My Cricket

When I went to Calcutta on posting in November 1978 one day I visited the tent in the maidan at Esplanade.I played some table tennis.then i saw some players practising cricket.
I picked up the ball and bowled.Then when I was offered the bat I did practise batting.
It was a pleasant surprise for me when I found my name at the top of the list of sixteen players comprising the office team selected for the "B" Division cricket league matches in the city of Calcutta.
My first call came and I went and played against the Writer's Building team and our team won.
I got an over or two to bowl and gave away only a few runs.
The win came in the last alotted over when I got a four and a single and my partner too the winnning runs.

Even though I craved and yearned to go to the cricket field and play my beloved game of cricket I was always stuck to the office table with either a heap of files or some time bound work.

It was my first posting after training and I wanted to deliver the goods.
The four and a half years then passed by without my playing cricket even though I did watch the test matches even if for half a day.

Time passed by and I hardly ever saw the evenings as I was returning home late from work much after sunset.

My next posting was to Meerut and here I got an opportunity to organise cricket matches within the Divisions with the help of my senior colleague who was also an avid cricketer.

We had gone to a far off place called Cuttack in Orissa on the east coast of India on my father's posting there in 1963.It was a hot and humid place.The rains during the monsoons were torrential.

Children played football in muddy slushy conditions.The red soil gave colour to the splashes of wet mud on the clothes and bodies of the players.But I did not like to get all wet.

The school(Stewart) had options for games and sports of one's choice.

I played hockey for the school and house.

The coach for cricket took me in as I had already played it in the Hills of Himachal Pradesh.
With his coaching I picked up spin and googly bowling and perfected some batting shots.
I started playing in school and played with other children in the narrow lane of the first place I stayed in Chauliaganj.
I remember my classmate Mr. Sujit Kishore Das who was a good batsman for the school around the year 1964-65 and after studying at St.Stephen's Delhi later passed the IAS and joined the UP cadre in 1972-73.
On holidays we went to a ground somewhere near Naya Bazar. I remember having had a good time there with runs flowing from my bat all around and wickets tumbling to my spin bowling.
I also played in a club which had matches on the Railway Ground, OMP ground etc.
My "farm bulls" also played in the big ground in the farm-Vidyadharpur farm.We had also shifted to the bungalow in the CRRI farm.
I remember the pace bowler Mr. Murty and the Orissa schools opener Mr. Richharia,who stayed in the same campus of the farm and played with us.There were the Sandhu brothers one of whom was a left hand bowler.Another younger boy was Sharad Mathur who later got a short stint as a fast bowler for Orissa schools .

There were several players who came from the same college(Ravenshaw)e.g. Mr B.Das.
Some of them also played for the state in the Ranji Trophy and the East Zone e.g.Mr. Ramakant Mohanty.
I did play in the college/University and I think if I had continued I might have had a chance to get in to a bigger team but then I forsake the cricket ground for my B.Sc.Honours studies.
A big break from cricket from 1968 to 1978.
The only cricket coming in the form of a match at the IAS academy in Mussoorie when I went there for the foundational course training after joining the ICCES Group A service, on passing the IAS ETC Exam 1975.