As a teenager I was introduced to cricket via radio commentary. We would put our ears together to catch the voice of the radio commentators amidst of crackle of the radio and noise created by spectators. The most familiar sound that I can recall was of rhythmic clapping of the spectators, first slowly and then gathering momentum as certain Kapil Dev approached the wicket and then followed by a ‘hush’ sound indicating he has bowled and nothing noteworthy happened, probably the batsman proved too unworthy to get even the edge of the bat to the outswinger. Occasionally, both the crackle as well as spectators noise will reach the higher decibels and the commentators voice would get completely lost and we would get excited and concentrate hard to hear the word ‘out’. And then it was celebration time!
When India batted, the situation was a bit different. Solid batsmen like Gavaskar, Amarnath and Vengsarkar would take their time to settle down. I, however, would silently pray for their early dismissal. For me, the real fun will start after five wickets are down as only then Kapil walk in to bat. He would take guard while I will literally shake in excitement. I prayed for him to stay at least half an hour at the wicket. Within that time he normally used to score a quick-fire 30 or 40 and the crowd would have their paisa wasool.If he stayed for an hour then it was mayhem for the bowlers. Anything close to two hours would see him close to a century and put India in a winning situation. The conventional batters named at the beginning of the paragraph, on the other hand, would require two hours to merely settle down.
To us, Kapil represented not just a cricketer, but India’s self respect. While Sunil Gavaskar showed that he could stand upto the best in the world, it was Kapil who was ready to take the fight in the opposition’s camp. The fact that Viv Richards is ducking to a Kapil bouncer or Hadlee being put into the gallery by his daredevil bat would exhilarate us. While the world always acknowledged sublime artistry of our batsmen and cunningness of our spinners, it was Kapil who made cricket a game of the masses.
A few years earlier, another tall and lanky man started a similar revolution in Indian film industry. The hero shook off his goody-goody, eternal sufferer image and was ready to give the world as good (or bad) as he gets. Just like I prayed for the demise of top order batsmen before Kapil, I also prayed silently for the useless songs to end and irritating Nirupa Roy to die so that Amitabh Bachchan could explode on the villains, society, and sometimes, even on the God. Often his entry would induce the movie theatre to burst with thunderous applause and his dialogue delivery would win equivocal admiration.
Thus, my teenage life was at the mercy of these two angry young men who did everything with aplomb which several young but incompetent boys like me dreamt of doing ourselves. Often India would lose a match inspite of a brave-heart performance from Kapil or Bachchan would die in the course of his all sacrificing heroics but such failures on their part would only add to their stature and romanticism. It would prove the imperfections of this world.
I would like to revise my preferences and it will be a real treat for me as a film and cricket buff to witness anything more exciting than an Amitabh Bachchan or a Kapil Dev. But they have to be much better than either Shah Rukh or Sachin. And till that time, the young generation of today are not going to convince me that they are living in a more exciting time than we did.
