Those were the days when we had no TV, no close ups, no replays. Radio commentary was all that we had and we spent hours twiddling the old tubed radio trying to find that exact point where we could hear the commentary from some far off land. That half the days match would be lost in twiddling/tuning the radio is another story. Thanks to the time difference we woke up at unearthly times to listen to what was happening, who won the toss and so on. In the deathly silence of the night the loud HISSSSSSSS of the radio invariably woke someone or other who roundly cursed you before getting up to go to the toilet and then cursed you again for having woken them fully now. Depending upon how much they liked cricket, they asked "who won the toss?" after all the cursing.
John Arlott, Suresh Saraiya, Tony Cozier, Narottam Puri, Jayasimha, Richie Benaud, Henry Blofeld, are some names that readily come to the mind. Suresh Saraiya with his impeccable english always called players by their longish names. It was always Erapalli Prasanna or once in a way Erapalli Anantha Rao Srinivas Prasanna. We could actually visualise the game the way it was presented by these brilliant men of words.
Hindi commentary was not yet in vogue and when it did start others jumped in like Kannada commentary which was new, commentators new and the result was to say the least disastrously funny. It is tough to translate the kannada commentary into english to get the effect but the gentleman, Sathyanarayana or Suryanarayana I dont remember but it went something like this.
Chandrasekhar is coming into to bowl, he is coming, coming, coming, coming, coming and bowls...and then the man would scream in agony OOOOOOOOhhhhhhh, Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh while we idiots held our breath wondering what happened. He would then continue in the same excited tone. That ball which Chandrasekar bowled pitched on the leg side, turned sharply, batsman came forward, brought his bat down, but the ball turned and then found the gap between the bat and the pad and pushed its way in and reached the safe hands of wicket keeper Kirmani. By this time the man would have lost his breath and end the last portion tamely. The only thing that to my mind comes closest to this is the story "Pig Hoooooooooey" by PG Wodehouse with the cry of the pig. After a while we stopped getting excited or worked up.
Then came the period when transistors became smaller, uncles/aunts abroad were cajoled into getting you one such unit and a more generous relative got you one with a ear piece. So there we were in class sitting with hands on our face covering the transistor and looking intently at the teacher while the mind was with Gavaskar and Vishwanath somewhere. When we were caught which was often, we did get punished but even teachers were sympathetic and the best in this was our Botany teacher in college Narayan Mohan whos mimicry talents were brilliant. He used to come to class lugging a huge radio and would switch it on. Once we knew what the total score and scores of the 2 batsmen he would switch it off and we had to pay attention to his class. He would switch it on every 15 mins or so. Those were the days on radio, never again will they come.
With no TV the ONLY way to watch some live action was to go to a movie and catch the newsreel that they showed before the movie started. Towards the end of the newsreel they showed some cricket and since the newsreel kept changing often, we would be in a mad rush to go see any movie as long we go to see the few minutes of cricket.
And when we went to actually see cricket matches, those were major projects. A bunch of us would go to the Chinnaswamy stadium by midnight after dinner and then sleep on the footpath alongwith hundreds of others carrying our blanket, pillow with us. By 6 AM the next batch would rush to the ground and relieve the "night watchmen" who rushed back to finish our toilets and by 8 AM we would be at a Shivaji nagar hotel near the stadium eating breakfast and packing some for those in the line. We waited for the gates to open so we could rush in and spread our towels for the best positions to sit in. We would be equipped with bells, whistles and whatever implements that made the maximum noise and the rest of day went in cheering that odd 4 that a batsmen hit or the rare six. Ten fours and a six in a day made our life. Today a Gayle hits a dozen sixes in an hour. And since the gallery was parallel to the pitch we invariably carried the transistor so we could know what was actually happening. And we paid all of Rs.5 per day for this joy.
A memorable encounter I had then was with the legendary Nuclear Physicist Padma Bhushan Dr. H. Narasimhaiah the Vice Chancellor of Bangalore University. India had in 1976-1977 lost 3 matches to England and the 4th test was in Bangalore. I was going and Dr. HN as we called him was very upset since he felt that wasting time to watch a match in which we would get thrashed was of no use. All of 16 years old I never even realised his stature because we knew him and I argued with him famously stating "Cricket is a game of glorious uncertainties". I finally did go and India won the match easily and as I walked in with friends into the college, Dr HN also drove in, in his car. As he stepped out there I was near him. Before I could say anything he folded his hands and said to me in kannada "OK, I was wrong, you were right, so please dont give me a speech".
Those were the days when one knew the names of every player in every team around the world. We even knew their records, statistics and as we listened to the commentary we eagerly waited to hear the statistician give out some rare bits of information that we treasured.
With the advent of TV, instant replays and with technology improving constantly, the game itself has evolved into something that is totally unrecognisable from what it was till the 80's. Now with internet that provides instant information and smartphones that show you live the matches on your phone, gone are the conches, bells, whistles. Already the loyalties are no longer to states, countries but club owners who sell/ buy players like commodities. Tickets now cost as much as Rs. 1 Lakh. And yes we are older and can no longer stand in lines all night but then we cannot afford the tickets either.
Adios black & white cricket, welcome multi colour cricket, welcome to the future.
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