A relay race which has come unstuck

NAKED EYE

Woe betide, Mumbai

I watched the recent Ranji Trophy final with great interest, it had allthe ingredients that make for good cricket - crowds, a pitch whichoffered excellent opportunities to the medium fast guys as also thespinners, fabulous batting and the piece de resistance; a tightfinish. The victor coming through by a mere six runs. Mostimportantly, credit to the Mysore groundsman for not preparing atypical Indian 'patta' wicket where the match is decided on the basisof the first innings lead. The birth of a new battingstar - Maneesh Pandey - whose attacking, unorthodox and devil may careattitude while batting was like a breath of fresh air.
But then wait...there was a pause in all this positivity. And thatpause set me thinking. When I watched Mumbai bat in the two essays, Iwondered whatever had happened to the long assembly line of qualitybatsmen that the city used to throw up with regularity. Middle classMaharashtrian boys who stepped up to the plate and inherited themantle vacated by another great. Bombay or Mumbai has had this tradition ofpassing the baton from one generation of great batsman to another.Role models playing a crucial role in this relay. A guru making wayfor his shishya.More often than not, they were all from simple middle classMaharashtrian homes. As Sanjay Manjrekar, one of the many qualityMumbai batsmen over the years wrote in the foreword to my first book -Gavaskar & Tendulkar: Shaping Indian Cricket's Destiny - these boyscame forward to make their tryst with izzat and shaurat. They sought abetter future for themselves through their cricketing prowess.
Nurseries which nurtured Bombay or Mumbai cricket are floundering -schools, collegiate, club and office cricket fashioned on the maidansof the kinetic energised megalopolis which threw up the stars is inthe throes of death. The multi layered and multi tiered cricketingconveyor belt has been derailed. Harris and Giles Shield, KangaLeague, Purshottam Shield, Police Shield, Talim Shield, Times Shield; names thatconjured up imagery of batsmanship is unfortunately sinking. It wasactually the Parsis, using their stevedoring contracts who were at thevanguard of the cricketing ethos in the city. They wanted to be themirror image of the ruling British, so what better way to befriendthem than by playing their game - cricket. So, they took the lead inestablishing a cricketing culture - Dr Mehellasha Pavri was theprogenitor. But it was Lord Harris who as Governor of Bombay in the1890s really kickstarted the process. Under his influence communalcricket came to be played whereby subsequently the Parsis, Hindus,Muslims joined the Europeans to play in the quadrangular.
What Harris had unleashed was a chain reaction - the Parsis wanted toimitate the British, the Hindus wanted to better the Parsis, theMuslims meanwhile wanted to best all three. And so it carried on tillthe emergence of two working class cricketers Vijay Manjrekar andSubhash Gupte, both turning out first for Mahim Juveniles and thenShivaji Park Gymkhana. Many factors were at work, the proximity tomaidans and educationalinstitutions, a potent combination of aspiration and inspiration,dalliance at an early age with tennis ball cricket in the lanes andgullies around Shivaji Park and Matunga maidan homes to Shivaji ParkGymkhana and Dadar Union. And of course, sons following fathers,nephews following uncles - Manohar Gavaskar and Madhusudan Patil(Sandeep Patil's were decent club cricketers, Sunny Gavaskar's uncle'Nana Mama' Madhav Mantri played for India, the fabled Vinoo gave wayto Ashok, Atul and Rahul; Vijay Manjrekar was a class act and so was his sonSanjay and so on. In fact, Vijay's father Laxman was also a cricketerplaying for New Hind.
Or look at Chikalwadi, a microcosm of what cricket stood for in thosedays in Bombay. Chikalwadi near Bhatia Hospital, Bhagirathi buildingcame to symbolise something. Two small boys dreamt the dream - SunilGavaskar and Milind Rege along with Sudhir Naik and Sharad Hazareplayed mock games in the lane below with a portion of a garage doorfunctioning as the wicket. If Gavaskar went on to play for thehallowed Dadar Union, Ajit Wadekar, a reluctant cricketer played forShivaji Park Gymkhana. Wadekar like many others will tell you that -"Cricket was in my blood, I was born on that soil." Wadekar idolisedVijay 'Tatt' Manjrekar. The Dadar Union-SPG derby or the Ruia vsSiddarth matches used to see crowds throng them. Dilip Sardesai was anoutsider who became an insider. He came to Mumbai from Margao in Goato study at Wilson College. Manjrekar emerged as the first middleclass commoner batsman and he was followed by Ajit Wadekar who in turnwas followed by Sunil Gavaskar who passed on the baton to DilipVengsarkar and Sandeep Patil. They in turn gave way to SanjayManjrekar, Sachin Tendulkar, Pravin Amre and Vinod Kambli.
Tendulkar has outlasted all his peers, both from Mumbai andinternationally. Cricket as another Bombay great Madhav Apte once toldme became a way and means to get a job, an anchor, an element ofstability for middle class Maharashtrians. After Tendulkar came AmolMazumdar, touted as the next big hope for Mumbai cricket. WhileMazumdar displayed a voracious appetite for runs in domestic cricket,he never ever got a chance to play for India. Now Mazumdar hasdeserted Mumbai and plays for Assam in Ranji Trophy. Rohit Sharma isseen as the next big talent from Mumbai, but he is an outsider likeRavi Shastri, not a Maharashtrian. Ajinkya Rahane, Omkar Khanvilkarand Sushant Marathe are seen as the next generation of Mumbai's'Marathi manoos' batting stars. Will they deliver or will they fadeaway like Vinayak Mane? Rahane is the most promising of the lot, butcan he play for India and follow in the footsteps of Manjrekar,Wadekar, Gavaskar, Vengsarkar, Tendulkar. It is asking for too much.Time will tell.
Mumbai may still win the Ranji Trophy, but it is not the samedomineering side that it used to be. A wider dispersal of the game hasseen new players emerge from small town India. The flame that has beenburnished by the aforementioned legends appears to be dying. Sidesused to be terrorised of playing Bombay in the Ranji Trophy.Bhagwatsinghji of Mewar swore that he would vanquish Bombay duringthose glory days. But despite having a fine all round side, he andRajasthan tried for years but could never ever repel the maraudingBombay side.
All this despite the presence of Tendulkar, the greatest and mostsuccessful role model that young Marathi boys could ask for. Thisbankruptcy of batting talent is scary. One of the greatest nurseriesof Indian batsmanship is in disarray. And there is simply noexplanation for it. Vinoo Mankad and Vijay Merchant played a part incoaching and identifying young talent, men like Madhav Mantri atElphinstone College honed others, Vasu Paranjpe did his bit, even thegreat Duleepsinghji watched with an eagle eye at CCI nets - thatculture and ethos have all but disappeared. There is no hand holding,no teaching or imparting of skill sets. Yes Mumbai won the RanjiTrophy again, but it is no longer the breeding ground for greatbatters. Where will the next great batsman come from? India wasblessed with four of them till recently - Tendulkar, Dravid fromKarnataka, Laxman from Hyderabad, Ganguly from Bengal. Now there isVirender Sehwag from Delhi along with state mates Gautam Gambhir andemerging star Virat Kohli. Woe betide Mumbai!