Golden jubilee celebrations, please!

The year 2021 provides the BCCI a golden opportunity to celebrate 50 years of the 1971 Test series victories over West Indies and England in their respective densAs of now we havenrsquot heard of any plans but I can hear the Board supporters chanting ldquodonrsquot jump the gun The BCCI will not be so insensitive not to mark the occasionrdquo Point taken but the track record of the cricket establishment is a poor one when it comes to celebrating landmark anniversariesNothing was done to mark 50 years of Indiarsquos firstever overseas series win mdash in New Zealand in 1968 when India won 31 Only Mahendra Singh Dhonirsquos 200809 outfit have been able to win a Test series in New Zealand apart from MAK Pataudirsquos team And if that was no good reason to classify that triumph as special the fact that it came close on the heels of a 04 thrashing in the Australia summer of 196768 should have counted for somethingThe birth centenary of Vinoo Mankad in 2017 too did not move the Board to do anything to honour the man The men in power cannot say that they were not informed about the anniversary of Indiarsquos finest spin bowling allrounderThey were Ramachandra Guha who was part of the Committee of Administrators CoA wrote to BCCI CEO Rahul Johri on receiving a text message from fellow cricket lover Makarand Waingankar about Mankadrsquos approaching birth centenaryBefore ending the email which is reproduced in Guharsquos The Commonwealth of Cricket with the words ldquoI strongly urge the BCCI to commemorate his Mankad centenary in some proper and fitting wayrdquo Guha stressed on Mankadrsquos achievements And in profound fashion he added ldquoWithout Mankad there would have been no Gavaskar or Kapil Dev no Kohli or Ashwin either He showed the way to themrdquoBack to the 1971 heroes Probably some influential administrators may have discussed a celebration But a brief announcement of plans to felicitate the teams in the best possible way would make each and every player involved in those victories feel goodIn these COVID19 times it is hard to imagine a grand felicitation with all the players and the family members of the departed ones in attendance But a lot can be done online and virtually with the respective state associations getting involvedThe BCCI could even commission a documentary on the two wins Indeed there is no shortage of information and stories Kolkatabased writers Boria Majumdar and Gautam Bhattacharya have got together to write a book on the wins while Mumbaibased cricket enthusiast Sachin Bajaj and writerpresenter Nishad Pai Vaidya are working on an anecdotal book which covers both the triumphant toursIrsquom pretty sure these two publications will complement the two books deceased sports journalist Sunder Rajan wrote for Jaico Books following the triumphs and My Cricketing Years by Ajit Wadekar The most enjoyable rewarding material on the 1971 tours emerged from Sunil Gavaskarrsquos Sunny Days which had tales of adventure grit and even humourMy friend Kenia Jayantilal who played the first Test at Jamaica in 1971 remembers how opposition great Rohan Kanhai ensured vegetarians like Jayantilal received lunch and dinner to their liking and not only just in Kanhairsquos home country of Guyana The food boxes included puranpolis tooIf a draw in the first Test at Jamaica provided Ajit Wadekarrsquos men the belief that the West Indies could be dominated the sevenwicket victory at Trinidad in the following Test achieved on March 10 1971 was just the push the team needed to be on their way to be rated as one of the top sides in the world By August of that year England were conquered at The Oval It was the same England team that took the Ashes away from Australia at the start of the yearThe more I think of Indiarsquos 1971 battles the ring of incredibility gets thicker Dilip Sardesai for example came into the series averaging 169 in five Tests against the West Indies He gets a double hundred in the opening Test and carves a vital hundred in the next Test at Trinidad From an aggregate of 169 runs against the West Indies at the start of the series his tally shoots up to 496 in the space of two Tests And just when the opposition thought his luck would run out he comes up with 150 in a Test which was probably the most difficult of all five Tests for the visitorsAnd what does one say of Gavaskar Letrsquos project his contribution through his sequence of scores 65 67 not out 116 64 not out 1 117 not out 124 and 220Sardesairsquos comeback series turned out to be more than just memorableIn England Bhagwat Chandrasekhar returning to the Indian team after three and a half years spun out the Englishmen at the Oval for India to achieve their first Test win on English soil This was a country in which India were whitewashed in the last two Test series 05 in 1959 03 in 1967Farokh Engineer another comeback man after his issues with the Board brought all his English county experience to bear And S Abid Ali who let Gavaskar hit the winning run at Trinidad ensured it was his stroke that got India victory at The OvalThere were other heroes too across both tours mdash EAS Prasanna S Venkataraghavan Eknath Solkar and Salim Durani for claiming Sobers and Clive Lloyd in quick succession in the second Test at TrinidadBishan Singh Bedi as well not only for his 26 wickets but for also fostering a winning attitude in the team as revealed the other day by Jayantilal Thanks to Sunny Days we learnt about how Ashok Mankad batted for nearly an hour despite a fractured right wrist in the Barbados TestWadekar may have not been the most demonstrative of captains but his coolasacucumber temperament and guile helped in so small measureOur 1971 heroes cannot be passed over for honours If not now when Over to BCCImiddayrsquos group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance He tweets ClaytonMurzello Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper