Pure, simple and unadulterated pleasures of cricket

Wankhede Stadium

The tension at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai, was clearly visible on the faces of the 500 odd spectators who had gathered to watch their home side steamroll the visitors, as had been the custom for several decades. With the match appearing to slip away from the hands of the defending champions to the minnows from group C, the Mumbai captain had no option but to bring himself on for a final burst to try and break the partnership between Kedar Jadhav and Vijay Zol.

Third ball of the over, a rising delivery from Zaheer Khan, was left alone by Zol. Zaheer gave him his trademark stare. It was followed up with another rising delivery, but this time Zol got on top of it and drove it elegantly through mid-off for a boundary. Zaheer minced no words this time, hurling abuses at the young batsman, as this seemed the only way possible to make him lose his focus and throw his wicket away. An unrelenting Zaheer tried the same length again; Zol got up on his toes and pulled the ball through mid-on for another boundary, with a stamp of quiet arrogance all over it. Here was a 19-year-old, playing his first Ranji season, smashing the country’s most experienced pacer after being subject to a bout of sledging.

The vocal crowd went silent, and then all of a sudden began the applause, an acceptance of the fact that the trophy wasn’t coming home for the 41^st time and an acknowledgement to the quality of cricket that was on display from the ‘IPL booers’ of the South Mumbai. This, my friends, is the charm of India’s premier domestic cricket championship, the Ranji trophy.

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Mumbai’s loss meant that I had made the last of my umpteen visits to Wankhede for the season. The custom begins in October every year, when I frantically search through cricket websites for the Ranji fixtures of the season and plan my entire schedule around the matches in Mumbai. Matches in Mumbai are mainly played at the Wankhede Stadium in Churchgate. The crowd during the weekends comprise mainly of young kids, who rush into the stadium after completing their early morning coaching sessions at the Azad Maidan or the Oval; the regular old-timers, who narrate various stories about players and how Mumbai cricket has evolved over the years much to the delight of all the cricket fans; and the locals, who come in on hearing the news of an Indian star coming on to bat.

The sweet sound of the ball hitting the bat, the players talking to each other, the umpire’s calls and the batsman marking his guard with his spikes can be heard very clearly. The sight of a sparkling white boundary rope and the absence of oversized advertising banners and hoardings across the stadium is truly a soothing visual; this is the closest I have ever felt to watching a game of cricket. A welcome relief from all the chanting, screaming, hooting, whistling and booing that one gets to hear in an IPL game.

Every unknown fielder who comes to the boundary to field is called a ‘Raju’ or a ‘Bunty’ by the crowd in good jest and is always given a wide range of advice ranging from asking the captain to change the bowler to playing only for the Mumbai Indians in the IPL. Most of these players respond with a smile and even pass on the fruit juices meant for the players to the kids in the stands, something which will bring a smile to your face no matter how many times you see this.

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The West Zone matches in Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy, the domestic T20 tournament, were to be played in Mumbai and with domestic cricket returning to Mumbai after three long months, which comprised of the Irani trophy, the Vijay Hazare trophy and the Deodhar trophy, in conjunction with the BCCI Corporate trophy and the Red Bull inter-college tournament, another visit to the Wankhede beckoned.

The stands at the Wankhede

The T20 World Cup was in progress in Bangladesh, and, with India going from strength to strength, nobody seemed to know or even care about the domestic tourney. Mumbai was taking on Baroda, and the match featured a host of Indian stars such as Zaheer Khan, Munaf Patel and the Pathan brothers. A well known ‘expert’ on a news channel, a day earlier, had said that Irfan Pathan wouldn’t have any chances to test his fitness before the IPL. I pity the ignorant viewers watching that programme, for the ‘expert’ doesn’t even know about the existence of this tournament. Well, with no television channel broadcasting the matches live and with none of the news channels devoting even a 5-minute slot to merely show the viewers the scoreboard, it comes as no surprise. I am pretty sure that more than 90% of Indians who claim to be cricket fans would be unaware that our country has a domestic T20 tournament apart from the IPL.

At the end of the match, both teams came up to our stand, signed autographs, posed for photographs, and some even spoke at length to a certain group of people. What more could an ardent fan ask for? All those who complain about cricketers being unapproachable have clearly never been to a domestic fixture.

The other ground in Mumbai where matches are sometimes played is the MCA Recreation Centre in the swanky Bandra-Kurla Complex. This ground has a grass bank beyond the boundary rope, and only a couple of shrubs separate you from the players. The absence of stands gives you the opportunity to walk around the ground and watch the proceedings from the angle of your preference. This is perhaps the closest one can feel to being a ball boy, which I am sure all of us have all aspired to be, as the open-seating area ensures that you get to field the ball more often than not. The Ranji match between Mumbai and Delhi, which overlapped with Sachin Tendulkar’s penultimate Test, was played here.

Being one of the thousands who were unable to get passes for the biggest farewell ever on Indian soil, I went to watch the Mumbai-Delhi game thinking that I would be the only moron out there. But I was pleasantly surprised to find a whole lot of morons out there, from the club members to the construction workers lazing around on the grass bank and having only one thing in common: genuine love for the game. When the passage of play got dull, the spectators started talking cricket. India’s new number 4 in Tests and the IPL auction were the hot topics of discussion, which were interrupted routinely by appeals.

These were the genuine cricket lovers, people for whom the game was bigger than any cricketing superstar could, can or will ever be. These were fans whose love for the game was irrespective of the format, the controversies, and the rude administrators. These are the fans the BCCI needs to treasure; not the NRIs, the affiliated club members and VIPs who did not consider it important to come to watch the greatest sporting icon play his last Test series. Now that the biggest and probably the only crowd puller in Indian cricket has retired, installing clean seats and toilets in the grounds would not be a bad way to start.

This is Indian cricket’s domestic circuit: a hub for cricketing nerds and fanatics. A hub which could certainly do with a bit of media coverage about its existence.