Mumbai, the First City of cricket

From Basab Majumdar, India
15 years ago, one September Saturday evening, I arrived in Mumbai to commence my career in banking. And thereby fulfilling a childhood dream. That was certainly not to be a banker, nor to be part of the city of Bollywood and Dalal Street spun dreams, but simply to be part of the Greatest Cricket playing city in the world. I have not used the word 'arguably' quite deliberately as Mumbai's preeminence in the history of cricket is nonpareil.

One may talk of Yorkshire's batting tradition, but that is a county up in North England, not a city. Similarly great Australian cricketing nurseries of South Australia and New South Wales are large states. Barbadaos with its great tradition of great batsmen and fast bowlers would have tested Mumbai, bar the fact that it is a country in itself. No city can claim such a singular contribution to the game as this island city on India's Western sea board. This hypothesis can now be tested by some serious empirical evidence. If one were to make a post war World XI, three batsmen would walk in without argument. One would be Sir IVA Richards from Antigua, the other two would be a brace of short stocky men born and bred within square miles of each other from Mumbai.

Sachin Tendulkar and Sunil Gavaskar were both born to very similar middle class Marathi lineage and honed their cricketing skills in the playing fields of Dadar, which to use an old Duke of Wellington allegory, has won as many cricket matches for India as did the playing fields of Eton for England in battle. Actually this particular piece of evidence is staggering enough to convince any jury of Mumbai's case.

Which other city can boast of a contribution of 75 odd Test match hundreds and close to 22,000 Test runs within five miles of each other and with Sachin still in unrelenting form, we are standing and counting. Add Dilip Vengsarkar and Vijay Manjrekar, two other stalwarts from central Mumbai residence and cricketing education, we are talking over 100 Test match centuries and over 30,000 Test runs. That is pretty much an unbeatable statistic!

If it were just the odd four or five cricketers , one might have presented this as a statistical aberration, but these are just four of the very best that one mentioned to prove the case. In my possession as one of my 5th wedding anniversary presents, is a priceless memorabilia of a scorecard of a Test match in England in 1971 signed by the great Gavaskar. The Indian batting card reads thus: Gavaskar, Mankad, Sardesai, Wadekar, Vishwanath, Solkar and Engineer. Aside of Vishy, the entire batting line-up is from Mumbai with players who have grown up and played cricket within a square mile of each other.

Such has been the staggering dominance of Mumbai that as a city it has won more than 50 percent of the India's national championship, Ranji Trophy. The credit to plant the seeds of cricketing tradition lay in Lord Harris, Governor of Mumbai in the late 1800's and a serious cricket aficionado. While the game initially was played by colonial Englishmen, soon the local cosmopolitan population took to it with gusto in the various Maidans (or green fields across the city). The commencement of the Pentangulars, where teams were divided in what would be now regarded as hopelessly politically incorrect religious barriers (The Hindus, Parsees, Catholics, Muslims and hence the gymkhanas along Marine Drive), further strengthened the city's cricketing ethos. This tournament was pretty much India's first national championship and brought together the best cricketing talent of the country and also inspired locals to pursue the game with intent.

Of India's first three truly world class batsmen, the famous triumvirate of Vijay's (or victory), two, Merchant and Manjrekar came from Mumbai. The third, Hazare was from nearby Baroda. India's first great all rounder, Vinoo Mankad also came from the city but played his cricket for the erstwhile principality of Nawanagar of Ranji fame. But his son Ashok, ended his career as one of Mumbai's great captains and an Indian opener.

While Mumbai may not claim Vinoo, one the other magnificent all-rounder, Polly Umrigar, there is no doubt. Polly Kaka as was affectionately called, was a master batsman, especially of fast bowling, and competitive bowler and unlike many of his contemporaries of the time a great fielder. Later Dattu Phadkar, Ravi Shastri and Eknath Solkar were to continue Umrigar's legacy of producing word class all round talent.

However, Mumbai's greatest contribution would be to classical batsmanship, a tradition dating back to Vijay Merchant. Bred on a tradition of highly competitive club cricket and stern coaching, Mumbai produced a long line of traditional and classical batsmen (barring the odd exception like the mercurial Engineer) who were to form the backbone of the country's batting for decades on end. This tradition reached its glorious culmination with the emergence of Sunil Gavaskar, a batsman whose technical craftsmanship and classical style finds few parallels in the history of the game. And to think that his reputation could be marginally bettered by his peerless successor, the magnificent Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, without doubt along with the beknighted duo of Don and Viv, the three best ever batsmen.

If there are still doubts about resting Mumbai's case, let me in conclusion present a possible all time Mumbai-XI. Gavaskar and Merchant to open, followed by Vengsarkar, Tendulkar, Vijay Manjrekar and Umrigar in the middle order. Engineer at No 7 a super wicket keeping all rounder. Zaheer and Ramakant Desai to share the new ball followed by Subhash Gupte and Paddy Shivalkar on spin. A team that could easily take on any best all time eleven. And by the way, a second Mumbai XI could read thus: Sardesai, Shastri, Wadekar, Ashok Mankad, Sandeep Patil, Phadkar, Solkar, Tamhane (wk), Agarkar, Ghavri, Nadkarni.

If I had to choose my favourite Mumbai cricketer, it would have to be Ekkie Solkar. Born of a groundsman from Dadar Gymkhana, Solkar epitomized the best of Mumbai, not just as a cricketer but as a city. Gritty and tenacious, he was a competitive batsman and deceptively difficult bowler (as Geoff Boycott would testify!). And as a short-leg fielder, just simply incredible. Every time there are reruns in television of the Chandra inspired 1971 Oval victory, I wait for Alan Knott's dismissal with Ekkie flying on from short leg to pick up the catch inches of the ground literally in front of the batsman's toes. Solkar was a great example of Mumbai's ability to recognize and nurture talent without any bias to background and class.