The Southpaw - Part 1

“Ramesh bhaiya, sixer maaro” – cheered 6 year chintu from his balcony cheering his gully cricket hero to complete his century, something that the locality had never witnessed.

12 year old Ramesh nicknamed ‘Jayasuriya’ after the recently concluded 1996 Wills World Cup was not an exceptional cricketer but excelled at Gully cricket – played with plastic balls, unlabelled bats with cycle tire as grips, cycle rear tires as stumps and some weird set of rules. Bholu bowled an off spin which Ramesh miscued and the ball headed the famous ‘Maut ka Kuva’ (a section of building with as many as 70 window panes). The ball crashed on to a window pane and Ramesh was declared out. 5 short of his dream century at his ‘Lords’ of gully cricket.

Once the match was over, a dejected Ramesh reached home to study for his test tomorrow. Just as he switched on the television, an India Vs England test was being telecast at a beautiful ground with wooden stands. Not a great cricket watcher other than often spending time watching highlights of days play and knowing a couple of famous names like Sachin Tendulkar, Mohammed Azharuddin, Sanjay Manjrekar etc, something made him stuck to the screen. As a slim and thin moustached Indian southpaw was gracefully hitting boundaries off almost every English bowler. He could never dream of anyone hitting the ball with such immaculate perfection and flair on the offside. When the southpaw reached 90s, Ramesh earnestly prayed that he should nt meet the same fate Ramesh met earlier in the day and moments later when the rookie completed his maiden test century, Ramesh was elated. Next day the cricketing fraternity heard a new name – S C Ganguly…

When the fate was repeated in the very next test match, Ganguly was one player Ramesh started liking to watch. A series of matches went by and gradually Ramesh’s interests starting increasing. His room was filled up posters of the Kolkota lad and he started collecting the smallest of newspaper articles related to his newly found ‘Guru’.

Ganguly s inclusion to the ODI side brought Ramesh closer to watching the shorter version of game completely – something he had never done previously. He often went to an extent of physical fight with his 22 year old brother (a Tendulkar fan) over who was a better cricketer – Sachin or Sourav..

An year later, an Indo-Pak series at an unheard cricketing destination – Toronto, witnessed Ramesh s icon winning 4 man of the match awards (and his first Man of the series) and India wrapping up the series 4-1. Ramesh s jubiliation was at its peak and he started imitating Ganguly-giri in his gully cricket. Such was the inspiration that Ramesh started learning Left handed batting and was reasonably successful in that too. Coca-Cola at that time offered to exchange 3 crowns of coke bottles for a Ganguly Flicker book and 5 crowns+ Rs 25 for a Ganguly autographed mini bat. Needless to say what was Ramesh’s favourite drink at that time.. In a month, he collected 5 flicker books and 3 bats..

A year later, as India faced Pakistan again in finals at Dhaka, the Pakistanis piled up a huge total of 314, a virtually impossible target for the Indians to achieve. Loss of Sachin at 40(28) resulted in every one at home switching off the TV and saying ‘Sachin Gone, Match Over’.. Ramesh fought with his parents, and stuck to watching the match till the very last ball. The 124 by Ganguly was a visual treat for him.. And when the captain Azhar called him their ‘Secret Weapon’, Ramesh showed the newspaper to his family members a dozen times the next day to tell – ‘India can also win without Sachin Tendulkar’

The World Cup England – 1999 started and Ramesh s board exams were on. But with an intention to watch his icon playing his first WC match - against South Africa, Ramesh completed the next examination’s course a day in advance. India batted first in the match and the Ganguly-Dravid duo provided a solid middle order partnership. As Ganguly reached 97, a confusion between the captain Azhar resulted in Kallis playing a role in his run out.. Ramesh used choicest of words on Azhar and Kallis and prayed for South Africa to lose. The proteas won the match but to Ramesh’s respite, Jacques Kallis got run out at 98.. Needless to say, he was elated.. Unbothered by the match result..

A couple of matches later, one of the worlds deadliest spinner got a dose of his tough times in life at a venue named Taunton. The crafty spinner would have never expected any batsman to step 3 feet ahead of the crease and hit balls outside the stadium – thrice. Infact a duck by Tendulkar added a smirk on his face after which he pulled his brothers leg for several hours. Ramesh wished Ganguly had made 200 in that match, but when he perished at 183, he stood up along with the entire masses at the ovaloid stadium. That innings was indeed special.. In the post match interview, Rahul Dravid gave a new nickname to Ganguly – otherwise called ‘Prince of Calcutta’ by the legendary Geoff Boycott. . “The God of Off-side”. The next day, in his gully cricket match, Ramesh (now intentionally got his nicknamed changed to ‘Prince’) tried the front foot lofty shots.. The result was a broken window pane and 3 hours of scolding..

The year 2000 involved Ramesh watching every match of the season since he knew the next one year, he would be aloof from everything preparing for his HSC examinations. The Carlton & United series witnessed India losing 3-0 down under and India could not manage to the Best of 3 finals too. But Ramesh was unfettered as he was gifted with a meticulous and one of the most attacking innings played by Ganguly against Pakistan - a gigantic 143 with the most beautiful off drives, cover drives , square drives and lofted shots. Infact for an over, the captain Wasim Akram attacked him with a packed offside (8 players guarding it) and Ganguly still managed to pierce the ball in between gaps in 3 occasions off an over.. Ramesh watched the innings glued to the television set as India registered its first and only win in that series.

The year 2001 witnessed the Match fixing controversy surface which helped Ramesh concentrate on his studies. But South Africa toured India in that year with an ODI being conducted at Ramesh’s city. Before the series began, Tendulkar hung the boots of captaincy which forced BCCI to look out for Jadeja or Ganguly as the future captain.. Ramesh prayed all night and the next day jumped with elation to get the news that his icon was the Indian Captain for series. The 4^th ODI was scheduled in his city and the series stood at 2-1 (India leading). It did not come as a surprise that Ramesh bunked his mathematics test at his tuitions and got tickets for the match. The scarcity of tickets forced him to share a seat with an 80Kg friend of his who saw the entire match sitting on his lap. But the treat of a quick 80 given by Ganguly provided a soothing feeling as Ramesh, who was on cloud 9 watching aggressively tackling Elverthy, Hayward, Pollock and finally succumbing to an off spin by Peter Strydom. India went on to win the nail biting finish thus sealing the series 3 – 1 . . Ganguly s first victorious tryst as a captain.. In the 3 hour long traffic jam outside the stadium, all Ramesh could think was the Indian captain lifting the Trophy.. What a moment of pride it would be for him..

As Ramesh cleared his HSC with (not so) flying colors, he got admission in to a reputed Engineering college where he literally continued the trend of fighting with groups which was huge fan of Sachin Tendulkar. On any occasions, Ramesh alone was debating a dozen and still aggressively debating on Ganguly’s greatness. The next 4 years in both Ramesh’s educational life and Ganguly’s captaincy era witnessed some of the greatest achievements and infact the in between conducted Natwest Trophy Shirt stripping done by Ganguly was imitated by him in an interdepartmental cricket competition where Ramesh (calling himself Shy-er version of the ‘Maharaja’) stripped his Sweater in exactly the same fashion. The final year of his college gave him an opportunity to lead the department student association and he got a feeling what Ganguly experienced 4 years back.. Addressing a large gathering of students as the President of the student body, Ramesh went to the extent of citing his hero’s example on several occasions on several fronts – Planning, Passion, Aggression, Backing the right talent etc.

In the interim, India also managed to reach finals of World Cup at South Africa where ‘Dada’ took two of the bravest decisions ever taken by any captain on field – Added batting depth by enforcing wicket keeping on Dravid and convincing Javagal Srinath to play for one last time as the team needed him. The finals was practically over in the first innings and the stint ended on a disappointing node. Ramesh earnestly prayed to God to repeat that one day in his life so that India could win the match.. But alas, it could never happen. Till date he dreams of Sourav Ganguly holding the world cup for India on that eventful day.

In 2005, Ramesh now 21 year old was about to join a reputed software industry. However, the sad part was his interest in cricket was fading on account of an emerging problem in Indian Cricket - - supporting the ‘Captain Courageous or Player Outrageous’?? Ganguly s dismal performance and spat with the coach Greg Chappel lead to his ouster and went into darkness India’s one of greatest cricketing heroes – The greatest according to Ramesh.

As Ramesh saw Ganguly boarding a Toyota Qualis after being left out from the ODI side of team, he switched off the television set, he thought to shut off himself from the cricket world with just viewing the scores (just as he used to do till 1996) and reading the match reports sometimes on news papers.. As Ganguly moved into oblivion, Ramesh got himself detached from cricket… As he switched off the TV on that day, he told himself ‘If only my hero was given a respectful farewell, I would have respected the game’..Ramesh knew that his passion to watch cricket had faded away..

Off went the Television.. Which was switched on with a similar zeal and interest after 10 months !!!

(... To be continued)