Former Indian Cricketer Yajurvindra Singh Bilkha On The Colours Of Cricket
In 1889, the Indian team beat the English side at the Azad Maidan. It was a Parsi team. As you know, Parsis are a fantastic community; they gel well with everybody and certainly gelled well with the British as well. They were given the first option to make a cricket team and they played against the English.
The whole of Bombay came to a standstill for a cricket match because suddenly there was a chance of India winning and there were about six to seven thousand people on the ground over there and they did beat England. The Parsi women garlanded the Indian team and naturally there was a lot of celebration. That was the first glamorous moment in Indian cricket and it was right here in Mumbai.
Then we had Ranjit Singh; the glamour boy of Test cricket who became Jam Sahib of Navanagar -Jamnagar later on. Ranjit Singh was in England and he played for England, but since he was a non-white guy, he was not selected for the English team.
For the first Test match at Lords he was refused, but then the Australians said they didn’t have any objection playing with the non-white so he played. Ranjit Singh got a 100 and went on to become the poster boy of English cricket. He was the 1st non-white sportsman who did well in a white men’s game.
Then in 1926, at the Bombay Gymkhana, an English side led by Lord Gilman came along. C K Naidu scored 128 runs, hitting 7 sixes some of them where the present Bombay Gymkhana swimming pool is and that is when the British realized that they could actually play cricket like no one else.
We were included in the ICC and in 1932 we played a test match at Lords. But it was in 1933 we played a match at Bombay Gymkhana, that was the first test match ever on Indian soil. Naturally, no Indians were allowed into the club at that time, so tents were put up. Traders, royalties, and everyone had tents all over. There was a whole crowd there and Lala Amarnath got a 100 against them. Believe it or not, people threw coins, jewellery, and everything; just to glamourize the sport. That was the colour of the game even then and we Indians somehow have always taken to the sport.
Now there is a complete change in the cricket. The digital world, the multimedia options et al. The cricketers now come into our drawing rooms, bedrooms, the viewership has changed, and cricketers have changed.
All this took place when I was playing cricket, in the ’70s. There was a sudden movement and I am truly happy that I was there during those times. I remember Kerry Packer, he decided that enough of this White cricket; it is becoming quite boring because suddenly, from flamboyant batting we became very risk-averse and players were very much into the statistics and staying on the wicket. When we were going up to play cricket if we hit the ball in the air, our coach would throw us out of the nets, and say that this is not cricket and we can never make it in the team, so we never tried shots that you see today.
It is great to see them playing these innovative shots. We were always told never to appeal, if you catch somebody you should not make it a song and dance. Today; you see their body language and the way they celebrate, the way they have these body movements, each one of them, they have become showmen.
I remember I did that once. I caught the ball and I threw it up in the air to say that I got the catch and my coach threw me out and put me in the sideway. He said, never do that because the player is out, he is depressed and you are finished with that. Those are the sort of values and ethics that we all grew up with which has totally changed; whether for better or worse, that is something you all can decide.
So suddenly it became from an amateur’s game to an entertainment game. That is what Kerry Packer talked about, it has become a business – it is a big business, the amateur cricket has gone out of the window. It was Kerry Packer who said, he had all the big players from all over the world, they all combined together and they played in the evenings. They called it big boys play at night and that became a big slogan as such and suddenly money came. Cricketers realized that they were at the epicentre of what everyone wanted.
And we got some fantastic administrators in India who changed the fortune of BCCI. When we played there was no money in the corpus of BCCI so we were barely given about 105 pounds for the whole week which was about 2000 rupees for the test match and if you played domestic cricket, you got 30 rupees a day. All this you get paid timely and if you finish in 4 days then minus that day’s amount. So, we were always worried, if we would hang on to the 5th day even while there was no question we always tried to finish the game. And we had about 60000 people watching the game so it was very tense.
Because there was not enough money so sometimes, we were two and sometimes three shared a room. But that gave us such a sense of camaraderie. It would be like people’s family would come in, friends would come in and nobody would miss any opportunity of going to somebody’s house for a meal. All my cricketer friends from other teams would say please take us also for dinner. So, we would all go. Everyone used to love us for that, we used to have a lot of fun.
I remember when I was playing a test match at the Oval and Geoffrey Boycott who was a famous cricketer and an utter professional; he said why do you all laugh so much? Why are you all talking so much? Aren’t you going to concentrate? I said, I play cricket for fun, not for living like you. So, we are here to enjoy ourselves no matter what happens next and he couldn’t understand that. That is what it was – we were not playing for money, it was more or less passion. The money came in, and we were happy.
I remember getting selected for the Indian team and I was holidaying in Delhi at my uncle’s. I had not played for a month or so, and suddenly while he was listening to the famous Doordarshan news my uncle said “I think you are selected for India”. And I said, “It can’t be, why should I be? I don’t even know where the next test match is scheduled”.
I checked and the news did say that I am selected and it was in about 5 days’ time that I was about to play a test match and I had to now reach Bangalore. An air ticket was bought and I landed in Mumbai to meet my colleagues. They had come with my kit bag. They had gone through my kit bag and said that your pads were terrible, and also your bat was broken, so Ashok Wadekar, that is Ajit Wadekar’s brother had gone and picked one of Ajit Wadekar’s bats and put it in my kit bag. So that is how the colleagues helped, they got all this for me.
I was so excited and landed in Bangalore and I suddenly realized, by the way, no BCCI chap has yet told me that I was selected. All this was the newspaper and the TV, and I wondered where am I going to go in Bangalore? Where does the team stay? So, I asked the Indian Airlines guys, friends, and naturally, they suggested the Taj Western; why don’t you start with the top and then maybe you can go along.
So, I took a taxi and landed up there; the receptionist said sorry, as a rule, we can’t tell you if the Indian team is staying here. I introduced myself and I said I am part of the Indian team I think because till then I had not got anything in writing. And he said yes, of course you are and you are to share the room with Prasanna who was a local guy.
No one was in their room when I tried to search for any familiar faces. The next day, he comes at 3.30 and says, hey hi, congrats, we are practicing and in about 15 minutes we have to go in the bus. I landed up on the bus and it seemed as if they knew I was going to be there, nobody really got excited about it, nothing at all; I mean okay, come along and that was it.
I was shocked to hear that I was actually going to play the very next day. I had no words to say. This is what I am expected to do, I couldn’t say anything, I was thinking to myself I have not played cricket for so long, this is not even my bat, how am I going to do anything.
How does it feel when you walk in for your test match? I was batting, I remember walking in among 60000 people and the first thing you are thinking is what am I doing here. This was not what I asked for in my life.
I was scared and petrified because I was going to face one of the fastest bowlers in the world. Naturally, we didn’t have any sort of protection, but we didn’t bother about that. The best moment was when I played my first ball; it hit the middle of my bat and I said wow, at least I am not out in the first ball. That was the best scenario. Then I got my first run and I was like wow, now at least I am in the record books with one run in my name.
I didn’t do well in that innings and while going back I was booed. Some hurled abuses. By the way when you say that in the stadium, we can hear it. And that was it. I was also disappointed.
The next day I equalled all those records and suddenly I became the glamour boy. I had everyone calling me, so many aunts, so many proposals for marriage, I should have taken it that time, one even offered 49 lakhs, and I said why not 50? So that was cricket at that stage.
How was I playing out there? Horrible. We had Tony Greig leading England; they had beaten us before and Tony was an enormous 6 feet 7 inches tall, captain. He stood next to you and he would keep on sledging you. It was quite common, they would abuse or say various things. Some of them had learned Hindi bad words as well and, they would say it with an accent as such. I would say, umpire these guys are talking and making fun. So he said Mr Greig sir, would you please stop making noise and shaking your hands when the bowler is bowling, so he said; F off, you do your work and I will do mine.
That is when I realized that at this level of cricket, you are on your own, you have to stand by your own. The mistake they made was to undermine me. I am a product of public school and we go through this sledging all the time from a young age. When I was at forward short leg, I gave it back and harassed each one of them. I knew who said what in Hindi language and I gave them a bit of that as well. When I went in to bat for the second innings, there was pin-drop silence.
I was so happy when I got selected for the 1979 World cup, we were given a kit bag full of our equipment and clothes. No one had come to measure us for clothes or blazers. Later, we found out that each time we washed them, they shrunk three inches. So we couldn’t use that, we got two sweaters, one long sleeve and another short sleeve, both acrylic, can you imagine?
The famous brand called ‘Linens’ saw us shivering, and were so nice to make an Indian team sweater for us, free of charge; otherwise, we would have been broken. So; that was a sort of welcome kit that one got.
Once at the airport, we were waiting there for the flight and were quite thirsty. There was Sunil Gavaskar, Anshuman Gaekwad, Vishwanath and Kapil Dev and 5-6 of us decided to go and get a cold drink. I remember having a Gold Spot. In those days, once you crossed immigration you had to pay only in dollars. So, the vendor said this is going to cost you so many dollars. We said we only have rupees and offered to pay him but we don’t have any dollars, we were not paid in dollars. He insisted only on dollars, so we immediately put Sunil Gavaskar ahead and introduced him that he is this and that. The chap did not budge; he said you can be whoever you are but you will have to pay in dollars, we are not giving it free, and he was not letting us go and making a big scene about it. Finally, a nice NRI guy paid the amount. And that was how we were on our way going to playing the world cup.
The first thing, when we landed in England, we went off to Scarborough, to Yorkshire in the cold, 5-8 hours’ drive all the way there. That is how we were treated and who do we land up there with? The Pakistan team. And they said both of you Asian teams play among yourselves for 5-6 days and then you have to come to England to meet the Queen in the palace. So, there was a Pakistan side and Indian side, they didn’t even have any idea that we were considered like enemies.
I had this great friend, Wasim Raja who played from Pakistan and who thought he can double my allowance and took me to a casino. That was my first pay packet and we came back broke. My room partner was Sunil Gavaskar and I told him that he will have to look after me for next week. He was quite upset, he said this is why you don’t believe Pakistan, they put you in such a mess.
And let me tell you, Sunil was a very meticulous guy, he would note down every expense. We stayed together for 4 and half months and we became like husband and wife, we fought, we didn’t talk with each other and every time I was annoyed with him, he had this habit of charting out everything. He would always get the toothpaste also from bottom to top, not like us lazy in the middle. We had to share these things, and every time I was annoyed with him, I would press it even harder. So, we all went through all that.
When we went for meals, we would get a bucket full of Kentucky Chicken because Mr Kapil Dev needed to eat. I remember he went to the management and he said look it comes down to 7 pounds a day for food, and I am like double the health freak so I should get 14 pounds. So, we had a great time interacting with each other.
I asked Rahul Dravid about their times and the fun they had and how was his relationship with the rest of the team, Sachin Tendulkar and all off the field. He said, no, we stayed in single rooms, we only knew some of the players personally, we didn’t socialize much and we can’t say what the other person does. And I can see these are the changes that were taking place, it was hard.
During the 70s, we had the best all-rounders. We watched Gary Sobers, and I remember him coming to our dressing room, Tiger Pataudi got into our dressing room and I was just about to go to bat and I was, as usual, going to put my thigh pad and my trouser was down when the legend entered the room. I didn’t know whether to hold on to the trousers or shake his hand or what? But looking at my thigh pad he asked what is that? I said it is to protect my knees if a ball hits me, I wanted to make a conversation, and I asked what did he use during his time? He said, “Young man we used the bat!” And Tiger Pataudi obviously said how stupid of you to ask such a great man this question.
Same thing during that time we had some great all-rounders. We had Imran Khan, Kapil Dev, Richard Hadley, all of these very fast bowlers and excellent batsmen. I don’t see even one in today’s time who is as good as these people.
When we were in Scarborough, Imran Khan had this habit of walking into the dressing room because most of the time it was washed out, he would come in his briefs, he had a lovely physique, and right in front of him would be Sunil Gavaskar. So, he would come in flex his muscles, exercise and go off after that making us all feel terrible. That was the first mental upmanship, that is how it started off. And then after that Sunil would get into his brief and do the exercise, which was not a great sight that way.
Sunil was a prankster and I remember we were playing a match and he went and bought a mask. He wore a mask and the umpire said you have to take it down, he said nothing in cricket has such a rule. And the umpire said but you are disturbing the batsman, he said the batsman should be looking at the ball, I am behind him. And the umpire said, but you are disturbing me. So, it was always something we enjoyed.
When you talk of today, what is the major change? As I said, it has become a business, and there is such a lot of money pouring. People are wanting to come into the sport wanting only to play one day cricket so it has become now about far hitting. You see the youngsters telling the coaches don’t teach us techniques, teach us how to hit the ball out of the ground. And that is what is happening now. Rishabh Pant is being able to do well in one-day cricket as well as test matches. He is going to become the icon that everyone is going to follow because for success they are not bothered about the test match as such but if you can do something in the one day and in limited-overs, my life is made.
So you are finding people from all parts of India, that is exactly what is happening in the business world also. They are so confident, and the other is the protection that they have got is helping them to play much more aggressive cricket than what we did. Because if you missed the ball in our times, if it hit your head and to me, it was often, the doctor would just come and say when you start bleeding from the ears come along otherwise go and play.
I saw the movie 83 and I saw how it is shown that the West Indies team hitting our players, how come the umpire didn’t say anything?
They at least had protection in 83, they had a helmet, when we played there was none. They bowled beamers at you.
When I went to bat there were no fielders in front, rest behind and I got into a spat with Malcolm Marshall, that was a bad thing I did in life, and you wonder why are they all behind you and you realize that they are not going to bowl something on top, they are only going to be hitting you. They be like man, his head is good man, his head is good, hit him. And you would hear this.
Not too many people talk about the revenge series that happened after India came back in 83 and WI hammered India with the one days and test match. What was the mood of the country then?
Given the IPL and the level of Indian cricket, what is the future of world cricket?
Naturally, we didn’t expect to win, and it was considered a fluke, but people didn’t know that we had beaten them in WI before and in the very first match of 83. After they thrashed us here, we established ourselves in the Champions of Champions series in Australia and that was the change. And it made us realize that we can at least compete with the best in the one days.
These are the moments that change Indian cricketers and more than that the administrators because then you have people like Salve and Dalmia because the BCCI didn’t even get the tickets to go and watch the match. And they made sure that cricket was brought to India, Asia, that is what happened in 87, they couldn’t find a sponsor and Reliance sponsored that 1987 World Cup. That is how cricket came out of the MCC ground and came into Asian ground. We are the world power in cricket and everyone takes us seriously. You can see that today. It is a business now, that has changed. I am happy to see the cricketers do well in the profession.
