mid-day anniversary special: The magic of Mumbai cricket

Nowadays franchises pay bags of money to players to buy their loyalty their dedication to the team But Kanga League had little money to offer players All it had was the sheer pleasure of playing the sportShishir Hattangadi former Bombay captain calls the Kanga League lsquothe spirited curtain raiser of Bombay cricketrsquo lsquoIt was tough and intensersquo he says lsquobut had its light moments that kept it going lsquoThe uncovered monsoon pitches make batting an experience and bowling a luxury Playing for Karnataka Sporting Association in my first year in the B Division I encountered colourful characters that had a lasting impression on mersquoFor former Bombay captain Milind Rege Kanga League was about being made to persevere with wit Rege remembers his captain Vasu Paranjpe as the wittiest cricketer one could have known lsquoAfter a long spell on one steamy afternoon I bitterly complained to captain Paranjpe ldquoIt is too humidrdquo I said At once he stopped the game and told our twelfth man to bring an umbrella The player did Paranjpe promptly handed it over to me and said ldquoGo on son hold on to it with one hand and continue with your spellrdquo The entire team was in splitsGreen Scene The Dr HD Kanga Cricket League in the monsoon gave cricket its Kodak momentUrmikant Modi was one of the deadly bowlers in Kanga League He remembers one match against Shivaji Park Gymkhana when he was bowling and facing him was the great batsman Vijay Manjrekar lsquoI was bowling round the wicket and the ball hit his right pad in my opinion he was plumb lbw and I appealed for an lbw which umpire Mr Gothoskar declined The second delivery hit him on the pads and I appealed again and Vijay bhai used foul language to mock me about my appealingAlbum time The Dadar Union SC team which won several Kanga League titles in the 1970s Pic courtesy Late Pradeep Vijayakar collection Since he used foul language I could not stand it and I told him ldquoA player of your calibre knows when you are out lbw you arenrsquot going hence I have every reason to appeal ldquoThis was a time when I was the baby of the team Mr Madhav Mantri who was my captain was in first slip and shouted at me ldquoUrmi go back and bowl no argumentsrdquo I had to go back to my end to bowl On the next day Manjrekar was at the Shivaji Park bus stand and I was riding my scooter to go to office I saw him and offered him a ride to his officersquo The bottom line that Modi wants to emphasize is that even if there was great tension on the ground it was traditional rivalry and off the field the friendships forged during the games were carried not the tiffsSunny skies Sunil Gavaskar with Dilip Vengsarkar left and Dadar Union SC teammates the late Ghulam Shaikh amp Vithal Patil in the 1970sYajuvendra Singh is one of the former India players whose association with the Kanga League has survived many years now He played his last match for Jolly Cricketers in the mid1990s He playfully remembers how former players made life fun and difficult for them lsquoThere were so many lovely moments It so happened that I had just returned from playing professional cricket in England in 1980 But the Jolly antenna had kept track of my arrival It was the last match of the season and we needed a win to become champions We fielded first and while attempting to catch a tailender at slips the middle finger of my right hand got dislocated It was the first time I had encountered such an injury and seeing a twisted disjointed finger my cry for help was quite demandingThe rest is pisstory Fielders keep an eye on the ball as a dog does his business behind them at Cross Maidan PicAtul KambleWe had in our side Dr Vishwas Raut who promptly came up looked at it and clicked the finger joints together Before I could even scream or make a tantrum he tightly bandaged it and said ldquoStop making a noise you are perfectly okayrdquolsquo Singh continues lsquoThe time for me to bat was soon to come and my team was dependent on my performance Even before the openers went in to bat Doctor Raut made me wear my batting gloves I had little idea that he did it because I might not have been able to put them on when my fingers swelled up later In typical Bombay cricket style there was no sympathy or mollycoddling from any of my teammates They wanted runs and they wanted me to get them When I came back from the match and took off my gloves my finger had swelled up quite nastily I was out of cricket for nearly two weeks after the incident But after all this all I can say is that it was definitely worth being a part of the Kanga League winning sidersquoKanga league veteran Mehli IraniA passionate club player and a famous cartoonist Austin Coutinho has followed many events of Bombay cricket closely Below he narrates the grand tale of why and how the lsquo10oversperhourrsquo rule came to be implemented in the Kanga League lsquoIt was the season of 1984ndash85 Parsi Cyclists were playing a very strong Karnataka SA side at the formerrsquos home ground at the Azad Maidan KSA scored a quickfire ninetyodd runs and declared to put the Parsi batsmen in on a drying wicket B S Sandhu Suresh Shetty and Austin Coutinho ran through the side The hapless Parsi Cyclistsrsquo batting order capitulated for thirtyodd runs Coutinho claiming six of the wicketsrsquoVasudev Tumbe the KSA skipper wanted an outright win and thereby score full points Thus he instructed his batsmen to get quick runs He then declared setting the Parsi Cyclists a target of 100odd runs Coutinho remembers the veteran Mehli Irani as saying in typical Parsi style lsquoI knew that Karnataka are a very good team but I didnrsquot know they are greedy toorsquoShyam Nair the Air India batsman opened the innings and scored twenty runs in the first two overs itself Another 20ndash25 runs came in the next 3ndash4 overs It is to be noted that Kanga League overs till a few years ago consisted of eight balls per over Says Austin Coutinho lsquoThe KSA bowlers were at their wits end But Tumbe the shrewd tactician that he was wasnrsquot shaken He instructed his bowlers Shetty and Sandhu to take long runups and bowl not more than five or six overs in the one hour of play left This was within the rules of Kanga League till then Shetty started his 50yard run up from the Bombay Gymkhana boundary line while Sandhu started from the Prabhu Jolly wicketlsquoWhen stumps were drawn Parsi Cyclists were very close to the target falling short by a few But for the reduced number of overs Parsi Cyclists would have won a famous match Understandably protests spurted and the Kanga League Committee of Bombay Cricket Association decided to implement the tenoversperhour rule and eightball overs rule in the monsoon leaguersquoThe Kanga League is another example of how Indians have contributed to the sport of cricket it is an ingenious contribution of Bombay to cricketExcerpted from A Million Broken Windows ndash the magic and mystique of Bombay cricket by Makarand Waingankar published by HarperCollins Price Rs 399 Click here formidday 36th anniversary special