Leave alone Insta and TikTok, there wasn’t even television then. There weren’t T20s or ODIs, either. There were only the five-day Test matches, and we, a bunch of cricket-crazy friends in school, kept track of the scores by listening to radio commentaries. For that, we even had to learn the numerals in Hindi from zero to 100, since the commentaries were alternately in English and Hindi.
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India registered its first Test win overseas in Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1968. Photo credit: Indiatimes |
There was no need for TV. The descriptions of commentators like Anand Setalvad, Suresh Saraiya (he frequently used the phrase ‘as well’), Sushil Doshi, Ravi Chaturvedi, J P Narayan, Jasdev Singh, Skand Gupta, Akash Lal, Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi (mostly as an expert commentator), Murali Manohar Manjul, and others were so vivid that we could visualise the match in our minds.
There was also the famous team of BBC Radio's Test Match Special commentators: Brian Johnston, Don Mosey, Henry Blofeld, Christopher Matin-Jenkins, etc. TMS still there on BBC Radio, but it's not available online -- on YouTube or radio apps -- for overseas listeners because of rights restrictions.)
I even had a pocket transistor, which probably came in the late 1970s or early 1980s. When a portable transistor radio itself was a piece of wonder (the earlier valve radios were so big one couldn’t even lift them easily), the fact that we could carry a small version in our pockets was simply unthinkable!
WINDOW TO THE WORLD
We knew not only where Dunedin is located but also how the word is pronounced! We also became familiar with places like Old Trafford, Port of Spain, and islands such as Antigua, Trinidad and Tobago. We learned what a county in England is. (These are all places where India play cricket matches.)
We even picked up the time difference between India and various cities of the world, including the one-hour gap between local time in England and GMT. Cricket taught us a lot of geography, in fact.
When India won the World Cup in 1983 (a clichéd topic now), the headline in The Hindu was “India at the pinnacle of glory”. I didn’t know what the word pinnacle meant. I looked it up in the dictionary and learned a new word.
All thanks to cricket.
SPORTS AT SCHOOL
In Sainik School, Kazhakootam, Thiruvananthapuram, where I studied, sports and games are compulsory. Cricket, football, hockey, basketball, volleyball, tennis – all of them. Besides, there were athletics like short- and long-distance running, hurdles, high jump, long jump, pole vault, and also boxing, gymnastics, and cross-country races.
Though I have done them all as part of the school curriculum, my favourites still are tennis, cricket, hockey, badminton, and athletics, though of course I follow other games as well.
The feeling one gets during and after a match or event is one of accomplishment – of having pushed oneself to the limit and given one’s best. It often surfaces in the form of beads of sweat running down the body. The tiredness is strangely relaxing as well as invigorating.
MORE THAN JUST A GAME
Sports and games are not just about the competition. They teach soft skills such as perseverance, endurance, teamwork, camaraderie, and, most importantly, sporting spirit. We pick them up while playing.
Sportspeople put in so much hard work through gruelling training schedules. They are constantly trying to do better and better, forever. Some of them have had surgeries, raised families, battled mental health issues, and yet returned to training and worked their way back on to the field. After all that, they have shown amazing agility and athleticism, and gone on to win matches.
Hats off to their indomitable spirit. Sports and sports personalities are truly inspiring.
THE PAIN OF DEFEAT
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P T Usha misssed a bronze in 400 m hurdles by one-hundredth of a second in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Photo source: Getty Images/Olympics.com |
If, after all the hard work, it was a win, it was all hunky-dory. But when it was a loss – and worse, when the margin of defeat was the narrowest – that was never easy to reconcile with.
Imagine days, weeks, months, and years of hard work not bearing the fruit one dreamt of. One famous instance that comes to mind is the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, when India’s PT Usha missed the bronze by one-hundredth of a second in the 400 metres hurdles. That was the narrowest miss one can think of. Yet her timing of 55.42 seconds was a national record.
(Unlike now, in those days, our teams didn’t win so many medals at international events. So, you can imagine how disappointed we were with Usha missing a bronze in the Olympics.)
Sports and games teach us the golden rule: be gracious in defeat, applaud the winner, and move on.
A rule applicable to every aspect of life.
GROWING OLDER, STAYING INSPIRED
Today, age has caught up with me. I can barely do 20%, or at most 30%, of the intense physical activities I once could in my younger days. That’s a reality I have learned to come to terms with.
But I haven’t given up on following sports and games on TV – whether live action or, when I miss them, the highlights.
They continue to infuse in me so much positivity and energy – to always do my best and move on.