Remembering nawabzada cricket in Hyderabad

I realised just what “drowning in nostalgia” means when I went to Hyderabad last week to attend a book release function, on the tree-topped terrace of an old world bookshop. This was Third Man written by my husband Ram(narayan), who played cricket for Hyderabad in the 1970s.

As he says in his book, a minor miracle took us to Hyderabad (I was 20, my husband a “mature” 23), ostensibly for Ram to join the State Bank of India's local head office for training, but really to play cricket for the bank’s team. Suddenly, we were in the midst of friends – debonair Lyn Edwards, tenacious Nagesh Hammond, and stylish Sultan Saleem whose smile was bigger than his face. In time, I became “bhabhi” and “chhotiben” to a whole cricket team.

We had clan gatherings in our home, when the boys bantered, belted out “Roop tera mastana”, and forgot to eat as they got blissed out on the deadly combination of liquor and raconteuring. What amazed me about these cricket stories was their mastery of minutiae. They could recall every shot in a knock of a hundred, every ball in every over. Off the field yarns included the much-told tale of cricketers visiting MAK Pataudi’s ancestral home in Bhopal and being ambushed in the woods by “fearsome” dacoits. By the time they discovered that this was nothing but a stage-managed prank, Karnataka stars GR Vishwanath and BS Chandrasekhar had burst into wails. They had been told that their teammate Prasanna had been shot dead!

I knew just what Wordsworth meant when he said “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive” the day Ram announced that he had been picked for the international Breweries XI in the annual Moin-ud-Dowla Gold Cup tournament. What vicarious thrill for me to brush shoulders at the nets with Pataudi and Budhi Kunderan (India), Rohan Kanhai (West Indies), Anura Tennekoon and David Heyn (Sri Lanka)! Suddenly, State Bank woke up to the fact that their lowly employee was in enemy ranks, yanked him out, only to drop him in the final – this time making me shed “tears from the depths of some divine despair” as the poet Tennyson did. How was I to know that two years later, Ram would be a match winner in the final of the same tournament, with 8 proud wickets for 75 runs! Or that he would join the Ranji, Duleep and Irani circuits, and bag a record 7 for 68 for Hyderabad against the formidable Bombay troopers at the Wankhede Stadium, but -- it hurts even today to remember -- not to save the match for his side.

A forgotten world throbbed back to life when members of Hyderabad’s Little Theatre, longterm State Bank friend BS Prakash among them, read excerpts from Third Man with genuine feeling. Skipper Jaisimha strutting like a beau, Pataudi spraying charisma as only he could, Abbas Ali Baig breathing glamour, Abid Ali all doggedness, Mumtaz Hussain all wizardry, mentor Krishnamurti behind the wicket… 

Around me I saw friends -- Oxford Blue Murtuza Ali Baig, Manohar Sharma, Maheshwar Singh, Ram’s old rival Noshir Mehta, Jaisimha’s lovely wife June – all of them reliving their heady days of youth. We thought of those who are no more with us… Jaisimha, Pataudi, Nagesh Hammond, Krishnamurti, Mumtaz Hussain… They had enriched our lives, on and off the field. I realised how lucky I was to have known the kind of comradeship that only the game can forge, where even ruthless rivals can bond, empathise, and share laughter. To me this is the greatest magic of cricket.

The author is a playwright, theatre director, musician and journalist writing on the performing arts, cinema and literature