Bombay Blues

Monday blues had never had a different meaning than what was yesterday. I had been to a cricket match. Of the domestic class. Of Ranji finals. Of two provinces – Bengal and Mumbai. The triviality ends here. From here on everything was magnanimous. Mumbai back from the threats of relegation, of realms of mockery being reduced to 0 for 5 against Baroda and having fortified their finals bastion with the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan and Ramesh Powar. Bengal on the other hand, asking Dada to join hands with them and chasing a humungous 472 for the last innings for victory. The start of the game had its share of drama, when Sachin showed his loyalty towards his state agreeing to stand in the dressing room to cheer his team on. And why not? He regarded them as his extended “egg-eating” family. Zaheer Khan had realized that the best way to gain the attention of selectors was to play strategy. So switch allegiance to Mumbai when there’s the chance. Mumbai was handicapped by the absence of players like Sairaj Bahutule when they found the going tough. Two, start a restaurant business in the lands where “Pawar” would like. So Zaks came up in Pune and make mince meat of some hapless firings in county cricket. But that’s the background of the story.

By the time I entered the Wankhede, the stage had been set in all magnanimity. The zaks debut had been stellar. The opposition had been vanquished in the first innings and the frontline bowlers from the opposition had been made to understand, “Look dude, you might have taken 57 wickets on the way up here, but if you are in the Dada-league and don’t have an egg-sponsor you just don’t matter in the national scheme of things.”

So just the right time for a juicy day of cricket chasing a mammoth 472 and the score on 98 for 2, just the right recipe of which cricketing romanticism could be synthesized. By the time I glimpsed in Dada was in tow with a young diminutive figure – Manoj Tiwari. The cricket on the ground had 4 angles: Bengal, Mumbai, Ganguly and the Mumbai outside the playing arena. Zaheer charges and is shown the way to the cover boundary. And the crowd roars. But wait… Isn’t it supposed to happen the other way? Dude, you are in Mumbai and Ganguly is your opposition. Zaheer again, short and slightly wide. Bisected through gully and point and the crowd erupts again. Whats wrong with you people? Vengsarkar cannot take it any longer. He screams directions to the home team to Tendulkar, who by that time had become the proxy skipper. Amol Muzumdar had been relegated to the sidelines. The fielders are frantically scurrying. And within the butterflies in your stomach, you can just feel that folklore could just turn reality. Because its Bengal on 272 for 3.

Salim, a young college bloke on my side enthusiastically says, “Bengal should lose, but Dada should get a century.” (Mr. More you could not have been slapped harder). And that is when you really take notice. The other person. Short, swaggery. And when Zaheer dropped in short and just asked the ball to be fetched from the mid wicket boundary. On being eyed by the bowler, he seemed more interested in adjusting his sleeves while taking a scroll towards square leg. As I sat near the press box I heard Arun Lal scream, “Watch out, the new star from Bengal after Ganguly. He should be in the Indian team right now.” And why not? This 17 year old had scored 796 throughout this season. He scored a fifty for the first time this season when he got out on 94 today. Tiwary seemed to be the perfect answer to the tame outlook of the Bengal team of the past lacking the killer punch. The perfect reply to the Mumbai team’s claim that “This Bengal team was a 70 – 80 scorer.”

There was another strong message from Rohan Gavaskar to his “home” team. And while Bengal rode with him till almost 330 even Ganguly paled in the background.

There were lots of messages throughout the entire day. The dejection of a weak capitulation in the first innings, the strong message to selectors, “look beyond regionalism and power bastions, for a change look at performance”, the message for an individual rising above a team and then obviously ruthlessly salted by cricket being won as a team alone and not by individuals. And not to forget, the message which came out of a sole poster ironically on the Sachin Tendulkar stand, “Chappell, don’t take punga with Dada.”