassing for the other selectors to suggest
that either of them be replaced by me! Both Viji and Noshir are good friends
of mine, and Noshir and I spent several happy moments together playing for
Hyderabad. In fact, the senior Mehta was still chief of selectors when I was
picked for Hyderabad.)
Noshir played for State Bank
of Hyderabad for many years, and he served the team with great distinction,
but that did not prevent his teammates from pulling his leg, quite mercilessly
at times. Particularly mischievous were a pair of inseparables, John Tarachand
and Khaja. It was their theory that though he had several hundreds to his
credit for the bank, Noshir was not particularly fond of facing quick bowling.
There was this apocryphal story of Noshir joining a voluntary residents’
night patrol party in the suburb of Marredpally during a time when daring
burglaries were being carried out with regularity in different parts of the
city. “The dacoits need not carry any weapons to frighten Noshir. All they’ll
need is a new ball!” was their quite unfair barb.
V Ramnarayan
wordcraft@vsnl.com
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