There ought to have been a felicitation for players who contributed to Mumbai's amazing 15 consecutive titles from 1958-59 to 1972-73
A couple of years before he passed away in 2008, I received a call from Ashok Mankad, requesting me to help draft a letter to the then president of the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA), Sharad Pawar.
Mankad and a few former players wanted to be recognised, felicitated and rewarded for being part of Mumbai's unbeaten run of 15 consecutive titles from 1958-59 to 1972-73 - a world record.
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Mankad's call surprised me. On a winter morning in January 2001, he gave me an interview as coach of the Mumbai team. He mentioned that he wanted certain aspects, like team sponsorship, to be looked into by the new MCA president Pawar. Mankad lost his coaching job the following year when Mumbai failed to qualify for the Ranji Trophy knockout stage, but he felt the interview (for which he was issued a show-cause notice) had some role to play in his sacking. He was quoted verbatim, but was upset.
Gavaskar and Wadekar were part of the invincible Mumbai Ranji Trophy teams
The second reason why I was surprised by Mankad's call was because he was so articulate and could make points on behalf of his Mumbai teammates well himself. The third was that he didn't hold a grudge and insisted that I help him with the letter, which I did.
No felicitation for those unique Mumbai cricketers was ever held. All that those men have, are memories and a plaque given to each player when Mumbai went past New South Wales' nine on-the-trot wins. There was an opportunity for the MCA to honour those players last week at the grand function held to commemorate Mumbai's 500th Ranji Trophy match. I wonder if it even crossed their minds.
That 1958-59 to 1972-73 period for Mumbai was nothing short of glorious. They took invincibility to a new level. In Fire in Babylon, the film on West Indies cricket, Michael Holding, the Rolls Royce of fast bowlers, summed up his team's dominance on the global scene by underlining that the West Indies did not lose a series from the time New Zealand shocked them in 1980 till Australia beat them in 1995.
Holding stressed on the 15 years of rule which he said, "No other team in the history of any sport had dominated their sport for so long." He is probably unaware of Mumbai's 15-year winning spree.
To me, if the achievement of 41 Ranji Trophy titles is beyond belief, winning 15 times in a row is equally incredible. Rajasthan contested seven finals against Mumbai in that phase and couldn't win even one. They even tried roping in a bad luck charm in the form of a gentleman known for ensuring your day goes bad if you come face to face with him! The late Raj Singh Dungarpur may have witnessed many highs in Indian cricket when he was a key member of Indian cricket's inner ring of administration, but as a player, he was never a part of a Rajasthan side which beat Mumbai in the national championships.
When cricket enthusiast Chhatrapal Sinhji Jadeja organised a get-together for Mumbai Ranji Trophy players in 1998 at the Cricket Club of India, Raj Singh, the president of the club then, stayed away. When I asked him about his no-show, he said to me that he had seen enough of those players during the seven Ranji Trophy finals and he didn't want to reopen old wounds.
Many of the players who shed blood, sweat and tears for those 15 seasons are no more, but some from the 1958-59 team which kicked off the remarkable streak - Madhav Apte, Hoshie Amroliwala, Ajit Wadekar, Vishoo Lele and Chandrakant Patankar - are around. These grand old men are followed by Sudhakar Adhikari, Farokh Engineer, Bapu Nadkarni, Vasu Paranjape, DL Shenoy, Umesh Kulkarni, Subhash Tipnis, Shankar More, Padmakar Shivalkar, Sudhir Naik, Vijay Bhosale, Sushil Sanghvi, Vijay Karkhanis, Milind Rege, Jitendra Bhutta, Ajit Pai, Sharad Hazare, Abdul Ismail, Atul Mehta, Saeed Hatteea, Sunil Gavaskar, Gopal Koli, Mahesh Sampat, Suresh Deobhakta and Rakesh Tandon.
By all accounts, last week's function was well-attended but there were a few players (like 1983 World Cupper Balvinder Singh Sandhu) who revealed that they had not received an invitation. The MCA said they had couriered one and provided proof, but it did not reach Sandhu. There is no reason not to believe both parties, but the association would do well to fortify their communication systems. A telephone call to the internationals would help; as would an email invitation. A press release inviting all first-class players who have represented Mumbai would be a sure-shot way of ensuring no one feels left out. Agreed, the MCA did not have a lot of time to organise this function, but for an event of this magnitude, an association would want all their past players to attend. This would also mean providing transport and help for the aged ones. The premier cricket association in the country must strive to be the best-run state unit.
"I got an invitation in my letter box, but how would I go for the function? I need help to travel all the way to Bandra East," an aged former player based in central Mumbai, told me. I go back to Mankad and what he told me during that 2001 interview: "Only when you recognise and reward a player, can you touch the inner core of his heart."
mid-day's group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance. He tweets @ClaytonMurzello. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
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