Sunny side of the streets

Sunil Gavaskar has checked into his Shivaji Park office a few hours after landing from Chennai where he did commentary in the May 26 Indian Premier League finalHe doesnrsquot appear fatigued but is hungry His humility comes shining through when he asks us if he can have a bite Food is ordered for us too along with teacoffeeWhile the cricket great gets ready to be interviewed for his 75th birthday this writer canrsquot help thinking about the earlier interactions with midday which coincided with his birthdaysIn 2004 just before he turned 55 he told us how actor Dev Anand who was then 80 is an example of how ldquoto feel young and get on with the best things in liferdquoThis photograph of the Sunil Gavaskarled Nirlon team which won the MoinUdDowlah Gold Cup in 1980 at Hyderabad adorns a wall at the Nirlon Knowledge Park in Goregaon East PicClayton MurzelloBefore Gavaskar turned 60 in 2009 he told us how he still loves dropping tea on four ParleG biscuits before consuming them as an evening snackIn this interview he talks about his journey in Mumbai cricket Itrsquos a subject close to his heart and one could get an idea of the kind of joy he got and continues to get from being part of the Mumbai cricket cultureEdited excerpts from a video interview for Middayrsquos Mumbai Cricket PodcastGoing back 75 years Your mother is carrying you and gets admitted to the Dr Purandare Hospital Girgaum Chowpatty Now you pass Purandare very often while going for commentary Do you stop and look at itI certainly have a look at it when I go past but being a hospital you donrsquot want to go there because you will naturally interfere with what is happening over there But it is a pretty happy memory every time I go past on the way to the Wankhede stadium or that side of townPurandare Hospital throws up another bit of trivia because Aunshuman Gaekwad was born there a few years laterhellipOh nice I didnrsquot know that Anshumanrsquos birthday coincides with my wedding anniversary but I didnrsquot know that hewas also born at that hospital Great fantasticA general view of the Brabourne Stadium during Day Two of the threeday game between CCI Xl and England on February 19 2006 It was here where Sunil Gavaskar watched his first Test match way back in 1958 PicGetty ImagesFor cricket lovers and Gavaskar fans Chowpatty is associated with their hero whereas for the others the place is associated with bhel puri Isnrsquot that agood coincidenceIt is I remember going on to the sands and having bhel puri dahi batata puri That has always been my favourite occasionally pani puri too and all the rubbish that youngsters eat I stayed in the lane opposite Bhatia Hospital Tardeo so a lot of us would just walk across It would be maybe a 1520minute walk from where we were to Chowpatty beach We just ran around the beach and played around It was funWhat did you learn from your mumThe first thing I learned from her was that if you want to play cricket you should be able to bear pain I must have been four or five years old and you know kids have this plastic bat She was playing with a rubber ball and I smashed it back It hit her on the nose and she started bleeding I was worried The distance would have been less than 10 yardsmdashwe had a small balcony I ran to her and she put her pallu on the bleeding part tapped it and said lsquoGo if you want to play crickethellip if you want to be a cricketer you must be able to bear the pain That stayed in my mind because you play cricket with a hard ball and you will get injured not necessarily while batting but fielding also You must be able to bear the pain and carry on unless itrsquos a broken bone or whatever You got to grit your teeth and carry on That was my first lessonThey say cricket reflects life and vice versa Do you think this is a good example of thatCertainly in my case I cannot generalise But it certainly was something that told me that not just for cricket but in life too there will be ups and downs and you should be able to take the rough with the smooth Yoursquove got to be able to pick yourself up when you are down and maybe take a couple of deep breaths to stand up again Those are the kind of things that little episode taught meThe Dr Purandare Hospital Marine Drive where India captainturnedtelevision commentator Sunil Gavaskar was born on July 10 1949 PicClayton MurzelloDo you think the first signs of competitiveness emerged when you played with your friends in ChikalwadiDefinitelyAnd you hated getting outhellipDefinitely because you wanted to bat as much as you could The other guys were trying to get you out So you wanted to be on top of itDid the parents in the area get kicked by these little gamesThey would watch not all of them but a lot of them would come on to the balconies and watch what was happening They didnrsquot interfere I do not recall even a single instance of the parents saying to the boys lsquoCome on letrsquos go in and start studyingrsquo That was just incredible Even more incredible was the fact that we often broke the windows of the ground floor flatsBut apart from the fact that there would be a concerned question like lsquoHey what happenedrsquomdashthe shock that your glass is broken none of those families ever told us to stop playing cricket And so it was just a lovely atmosphere We had Bengalis Gujaratis Maharashtrians It was a melting pot it was fantastic You have been to one of my gettogethers where a couple of boys still come The memories are truly specialThe alltime greatrsquos parents Manohar and Meenal Gavaskar Picmid day archivesIt was during your school days that you watched your first Test match at Brabourne StadiumhellipYes 1958 when the West Indies team came down I was there when Ghulam Guard India pacer knocked the bat out of Garry Sobersrsquos hand and he got a caught and bowled I was sitting in the North Stand In the second innings Ghulam Guard bowled him a bouncer and Garry hit him into the car park near the CCI tennis courts It was almost like saying lsquobowl me a bouncer again and we will seersquoWhen did you watch your next Test matchIndia v Pakistan in 1960 I was in Bombay Gymkhana Stand this time I saw Hanif Mohammad getting run out I was very excited because he was an opening bat I was beginning to open the batting so I wanted to see Hanif saab He was batting 128 overnight I saw Vijay Manjrekar throw flat from where the tennis court is into the wicketkeeperrsquos gloves and Hanif Mohammad was run out for 160Milind Rege says it was he who made you an opening batsman by forcing you to open in a schools gameYes I think in my first school game I batted No 10 and Milind batted No11 Thatrsquos the first time my name came in the papers In those days school cricket was covered very well and so I got up just to read my name in the papers You knew if you scored above 25 your name would appear in the papers I got up in the morning to see and the name appeared as G Sunil 30 not outWhen it came to the Giles Shield I was asked to open the batting and thatrsquos how it startedGavaskar in a reflective mood during the interview PicRane AshishWhen did you feel comfortable opening the inningsFrom the first time It was like playing tennisball cricket You wanted to be first up You didnrsquot want to wait for your turn to bat because you want to bat as much as possible before the light fadedHow did the offer come to play for Dadar UnionI had a good season for Indian Schools 196566 and thatrsquos where the offer came to play for Dadar Union I didnrsquot get an immediate place in the XII had to do my apprenticeship by watching everybody learning about how to be a part of the team environment make sure that when the team came back to have some water ready In those days there wasnrsquot a situation where you had drinks juices and colas And you also did scoring that was part of thelearning curveWho was your first club captainmdashMadhav Mantri or Vasoo ParanjapeVasoo Paranjape Madhav Mantri was still around he was a senior member He was like the chairman of the club so he would come for every match There was notomfoolery when he was thereOn the other side it was motivation because if he watched you closely you would benefithellipI am not too sure about the benefit aspect because he never wanted a finger to be pointed at him In fact I suffered a bit because of the fact that he was a disciplinarian and he might have upset a few people who were then from Shivaji Park Gymkhana or some other clubs I mean when I got picked for Mumbai I had a bit of a time in the wildernessYou made your firstclass debut for Bombay in 196768 under Manohar HardikarRavi Shastri who Sunil Gavaskar first watched at the Nirlon nets before the allrounderrsquos 197980 Ranji Trophy debut is seen here bowling for India in the fifth Test against the West Indies at Eden Gardens Kolkata in 1983 PicGetty ImagesHow was he as a captainVery quiet He spoke to a few people in the change room He didnrsquot have much to speak to me I got the impression that he didnrsquot think I was good enough to play in the Mumbai side which is fair enough at that stage understandable On the other hand all the other Shivaji Park Gymkhana players were wonderful mdash Baloo Gupte Ramakant Desai there was Vishoo Bondre who later on became a colleague at the ACC All these people were absolutely wonderful The late Vijay Manjrekar wasnrsquot playing for Mumbai but he would come and was always very encouraging He talked to me about batting telling me you must carry on and donrsquot get happy with 150 So while rivalry was fierce when we Dadar Union played against each other the Shivaji Park Gymkhana boys were absolutely wonderfulBeing punctual at Dadar Union was a big factor Were you ever on the wrong side of the clockNever I donrsquot recall ever being on the wrong side of the clock except I think when I had arrived in the morning from England and then had to go the venue But I was there before the first ball was bowledmdash1520 minutes before the game startedAt the Associated Cement Companies ACC office you were working with people who were not connected to cricket How was thatTo start with a little bit difficult because everybody looks at you with a different sort of perspective Lots of people over there had been working for a lot of years and were still in a clerical position And suddenly they see you a new guy in the officer grade I never experienced anything else than maybe they being reserved I did a fair bit of work I was with the staff department I used to do gratuities and stuff like that I did a training period for about six to eight months not at a stretch but went to factories to see how cement was made distributed etc I joined ACC after I came back from the West Indies 1971 in April and in May I was working for ACCThe Dadar Union team did not know what it was to losehellipYes We had an outstanding team at Dadar UnionmdashVasoo Paranjape the captain VS Patil the senior member In the short time after I joined we had Narayan Pai who was sharp and liked to bowl the bouncer We also had PK lsquoJoersquo Kamath Ramnath Parkar Suresh Tigdi Urmi Mody Avi Karnikmdasha topclass team wonderful teamAny particular Kanga League innings which gave you a lot of satisfactionI think it was for Rajasthan Sports Club in the B Division at the Islam Gymkhana It was on my birthdaymdashone of those rare occasions where I played a game of cricket on my birthday and I got a 100 So that was a great feeling I think that was the reason I was asked by Dadar Union to come and playThat must have been a proper Kanga trackhellipYes But the outfield was a lot better than Azad Maidan and Cross Maidan If you hit you did score some runs unlike Azad and Cross Maidan where the ball just got stuck in the big tall grass and didnrsquot go anywhereWhat made you move from ACC to NirlonAt ACC I thought they were not having new players coming in The senior players had all retired from firstclass cricket So they focused more on their careers in the office while at Nirlon the opportunity was to build a young team My own ambitions and aspirations along with theirs was to go on and play as much better cricket as possible So when the late Mr Virenchee Sagar approached me and said look we are going to do this I accepted it We had a good team Late Hemant Waingankar put it all together He is like my younger brother so he was the man in charge of getting everybody He got Sandeep Patil Ravi Shastri Suru Nayak Rahul Mankad there were so many playersmdashVijay Mohan Raj Suresh Shastri Suresh Shettymdashall these guys We were a very good team a young team all playing Ranji Trophy for different statesIn fact there were only one or two players who were in the team who did not play firstclass crickethellipYes There was also Sanjay Jaywant Avadhoot Zarapkar Avi Karnik We started to win a lot of titles We won the MoinUdDowlah Gold Cup in Hyderabad in 1980 we won the Buchi Babu in Chennai which I thought was a great lung opener for the season because we got good pitches It wouldnrsquot rain there and we would get some great pitchesYou mentioned in One Day Wonders book on the 1985 World Championship of Cricket that there are two occasions you wouldnrsquot walkmdashagainst Mafatlal and Pakistan Why is that Were you given out wrongly many timesSmiles Well lsquomanyrsquo times is not the right word but the odd time and that is part of the game But what we used to see at the end of the dayrsquos play was the umpire sitting with the Mafatlal manager It was office cricket but serious cricket It was like a mini firstclass game with so many firstclass players involved in both the teams Out of 22 players you would expect maybe 20 players to be firstclass players It was serious stuff and we wanted to win the Times Shield Always the decisions the marginal ones always went in Mafatlalrsquos favour And that was obviously because of the fact that the manager would be sitting with the umpires in the evening and maybe dropping them home Those days umpires used to take local trains and buses to go home We all thought that was the reason why the marginal decisions went in their favour and never in oursThatrsquos the time I said half in jest of course that I wonrsquot walk against these two teamsMumbairsquos 197677 Ranji Trophy triumph over Delhihellip how special was thatIt was special When we started and right till the time I finished playing cricket the main thing was to beat Maharashtra The Mumbai versus Delhi rivalry people talk about was not Mumbai versus Delhi It was always Mumbai versus MaharashtraThen in the early 1970s some of the things that had happened between some of the North players and West players particularly the way Ajit Wadekar was treated made us all want to win very much against Delhi Our rivalry was not so much against Delhi But we wanted to pull out something special because we had heard about how the Delhi bragadier who said lsquowe are going to do this and thatrsquoYou were smiling at the end of the game but you were dismissed by Bishan Singh Bedi for a low score in both innings How difficult was itNot difficult because I was beaten by a beautifully tossed up delivery I went down the pitch in the second innings Every time the ball was tossed up I used to go down the pitch The loop was such that he beat me in the flight in the air and the ball spun enough to leave me stranded There was nothing to feel bad about when you are defeated by a champion bowler I was caught and bowled in the first innings Again why was he such a great bowler the best left hander I have seen Because he had the great ability to look as though every ball was the same It wasnrsquot To get beaten by a great bowler and be out to him was nothing to get upset aboutYou just doff your hat to the fact that he has beaten you and hersquos got you outThe two occasions where after that Delhi prevented Mumbai from proceedingmdashin 197879 and 197980 and then Bombay beat Delhi in 198081 when you were with the Indian team in Australia and New Zealand Did you follow that season when Mumbai beat themFollow Even now I follow Mumbairsquos fortunes I was part of the team then so I was following it 100 per cent I didnrsquot have the same kind of ready access as there is now but yes absolutely totally following it Even today I am in touch with Milind Rege asking what is happening here and how many points for Mumbai if I am out of India Fortunately now websites have the scoresSo Ranji Trophy triumph No 42 must have delighted you and you watched some of the actionhellipI was not there on all days but to see them get the trophy back was a wonderful feeling because they have been there they have not been there then they had not qualified once for the Playoffs That was a little hard to acceptI totally understand the fact that standards all over the country have risen and with the IPL there is so much more talent coming in from the interiors if one might call it that Some very good talent coming through So it is understandable that Mumbai is not going to dominate like they did from say 1958 to 1974That 198485 final in which Ravi Shastri got eight wickets in You were not present on the last day but you had a party for the teamhellipYes I wasnrsquot well I had fever I was in the change roommdashon the masseurrsquos table getting information as to what was happeningIt was quite unbelievablehellipYes it was one of the better Mumbai wins Some were easy wins but this was a real hardfought win This was a win where Mumbai showed its character if one might use that wordmdashneversaydie khadoosmdashlsquowhatever happens I am not going to give my wicket awayrsquomdashthat kind of attitudeThe bowling hero was Ravi Shastri and team were led by Sandeep Patil on the last dayhellipYesTalking about Ravi Shastri you called him to the Nirlon nets to see him bowl before his Mumbai debut in 1980 Do you remember much of thatYes I do This was at CCI I stood up over the partition and watched him I didnrsquot want to go out and stand behind the net or be around the net because sometimes some players can get nervous He was very impressive He probably grew another inch or two after that As he grew taller the loop maybe came down a little bit But he had a lovely loop getting the ball to drop and turn He was a very determined batter too That said I have got to confess it was Pradeep Vijayakar journalist who in the 198182 series against England came to me at Mumbai and said lsquoYou must promote Ravi up the order because he is a very good batterrsquo I think Ravi went up a couple of notches the order