Wrist Assured Is Rest Assured

The school bell rings a short break. The long corridors which have been lying listless and quiet till now, spring into life as hordes of boisterous students gorge into them from the cloying stiffness of the classes.

Finishing my lunch quickly, I pace towards the library. As I step inside, I am ushered into a world of soothing silence far away from the humdrum of the corridors. Most of the children have spread out in the southern fields. Through the large French windows of the library, I can see the boys holding pieces of manja (sharp thread used in the game of kite fighting) wrapped around their index fingers and stretching them diagonally across their chests proceed challengingly towards their opponents who also have their manja ready for the spar, amusingly known as “righ-bigh”. The winners gesticulate joyously. Soon the grounds are littered with entangled remains of the pieces of manja.

It’s Friday, the day of the Sports Week. Instinctively, I am carried to the shelf holding the magazine. India is on the West Indies tour. Staying up late in the night for the last one week, trying to figure out the cricket commentary from the interrupted signals on the hand held transistor, the exploits of the Indian cricket team led by Sunil Gavaskar and G Vishwanath have left me and the cricket fans across the country craving for more. TVs have still not arrived in India. Even the best of commentaries by Jasdev Singh and Raj Singh Dungarpur leave much to the imagination of the listeners about how Gavaskar looks like or how it feels to witness when they say,”The ball, being deflected gracefully by Vishwanath, races to the fine leg boundary.”

Excitedly I flip through the magazine. Pages after pages cover the cricket story till I reach the middle spread and stop. Set against the lush green of the Queen’s Park is a picture of the maharaja of square drive executing it magnificently as the red cherry leaving the bat and the jaw dropping expression of the wicket keeper are captured beautifully in the same frame.

Picture credits: Patrick Edgar reads the footnote. The Maharaja is Vishwanath.

A couple of years later, West Indies toured India. Up against the wall, Indians were tottering at 74 for six. The excitement simmering through the nation forced the school authorities, the tight-lipped Jesuit fathers, to relay the cricket commentary on the intercom during the lunch break. Chepauk in Chennai was the place of action. Chasing a huge target with fall of early Indian wickets pushed the cricket enthusiast in me into throes of self doubts until the commentator said “Vishwanath is braving the deathly projectiles of Andy Roberts and Holder with aplomb.” I knew we were in safe hands. An unbeaten 97 by Vishwanath had built up a fighting Indian total but left Vishy’s fans like me sad for his missing the century. I remember how I could relate to him, his useful stroke play, his unselfish contribution to the team which was somehow always overshadowed in the media by Sunil Gavaskar in those years.

And then those heady days of the Ranji Trophy finals at Jaipur in 1976 when team Rajasthan was pitted against the star-studded Karnataka. The visiting team was supposed to come to St Xavier’s school for cricket practice. I, as a class VII student, smelled this to be my chance to see and touch my hero in person. Alas, fearing an enthusiastic mob of young supporters, the team had been bundled into a bus and left before I could realise my dream…

A blast of hot breeze hit my face as I stepped outside the arrival gates at the Chandigarh airport last week. Soon, Kashmira, my driver, was gossiping politics of recently concluded Punjab elections as I was driven past the city, which had shaped me into a cardiologist around three decades ago at the PGI.

The faculty at the department of cardiology and in fact the entire PGI breathed an air of imperious aloofness in those times. Any minor folly on the part of a fresher like me was given a confidence-shattering rebuke by the teachers reducing us to trembling first years meant only for running the indoor facilities smoothly, far away from the awe-inspiring invasive Cath lab arena held by the no-nonsense privileged seniors. The infamous reputation had made the students say, “….the teachers never smile. If at all they do, they peep into their cupboards, smile, and then again put up a face full of remorse, scorn and snarl in public.” We stifled, yet had to survive and strive.

In line with the unenvious traditions of the department was the assistant professor, Dr HK Bali. Listening to the presentations of the nervous seniors in the Cath lab, the dressing down given by Dr Bali on negligible mistakes left them wilting away embarrassedly and sent me cringing into one of my back benches. Unabashed and bold, Dr Bali would stand up to the authorities at the drop of hat to speak out against even the slightest of inequality like sharing of the beds in the wards or days in the outdoors. Those loud encounters had left in me an impression of an almost inaccessible Dr Bali.

Till the time a couple of years ago, I rediscovered him.

Beyond cardiology.

Abandoning PGI long back, his stint into the private sector had introduced to the world a new person who would talk or write anything but cardiology on Facebook. From political discussions in foreign matters, to tributes to singers, hockey players, film stars or commentary on the dilemmas faced by the medical fraternity during the pandemic, his thoughts were there for his Facebook friends to delve into, think and finally appreciate his versatility. But what had endeared him to my instincts was his love for cricket and books.

It was this Dr Bali-now mellowed, more accommodative and a pleasant teacher whom I was to meet that evening. I was excited as the evening had something much more in store for me .

Driving through the traffic of the office-goers returning back to their homes, through the famed wide roads and the spacious tree-lined boulevards, Kashmira soon pulled up in front of a modern, double story bungalow, all lit up for the special evening.

Soon I was into a world of backslapping, elegant, socially suave and sophisticated friends of the host from the green city of Chandigarh and even from far away Jammu, where Dr Bali had his initial schooling. The mouth watering starters served with the most exotic brands of liquors only added to the soft and gentle ambience of the beautiful evening. Drawn from different walks of life, the friends who had gathered had only one thing in common. They were all cricket buffs, sticklers of cricket history, followers of famous innings and raconteurs of cricket anecdotes.

Just as everybody thought the evening had reached its acme, the large flush door to the drawing room opened with everybody standing up to welcome the special guest. I could feel my heart pounding fiercely against by chest, as I realised my dream, unfulfilled for more than four decades, coming true.

There stood GR Vishwanath, the hero of my childhood years, destroyer of the pace attack of Roberts, Boyce, Thomson and Lillie and the saviour of so many Indian innings and bruised emotions of the nation. I pinched myself just to check if it was true.

Vishy had been in the city for the launch of his book “ Wrist Assured.” Aware of the group of cricket aficionados that had gathered in his honour at Dr Bali’s house, Vishy had kindly accepted the invitation of spending the evening with us.

Wo aaye hamare ghar , hamari kismet hai

Kabhi hum unko kabhi apne ghar ko dekhte hain.

What followed were two hours of tete-a-tete, soaked in nostalgia and wrapped in awe, with one of the most accomplished cricketers of the world. The conversation which followed further pushed us into getting a signed copy of Vishy’s book and finish it in one go over the next two days.

Commenting on his own inimitable style of producing breathtaking shots square of the wicket on both sides, its interesting how Vishy had mastered that shot in his younger days when he played cricket with a tennis ball. “The bounce the ball gathers on pitching was considerable, and therefore you had to bring your wrists into play to keep it down.”

And when Vishy steered the faster deliveries effortlessly none other than his captain Tiger Pataudi noticed his weakness in disposing the slower turning ball to the boundaries. “The problem lies in your weak wrists. To empower them you may use dumb bells or even try lifting water buckets at your home.” Vishy opted for the bucket lifting to train and strengthen his wrists which manufactured the slickest of late cuts and leg glances.

Vishy’s master strokes compelled his opponents to come up with strange strategies. To neutralise his late cut, Pakistan captain Asif Iqbal had gone for stationing one slips and three gullies in 1979-80 Indo-Pak series only to be frustrated by Vishys’s ease of piercing his fielders with his shots.

Vishy’s first test innings at the Green Park against the Australians in 1969 was a nightmarish initiation. Playing only his third ball, Vishy plonked for a duck when he holed a catch to Ian Redpath on silly mid on. Vishy was crestfallen as it occurred to him that his world was finished while ‘matkas’ were hurled towards him by the disappointed spectators. He mentions of Prassana and Chandrashekhar who took care of him as their younger brother. But it was the captain, the Tiger, who bolstered his confidence when he said, “Boy, don’t worry. It will be okay.” That gave him enough reasons to smile in the second innings when he scored 137 runs in a major partnership with Eknath Solkar(Ekki).

Remembering those years, Vishy says, “ I was mighty delighted when I got a personal message from the Bollywood icon Raj Kapoor congratulating me for my innings on my debut.” Those were the times when Devanand, Raj Kapoor and Dileep Kumar ruled the Indian hearts and the media overkill had still not taken away the mystic charm of these giants.

Vishy gets emotional when he mentions about the warmth with which the greats like Sir Gary Sobers and Rohan Kanhai guided him. “It was my first overseas tour and that too to Caribbean. I was excited as I would be able to meet these idols in flesh and blood and shake hands with them……When I took guard for the first time in a Test in the West Indies, up against me was Sir Garry, the greatest all-rounder the game has seen. His first ball was a gentle full-toss on leg. I flicked it through mid-wicket for four. Years later, I asked Sir Garry if he remembered that ball. “I do. I do. Full toss despatched to the mid-wicket. I just wanted you to feel good .” My mouth fell open. Sir Garry had meant me to move past the dreaded duck. Who does that,” Vishy sums up.

Talking about the daunting circumstances when India were 74 for six against the West Indies in Madras test in 1974, Vishy says, “ Neither Karsan, nor I panicked…. Even now, when I close my eyes, I can see several of those strokes. Such as two or three whips off Roberts, taking the ball from off stump and wristing them wide of mid on. Or those back foot punches off Boyce that slammed in the pitch and hurtled back past him to the straight boundary. ….I looked around. There were wows and claps from the slip cordon manned by Lloyd, Viv and Kallicharan.” The 97 not out by Vishy that day has been rated as the second-best non century by Wisden in 2001.

Australian pitches are known for their racy and bouncy trait where the ball comes up fast and high to the batsman. Once again the practice with tennis ball and his experience of initial cricketing days on matting wicket had prepared Vishy for the Australian tour of 1981. His 114 against Australia at MCG saw Vishy deliver once again when India was in trouble and which made his team leave Australia with a drawn series for the first time. Vishwanath’s play forced Dennis Lillie, the fast bowler who was a destroyer too on numerous occasions, to comment in a post-match get together, “Little giant man, I like you a lot even when you make runs even against me. You are made of steel!”

That night at Dr Bali’s residence and reading through the book, I was taken along a personalised and emotional journey. There was a childlike twinkle in his eyes when Vishy mentioned about his memorable meeting with the great Sir Don Bradman on a dinner at his house in Adelaide. Vishy was going through a rough patch in that 1981 series. Seeing him wear a sombre look throughout that evening Sir Don had told him,”When you have a long career, these things happen. There is one more Test left in the series. Just concentrate on what’s ahead. Good luck.” The dinner with the greatest batsman of all times was itself a huge honour, but to hear his words of reassurance meant a world for Vishy.

Vishy had finished with 14 hundreds and 35 half-centuries in 91 tests. His conversion rate was clearly not the best but he feels satisfied today that he played for his team and his fans at his own terms. It goes to his credit when we see that never did India lose a test match when Vishy was amongst the runs. He was there when the nation needed him the most.

Shorn of any effective protective equipment, his technique came to his rescue while facing the fireballs from Thomson, Arnold or Chris Old. But there were occasions, like the one in the final test at Sabina Park in 1976, when Lloyd’s quest for revenge in the series had unleashed an angry barrage of bouncers and beamers from his pace battery sending four of his teammates including Vishy himself to the hospital. The newspapers screaming the next morning “ Bloodbath at Sabina Park” summed up the eerie atmosphere of the match.

On another rare occasion Vishy was facing Vanburn Holder in Bridgetown, when the bowler sent in a short ball. “ I went under, sure that the ball would sail over me,” he writes ,”but I didn’t take my eyes off it. It didn’t climb as much and zeroed in on my face. I slumped to the ground…. As my backside thudded on the turf, I could feel my heart pounding. Sir Garry whispered from the slips, ‘ almost like Nari.’ I was too shaken up to understand what he was saying. Later I realised he was talking about Nari Contractor who was brought back from a sure death after being felled by a nasty delivery from Griffith in the 1962 tour.”

Laced with interesting anecdotes about his interactions with the speed demons like Sir Ian Botham, Imran Khan and Sarfaraz Nawaz, his learnings from Sunil Gavaskar, who is also his brother-in-law, and close encounters with Sharmila Tagore and Rajesh Khanna at Ooty, where Vishy had been on a holiday with Tiger Pataudi, the evening was turning out to be a never- ending trance.

“You must have been mobbed by thousands of fans, including a huge female fan following too,” I was asking him. “ Didn’t the success get to your head ?”

“We keep him grounded,” quipped in Daviek, his son. The hall burst into a loud and noisy laughter.

Dazed, star struck, reeling in nostalgia and content to the brim, I drove back to my hotel, thanking my luck to have met my idol, my hero, the stroke player who could easily walk into any of the IPL teams today and entertain the z generation as he had done us half a century ago.