MR Rangarathnam, Legspinner (1923-2001)

My grandfather was an amazing man.

The shipment of my books, from Mumbai along with the rest of my stuff arrived in New York this morning. All mental and physical faculties were singularly focused on ensuring they were stacked in their rightful positions in my bookshelf. Fat History Books at the bottom, Craig Thompson, Gaiman and Sacco at the top and my beloved cricket books at eye level. I was almost done, when I chanced upon The MCC 1787-1937.

My grandpa grew up in a place called Manathattai in Tamil Nadu, India. Growing up, we were conned into thinking it is a village, while all it was was an “Agraharam”, a tenement of nine or ten homes, with fewer people than at my neighbourhood Irish Bar on a Tuesday afternoon. So his first real brush with cricket came in college, when he had a chance to be coached by the legendary AG Ram Singh.

My grandfather was a wrist spinner (leg, of course), and was renowned among his peers for his fourth-innings performances on the dusty TN provincial centres. One particularly favorite uncle from Papanasam told me about his 6/19 against Thanjavur Colleges in 1941.Thanjavur was a fancied team, although the captain, from memory, was a curious blend of Vizzy (he had a masseur tend to him between innings), Rajam from Swami and Friends (he had 4 Junior Willard bats) and Sultan Zarawani (he had a car).I would like to believe the Kulithalai town administration declared a holiday the day after my grandfather won them their most important match.

I can’t remember if my grandfather gave me any toys or comic books. I do remember, though, on my ninth birthday, there was a cricket kit and a copy of Bradman’s How to Play cricket waiting for me. On my tenth birthday, my granddad pulled out an innocuous bunch of bound Sport and Pastime magazines from the 40s. I saw pictures of the Bedser Brothers and Vijay Merchant, I saw pictures of Vizzy, who seemed exactly what I thought he would be like (an overgrown Billy Bunter), and read a most magnificent anthology of Jack Hobbs by, of all people, Dattu Phadkar. I came 51st out of 55 students in my fourth standard finals.But I was going to be a leg spinner, just like my grandpa.

As years grew by, my granddad fed my fascination with cricket with books I have never seen since - Cricket Delightful by Mushtaq Ali (with a foreword by Keith Miller. Respect), Indian Cricket’s almanacks of the late 40s, and a most magnificent Esso Scrapbook when the MCC team visited in 1961. And so on. I fell asleep on his bed many times , listening to why CF Walters trumped Frank Woolley in the elegance stakes and how MA Sathasivam from Ceylon made the greatest double hundred he ever saw, in the MJ Gopalan trophy between Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. I never saw Walters, or Sathasivam, or Ramchand or Vasant Ranjane. But I have an unpixellated, graphic picture in my head of what their backlift must have looked like, what their run-ups must have looked like, and I am fairly sure I’m close to the real thing.

My grandfather was a man of incredible virtue. He said in his time, a batsman was given not out if even the wrist of the fielder catching the ball touched the ground.He would have cringed at Ponting in the Sydney Test of ’08. He extended his values to other facets of life. Businessmen of high repute and who possessed many safari suits were summarily discharged from my house if they tried to bribe the good chartered accountant.My grandfather never even “thumbed”, while playing carrom, a form of cheating so accepted, it is incorporated in the rules now.

It has been 10 years since he left us. But I have hung on to his memory, like Eknath Solkar to an inside edge. His memory, and his incredible impact on me growing up lives through these faded, yellowing books. And it is for this reason, that I will never be sick of cricket.

As I said, my grandfather was an amazing man.