by From The Hindu, dated 30th April, 2000. What is it about Ramachandra Guha
that makes you go back to the top and read the article once again, after
you've finished reading it once? Surely, the man is a master, himself!
-Samarth.
-----
Master of flight and turn
ONE cool spring morning 15 years ago, I was riding my moped to work in
Bangalore. I aimed to get in two hours early, for that afternoon I had
been asked to join the nets of the Friends Union Cricket Club, to thus
begin a playing career interrupted by five years of monastic study. The
air was crisp, the sky cloudless, the jacarandas in bloom, the roads
altogether less crowded and more shaded than they were to become after
this city was elevated to a (silicon) valley. A line of the great
physicist C. V. Raman came to mind: "My greatest discovery was the weather
of Bangalore". The association was apt, for my destination was the place
Raman had also worked for - the Indian Institute of Science. My mood of
self-congratulation was interrupted by a Standard Herald that came briskly
in from a side road. I braked, and so did the car driver. His windows were
down, and I saw within the face of Erapalli Prasanna. I collected myself
and hastily simulated a curving off-break and enquired, with uplifted
palms, whether he still bowled them. He shook his head and sped on his
way.
Although no words were spoken by either party, I read meanings into the
meeting. For I bowled off-breaks myself. Surely this chance encounter with
the master of the art augured well for my second cricketing career.
However, when I left work for the F.U.C.C. nets, I found that the skill
had deserted me completely. I could still turn the ball, but the control
was abysmal. The muscles that accurately propel a cricket ball had been
out of work too long. I now realised, shame-facedly, that the message
intended by the God of Cricket was the opposite of what I had first taken
it to be. If Prasanna accepted that he had bowled his last off-break, who
was I to pretend I could still roll them along?
A few weeks ago I ran into Prasanna again, at the Bangalore airport. I
went up and introduced myself, and while he waited for his wife, and I for
mine, a few desultory words were indeed exchanged. We talked, of course,
about the decline of spin bowling. I had no solutions, and nor, it seems,
did he. He must despair at the quality and performance of the men who now
bowl off-breaks for India. I am luckier, for I can at least console myself
with memories of Prasanna at the bowling crease. And I have many. The
first time I watched Prasanna bowl was in the summer of 1970. It was a
club match, but at a time when club matches mattered and Test players
appeared in them. Prasanna and B. S. Chandrasekhar both played for City
Cricketers, who, on this occasion, were playing a match at the Y.M.C.A.
grounds, abutting Cubbon Park. Their opponents, in this quarter-final of
the Y.S. Ramaswami tournament, were the Indian Air Force, Jalahalli
station, cricketers of quality and (even in those pre-Kargil days)
officers of charisma. Several of the aircraftsmen had played for the
Services, in those days one of the more competitive Ranji Trophy sides.
Their captain had even played for North Zone and Central Zone. This was
the opening batsman D. D. Deshpande, who, this day, was in cracking form,
hitting four or five boundaries in the early overs. Prasanna brought
himself on, and in each of his first two overs bowled an off-break three
or four inches short of good length. On the mat, where balls sit up high,
this marginal misdirection allowed Deshpande to pull them both with the
turn to square leg for four. In his third over, Prasanna sent down another
short one. The batsman made to pull, but the ball went straight through
and caught him on the back foot, plumb leg before.
Years later I played against Dinu Desphande myself. At lunch I told him of
where I had first seen him bat. "Ah yes, Pras," he answered, generously,
"he made a fool of me that day." By then I had seen Prasanna make a fool
of batsmen a good deal more gifted still. One being that maker of 34 Test
hundreds, S. M. Gavaskar. In February 1974, Karnataka played Bombay, in
Bangalore, in the quarter-final of the Ranji Trophy. The home side batted
first, and with hundreds from G. R. Viswanath and Brijesh Patel posted a
score in excess of 400. The match would now be decided on first innings,
and Karnataka could call upon two of the greatest spinners who ever played
- Pras and Chandra. Bombay had, however, two magnificent players of slow
bowling, Gavaskar and Ajit Wadekar, batsmen who played with as much
feeling for their city as for their country.
Gavaskar started well, and early on drove Prasanna past mid on for four.
He came down to drive another delivery tossed-up high, only this one
swerved away late in the air and left him stranded. Syed Kirmani waited to
effect the stumping, but the ball was intended instead for the off stump.
I can see now Sunil Gavaskar magnanimously nodding in appreciation to the
bowler as he passed him on his way out. When Wadekar was run out soon
afterwards, it became evident that Bombay would lose a Trophy that had
laid 16 years in its possession.
I have spoken of a club match, and of a Ranji Trophy match. Perhaps I
should complete the circle by remembering a batsman (or two) deceived by
the off-spinner in Test cricket. In the Delhi Test of 1974, Prasanna took
a fearful hammering from Vivian Richards - as Bedi and Venkatraghavan did
too. But he did undo those vigorous attacking all-rounders, Keith Boyce
and Bernard Julien. In each case, the tactic was to feed them on their
most profitable stroke. To the cross-batted Boyce, Prasanna cannily placed
Brijesh Patel (the finest fielder on the Indian team) at deep square leg,
where the batsman finally holed out. Julien, a fine front foot player, was
encouraged to drive against the spin. Two or three balls sped through the
covers, but then one that dipped had the batsman hitting it in the air to
wide mid-off.
Bishan Bedi and Erapalli Prasanna were, quite simply, the sovereign
finger-spinners of their generation. To every Geoffrey Boycott or Tony
Greig, who held Bedi to be the best, there was a Gary Sobers or Bill Lawry
who awarded the accolade to Prasanna. There is a lovely story of the 1996
World Cup, when Shane Warne came to the sub-continent to prove, to himself
as much as to others, that he was in all conditions, the best bowler in
contemporary cricket. Certainly there were some Indians who greatly looked
forward to seeing him bowl. One morning at Jaipur, when Warne warmed up
before the match against the West Indies, a short, stocky, middle-aged man
walked across the Sawai Man Singh Stadium to shake his hand and say, "Son,
you have a great talent. I hope you keep bowling for years to come." Warne
was foxed until Ian Chappell, who was standing alongside, introduced the
new fan. "Shane, you are speaking to Erapalli Prasanna," said Chappell,
"the greatest slow bowler of my generation."
RAMACHANDRA GUHA