For the first time the book club took up a book on sports. Cricket to be specific. The author Amrit Mathur introduced his book Pitchside. So did Aditya Bhushan who has written Guts Amidst Bloodbath.
Amrit was the manager of the Indian cricket team for 30 plus years and knew everyone in the cricket world. He traveled everywhere, met all the cricket greats and also some political gods like Nelson Mandela.His inside anecdotes were revealing. We got an idea of the financial rewards of cricket. Kohli for instance makes crores a year. The BCCI makes Rs 300 crores a year.
Aditya Bhushan, the second author, also has cricket in his veins. He discussed the biography of Col C K Nayadu, the first Indian captain. An MBA and B. Tech, he spoke of the early days of cricket and about how at that stage the game was sponsored by Indian Maharajas.
Amrit writes about an evening with the Pakistan cricket team ;In Lahore, the team has dinner at the hotel poolside to celebrate the Multan win. The significance of India’s first Test win in Pakistan in 50 years is yet to sink in. The players talk shop and the conversation is mercilessly frank. Nobody is spared and nothing goes unnoticed. They believe the ultimate test of batting is how one deals with fast bowling.
The author continues : Reputations are shredded in minutes and there is talk of players who suddenly develop upset stomachs on seeing grass on the pitch.Stories of scared batsmen touching the surface in the hope of detecting some non- existent moisture so they could avoid batting…………..
By now there is general outrage in Pakistan over the Multan Test and different reasons are put forward to explain the crushing defeat.
And so the book proceeds from anecdote to anecdote.
The discussion was chiefly one in which the book club members sought more information on the sport and individual players back then and now. While some highlighted the names of their heroes, Dr Gautam Vohra drew attention to the star qualities of the Nawab of Pataudi. And expressed surprise at how much money the cricketers raked in. Mukesh Khanna, Sadhna Kumar and Nilufer Tekchand expressed surprise and admiration about the details Amrit Mathur had packed into his book, Whereas Surendra Mahra was critical of of the posturing of some players who took themselves too seriously. All in all an unusal evening and one in which many of us picked up a great deal about the sport.
