SO NEAR YET SO FAR

Jyothiprasad’s narrow miss

By V Ramnarayan

The scorecard does not always tell the whole story. For example, the card for the second innings of the Kerala vs. Hyderabad Ranji Trophy match at Warangal in the 1976-’77 season opened with the bland statement OK Ramdas/ caught Narasimha Rao/ bowled Ramnarayan/ 22. It failed to mention that the catch was off a ricochet after Ramdas picked me from outside the off stump and nearly decapitated short leg Jyothiprasad with an almighty sweep I can still hear 44 years later. Poor Jyothi, my partner in crime on so many occasions, with his brilliant close-in catching, rarely took early evasive action, preferring to keep his eye on the ball longer than most other short legs. This time OK gave him no chance, and I thought I would never be able to bowl again, so distraught was I. Joe, as we called him, was leaving for Baroda the next day to represent South Zone in back to back Deodhar Trophy and Duleep Trophy matches against West Zone. He left the field immediately after the injury, probably on a stretcher, and once in the dressing room,  treated himself to some inspired self-medication—a quarter bottle of Hercules XXX rum neat. All of us followed Jyothi’s fortunes anxiously after we disposed of Kerala and returned to Hyderabad, and we received both good news and bad news. Jyothi had a spectacular Deodhar Trophy match with five wickets, including the prize scalp of Sunil Gavaskar, whom he bowled for zero. His Duleep performance could have been equally dramatic—with a little bit of luck. He bowled the first ball of the West Zone innings, and surprised by a powerful straight drive, dropped the catch. The batsman was again Sunil Manohar Gavaskar—who went on to make 228. Earlier, Joe (40) had been involved in a fighting eighth wicket partnership of 102 with Brijesh Patel (85) in South Zone’s first innings total of 236.

Coming back to the Warangal match, I had a decent match with the ball except for the injury to Joe, with 4 for 31 and 1 for 1. I however sustained a bruised ego, because I had always prided myself on my clean record of close-in fielder safety while I was bowling. (The only other aberration occurred years later in a local match at Chennai, the unlucky short leg this time MA Sriram, a talented left handed all rounder who now lives in the US). Ramdas was not the only sweep specialist in the Kerala side. The talented Ramesh Sampath, a cousin of S Venkataraghavan, and an engineer working at ISRO, was making waves with his attacking batsmanship. A compulsive sweeper, he had an excellent record against the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu bowlers whom he must have irritated with his irreverent shotmaking regardless of the bowlers’ reputation. Thanks to my captain Jaisimha’s expert mentoring, I knew a thing or two about how to counter sweep specialists. Ramesh was a good friend, and in the course of breakfast table banter, he said to me, “Ram, don’t get me out today.” Remembering that he had got out to me sweeping on my debut the previous season, I shot back, “Don’t sweep me, and I promise not to get you.” Sure enough, when he came into bat, Ramesh swept me first ball—straight down square leg Noshir Mehta’s throat. Ramesh seemed to have a bright future in cricket, but tragically drowned at a Goa beach a couple of years later.

My debut season had been a happy experience, and team morale had been pretty high, umtil we crashed out in the quarter finals after gaining a first innings lead against Bombay. This year, I had missed the disastrous season opener against Andhra at Eluru, away playing for Rest of India versus Bombay in the Irani Cup at Delhi. When I joined the team at Warangal, I found a strange mood of negativity and what seemed like lack of cohesion following an alleged attempt by wicket keeper to replace Jaisimha as captain. It was all very disappointing. Murti was a close friend of mine and quite a protégé of Jai as well. Playing for Hyderabad was never again going to be as consistently fulfilling and thrilling as during my first season, though there were to be many happy moments along the way. Tiger Pataudi and Abbas Ali Baig had retired at the end of the previous season, and Jaisimha would hang up his boots at the end of this one. He had led the team for nearly two decades.