Before I talk about what triggered these memories, let me take you back in time. This story begins in the early 1980's when I was just starting to figure out the nuances of cricket. I was still a young kid, pre-teen and all that, but had a grandfather, who loved cricket, for company. From him I learnt a lot about the past of the game and the bliss of a properly contested Test match. India had just won the World Cup and cricket was popular like never before.
My high school, like many others, had a policy of dividing students into 4 groups - Blue, Green, Red and Yellow Houses (Satavahana, Kakatiya, Vijaynagara, and Asif Jahi, respectively, if you must know). The highlight every year would be the inter-house competitions in anything you can name: Quiz, Debate, Badminton, Hockey, Cross-country, Track and Field...on and on...and Cricket. Making the house team in cricket was more a case of knowing folks than skill, though on a rare occasion a player's skill in pick-up games played during the lunch interval would propel him to stardom.
I would like to say that it was my skill that got me into the team but I would be lying. A body was needed in an emergency when a player did not show up and the scorer (me! me!) was roped in at the last minute. The team we were playing (Red house, if I am not mistaken) was led by an arrogant, haughty, over-confident, and useless fellow. At least that is how we felt since he was our main opposition. He was a strange fellow in that he would bowl for the entire innings from one end (no over restrictions in those days) and open the batting, hogging both ends of the game and more often than not running roughshod over us.
That year was no different. Within minutes our batting was in shambles as the bowler raced through the line-up, until it was left to me to salvage the innings. Putting on pads, gloves, and the all-important box, I stepped onto the wicket and took guard. This fellow, this left-armed legend, this hero of the school (more on that in a just a bit) did everything but lick his chops when he saw me pad up. I had seen him bowl countless times and yet had never played against him even once. When I bat I have three boxes that I check - not getting out first ball, not getting out on zero, hitting at least 1 four. Sometimes I am able to check all three boxes in one go. A hat-trick, if ever there was one.
That glorious day I managed to get a hattrick, but not the type I imagined.
The fellow came around the wicket in his rhythmic run-up and let the ball go as he always did from a picture-perfect side-on action. I leaned forward, convinced that I would smother the spinning ball before it had a chance to do mischief (did I not mention the fact the the fellow was a left-arm spinner...it must have intentionally slipped my mind). Lean forward, I did, but the ball was much faster that I had even expected it to be. He was a left-arm SPINNER, for heaven't sake. I saw the ball come out of his hand and a lifetime later I heard the ball clatter into the stumps behind me. I was out first ball, without scoring or hitting a four - a hattrick of the wrong sort.
I walked off the field, dragging my bat behind me in a style that (years later) Sachin Tendulkar would endearingly make popular. When I reached the pavilion the captain asked me what happened. I told him that I had "lost the ball." It was a statement that would haunt me for the rest of my years at the school. If I ever goofed up or did something stupid my "friends" would ask me if I had "lost the ball." I took off my cricketing gear and hid as far away from everyone else as possible, convinced as kids (and some adults) are wont to do that I was the one most responsible for our defeat.
As I sat in the corner an English teacher at the school walked over to me and, for the first time that I could recall, talked to me. He taught English to another section so he did not know me (or so I thought) and our paths had never crossed before that day. Yet, addressing me by name, he told me not to feel that I had been unworthy of playing for the team. The fellow I had gotten out to was destined for "bigger things" and I should learn from the experience. When you are young and crying by yourself words like that don't mean anything. But I never forgot the kind words. The English teacher would move to England for some time and then come back to school and go on to become my "class teacher" and he and I built up a very good rapport in the years to come, especially as I excelled in an altogether different field. For a few years there, I was as good as any kid in Hyderabad in that field (modesty prevents me from telling you how good I really was!) and then I moved on and life caught up with me.
The memories of that day came gushing back to me when I came across an article in The Hindu. A seemingly space-filling profile/interview of a former India Test cricketer brought a name back from the past and into sharp focus - Mr. TSRA Sastry. We used to call him Tadepalligudam Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Anjaneya Sastry without ever bothering to find out what his fullname really was.
(Venkatapathi) Raju's teacher Anjaneya Sastry played a key role in shaping the cricketer in him. “Initially, the lure for us to play cricket was the announcements made in school assembly about the students who played well in inter-house matches. It was a high to receive the applause and appreciation. There was no pressure from my parents so it was easy to balance cricket and studies,” he smiles.I remember the morning assembly and the daily roll call of students who had accomplished something in the week. I looked forward to it, too, and a few times received that honor and reveled in the polite applause.
I wonder what Mr. Sastry is doing now and intend to check up on him the next time I am in the neighborhood. There are other stories involving him, but those are tales for another day.
By the way, if you are still reading this, you already know the name of the fellow who got me out that day, don't you?
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