Playing the game

One of the clearest memories from my youth is of standing on a cricket field in early evening. The sun was relatively low in the sky but still high enough above the trees so as not to cast a shadow.

There was a light breeze and the sunlight was reflected off the ground, which appeared to be shimmering. I remember bending down to see what was causing the reflection, and could see it was due to masses of tiny spider webs reflecting the light upwards. In the breeze, the mass of webs gently vibrated and rippled like the surface of a lake.

I was probably in my mid-teens, because I well recall the place – the main cricket pitch of my school. I imagine that it was during a dry spell so that the spider webs had not been washed away. I can recall enjoying the warmth of the sun on my face as I peered at the shimmering field.

I don’t remember any details of the match except that we must have batted first, because I was fielding and it was evening when I noticed the rippling outfield. It’s a memory that cheers me up as I recall the many hours I played cricket. My memories of playing cricket are also triggered by the scent of freshly mown grass.

I have another memory of cricket, this time from my university days. I think it was from 1982 as I was playing for my college team against a local league team from Felling, a suburb of Newcastle. Like teams in the better known Lancashire and Yorkshire leagues, they had an overseas professional. In their case, he was a young Indian, around my age.

He wasn’t a particularly tall lad, and was quite quiet. He opened their batting, or came in first down. He started a bit hesitantly, and lost one or two partners, as we had taken a few wickets. But then he started to pick up the run rate, and hit sixes over mid-wicket. At first one or two, but then lots of them.

He also hit them a long way out of the ground. We kept on retrieving the ball from the nearby front gardens, until one elderly woman came out of her house and refused to give the ball back.

I made a point of finding out his name: he was Raman Lamba. I lost track of his career but found out that he went on to play a few times for India. Sadly, he died of a haemorrhage after being hit on the temple by a ball when fielding at short leg. It was at the end of his career. Like the death of Phil Hughes, it’s a grim reminder that cricket can be a dangerous game.

It was a different matter when I was young. For me, cricket was spending long afternoons outside in the summer, chatting to teammates, throwing balls in fielding practice or sitting in the sun waiting to bat. A happy time of innocence.

We didn’t have helmets, but I was lucky because I was taught young to get my elbow up – the right in my case as I’m left handed – and play through the line of the ball. A solid defensive player, who my friends teased couldn’t hit the ball off the square.

I wasn’t passionate about cricket – indeed I don’t think English crowds are as passionate about cricket as they are about football. The game goes on for much longer than the 90 minutes of a football match, and maybe that’s too long for emotional release. But I enjoyed it for the camaraderie, the delight of being outside in summer, and running about in the open air.

My local team was Somerset, who I watched occasionally, enjoying the exploits of Ian Botham, Viv Richards and Joel Garner. Sunil Gavaskar had a season there as well, but I didn’t see him play. My favourite English player was another left hander, David Gower, who was all languid grace and style, and was a joy to watch. He didn’t take the game too seriously.

But that doesn’t mean England don’t play to win. When I arrived in Kolkata, I learnt that the first England team to play at Eden Gardens was captained by Douglas Jardine, the steely captain who worked out how to tame the great Donald Bradman with “bodyline” bowling in the 1932-33 tour of Australia. In recent years, the likes of Nasser Hussain have shown how keen they are to win.

It’s different in India. It is the national sport (although others tell me that kabbadi should be because it originated in India). The sustained success of the national team in the last decade or so, on top of the 1983 World Cup win, has given the sport even more profile.

One of the attractions of my job was the possibility of seeing matches at Eden Gardens – which I did for the first time last week, as readers of Kolkata’s Telegraph newspaper know. I expected the crowd to be partisan, but they applauded good play by the England players politely if not with the same delight and cheers that they greeted that of the Indian team.

As cricket at the top level is played by relatively few nations and there is extensive interchange of players in the domestic leagues, I think there is a sense of community about cricket around the world. When I met club players on the Maidan, I was struck by how much they knew about domestic cricket in England. And there was disappointment in the crowd around me at Eden Gardens when they learnt Joe Root wasn’t playing.

That’s the ethos of cricket that I hope still predominates. Playing the game hard but fairly. Applauding good shots or wickets, or high scores of opponents. And delighting in the skill and grace of a player driving the ball with a straight bat and limited effort to the cover boundary.