V Ramnarayan narrates the fascinating tales of the perennials – the less known and unsung heroes from the club cricket level in India, and tells us why their competitiveness cannot be disregarded.
V Ramnarayan (@pnvram) was an off-spinner for Hyderabad and turned to journalism and teaching after a first-class career that brought him 96 wickets from 25 matches.
This essay was first published in the Wisden India Almanack 2019 & 2020
I played collegiate cricket in Madras in the 1960s, and first-class cricket after my move to Hyderabad in 1971. I was 28 when I made my Ranji Trophy debut four years later. I had almost given up hope. I had been sure, even perversely proud, that I would never be a first-class cricketer; surely the loss was for cricket, not me! There were Test cricketers and Ranji Trophy players I admired, but I was drawn to those who didn’t make it and carried on regardless, putting up their best show in encounters with players and teams way above their level. I was proud to owe allegiance to this unusual breed of overachievers whom the selectors overlooked year after year.
My Presidency College (Madras) spin twin CS Dayakar was one of them. A left-handed all-rounder, he saved his best for our matches against the College of Engineering, Guindy, perhaps one of the strongest college teams in India. Its captain was S Venkataraghavan, who had debuted as India’s off-spinner against New Zealand in the 1964/65 season, and he led a side brimming with talent. Dayakar and John Alexander, our stocky, resolute batsman in the Vijay Manjrekar mould, approached these matches with steely determination and fierce pride, invariably scoring big.
Dayakar was selected in the Madras University squad that travelled to Dharwad in Karnataka in December 1969 to compete in the Rohinton Baria Trophy, but declined, certain that the other left-arm spinner of the team, Bhargav Mehta, would be preferred in the playing XI. Dayakar was never picked again in representative cricket, but wheeled away gamely for years for the doughty Indian Overseas Bank team in the highly competitive Tamil Nadu Cricket Association league.
While I was witness to many sterling performances by my teammates on these tours, there were occasions when an unknown opponent gave us a fright. Hyderabad Blues nearly lost a match to Singapore Cricket Club in January 1978, when medium pacer Chris Kilbee, an erstwhile teammate of David Gower at school and college level, took the wickets of Ajit Wadekar, M L Jaisimha and Murtuza Ali Baig in quick succession, and then scored a brilliant 91. At 160-2, SCC were poised to overtake our modest 190, when Jaisimha desperately turned to opening batsman Kenia Jayantilal’s occasional swing and seam. Jayanti obliged with seven wickets, and the Blues narrowly escaped a humiliating defeat. The tongue-lashing some of us received that night from skipper Jaisimha was of epic proportions.
Once, tired of listening to an interminable lecture by a former Test cricketer about his international exploits, I declared I was proud of the intense cricket some of us played, albeit at a less exalted level than his. I am likewise convinced that the cricket many non-first-class cricketers play is no less competitive.
