Clayton Murzello: Life on the other side of the fence

Sports journalists R Sriman left Eddie Fernandes ATP Sarathy and Sunder Rajan right with a cricket kit bag during a JK Bose Trophy tournament in the 1970sItrsquos a busy time for sports journalists all over the land Not only because Indian cricketrsquos big home season involving 13 Tests and four visiting teams is close at hand but also near is the 39th edition of the Sports Journalistsrsquo Federation of Indiarsquos SJFI national convention to be held in Bhubaneswar Over the next few days pen pushers will be on the other side of the fence ndash on the playing field rather than reporting on sporting endeavoursThe most popular tournament in this annual festival for sports journalists is the JK Bose Trophy now a Twenty20 tournament initiated in honour of the late Press Trust of India journalist in the 1970sVeteran journalist GK Menon remembers being part of a team from Mumbai hosted by former West Bengal CM Siddhartha Shankar Ray in 1973 ldquoThings started moving from there We then decided to have an annual tournament for our fraternity so that journalists could meetrdquo said MenonMakarand Waingankar a freelance journalist and cricket consultant who was a member of that Mumbai team to Kolkata recalled a match organised by Ray ldquoWe thought it would be a friendly game but our opposition included some big names in Bengal cricket like Ray himself who had played some level of cricket Dilip Doshi who went on to play for India Sambaran Banerjee Subroto Guha and Pankaj Roy We couldnrsquot handle the pace and Roy at 45 took a hundred off us with ease The fast bowlers were told not to hold back the pace so that the journalists would realise how difficult it to was to play cricketrdquoMenon who played club cricket for Shivaji Park Gymkhana in his younger days provided an example of how seriously the Calcuttans took their sport ldquoThe day before Bengal were to face Mumbai in a JK Bose final at Chandigarh their senior player Shyam Sunder Ghosh a highly skilled swing bowler and unplayable to many batsmen barred his players from venturing out in the fear of them losing focus In the process they missed out on an opportunity to visit the Bhakra Nangal damrdquo And one player who defied his curfew orders on match eve was promptly dropped Ghosh even banned alcohol before an lsquoimportantrsquo matchSeshadri Ramaswamy a veteran currently working for PTI in Mumbai recalled one of the many great spells by Ghosh ldquoWe West Zone were bowled out for 120 odd by East at the Eden Gardens with Ghosh claiming eight wickets I remained unbeaten At a dinner party that night the South Zone guys all distinguished cricket writers lectured us on how we should have batted to negate Ghosh The following day Ghosh dismissed them for 56 with Rajan Bala scoring an unbeaten 40rdquoOn another occasion Ghosh terrorised Mumbai with a flurry of wickets which prompted late sports writer ATP Sarathy to exclaim ldquoShyamda Ghosh at least give us some time to put on our padsrdquoThe Mumbai team were serious about their cricket at times On one of the train journeys to Kolkata their captain decided to put an extended halt at one of the stations to good use Out he went with bat and ball to give his team fielding practice on the platform This attracted the attention of monkeys and caused a veteran scribe to remark ldquoFor the first time monkeys watched monkeys indulge in sporting activityrdquoIn the 1981 edition the Mumbai teamrsquos lsquothinktankrsquo decided to leave out a Parsi scribe in a match at Delhi As soon as he learnt he was not included in the XI he took his kit bag and returned to Mumbai by the next available flight To sit out and watch an oldie play was too much for him The nowretired journalist is still proud to be in his own words ldquoCricketrsquos first ever tour walkoutrdquo Yes a good 15 years before Navjot Singh Sidhursquos famous return from England in 1996On another occasion one knowledgeable cricket correspondent from the south of India constantly challenged GK Menon to get him out On match day he went out to open the innings and inadvertently tapped the ball twice An appeal from the Mumbai team for hitting the ball twice was upheld by the umpire The livid batsman was all set to walk back to the pavilion before Menon asked Kore if he could withdraw his appeal The batsman returned to his creaseOne canrsquot ignore the performances and passion displayed by the late Pradeep Vijayakar when one talks about Mumbai journalistsrsquo sporting forays Vijayakar was an allrounder If he thought he stood a chance to dislodge an adhesive batsman he would abandon his wicketkeeping gloves and bowl legspin And his batting was good enough to be rated as a mainstay in the order He competed well in other disciplines too and this should come as no surprise because Vijayakar had the distinction of covering every sport in his journalistic career lsquoPaddyrsquo loved the fieldAs JK Bose defending champions West Zone led by Devendra Pandey have an extra challenge on hand A significant sense of humour will be displayed too because many journalists will get an opportunity to laugh at themselvesI can assure you though itrsquos not all fun and games Be it cricket penalty kicks or table tennis the competitive edge will not be missing in a fraternity often accused by practitioners of sport to be found wanting in practical knowledgemiddayrsquos group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance He tweets ClaytonMurzello Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycom