In the winter of 1969, I was thirteen and newly transplanted from Craddock High School to Swavalambi Vidyalaya in Wardha. Those were the years when television sets were rarer than a hat-trick in a Test match, and cricket reached most Indian homes the way gossip does: through voices, rumours, and the occasional grainy photograph. My cricket education was forged in the crackling devotion of radio commentary and the small black-and-white images in newspapers. I knew the names, the scores, and the heroes, but I had never seen a real pitch with real players moving across it. A live match, for a boy like me, was not a plan; it was a private fantasy that one didn\u2019t even dare say aloud, lest it dissolve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then my father\u2019s friend, Mr. Champalal Fattepuria, performed an act as generous as it was unexpected by offering to take me to Nagpur for the second Test match between India and New Zealand at the old VCA ground near Liberty Cinema. Jamtha, with its grand modern stadium, was still a distant future; this was the Nagpur of narrow roads, familiar squares, and a stadium that seemed enormous simply because I had never entered one. As we drove toward the ground in Mr. Fattepuria\u2019s car, I felt a tightening in my stomach that had nothing to do with motion sickness\u2014it was the anxious thrill of stepping into a world that had previously existed only in sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
***<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n The stadium was buzzing long before the first ball was bowled, the air carrying a thick mixture of dust, sweat, and the smell of snacks. People looked serious, as if they were about to sit for an examination. I climbed the steps and suddenly saw the field open up below me\u2014an oval of green so bright it looked almost artificial. Players in crisp white flannels moved like they belonged to a different class of human beings. I remember being spellbound not only by the game but by the presence of the men themselves. Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi Jr. was there, marshalling his troops with that unmistakable air of command, and around him were names I had worshipped in print: Bishan Singh Bedi, Erapalli Prasanna, Farokh Engineer, Ajit Wadekar, and S. Venkataraghavan. Just watching them take their positions felt like witnessing history being assembled ball by ball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Farokh Engineer fascinated me most. He stood deep behind the stumps to the medium pace of Syed Abid Ali and Rusi Surti, collecting the ball with an effortless flourish before whipping it to Wadekar at first slip as if it were a casual reflex. As a boy who had grown up watching cricket in his imagination, I could not believe that such elegance could be routine. That match also gave me a debut to remember: Ambar Roy, a left-hander, walked in after the seventh wicket and began cutting and pulling Hedley Howarth with a confidence that defied his position in the order. I can still see those strokes\u2014sharp, clean, and slightly defiant\u2014as if he had decided that if the seniors were failing, he would take responsibility for their dignity. India lost that match by 167 runs, but defeat felt irrelevant. I returned home convinced that the radio, for all its magic, could never recreate the collective gasp of twenty thousand people when a ball beat the bat by a whisker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n In the 1970s, tuning a transistor was an act of delicate surgery. The needle slipped and the signal wandered through static, meaning that finding the right frequency required a patience that felt almost spiritual. We would gather\u2014shoulders touching\u2014at a paan shop, a caf\u00e9, or a dusty street corner, creating a sudden, silent community around a single plastic box. These commentators were not merely narrators; they were architects of what Vikrant Pande and Neelesh Kulkarni describe as the “theatre of the mind.” Because those words were the only eyes we had, men like Suresh Saraiya and Anant Setalvad had to paint the glare of the afternoon sun and the lengthening shadows across the pitch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They were masters of the pause; the heavy silence on the radio wasn\u2019t empty, but rather the tension before a delivery\u2014a shared breath between the roaring stands of Chepauk and a small transistor in Wardha. As I moved from the classrooms of Craddock High to the hostels of GMC Nagpur, these voices\u2014the baritone of Jasdev Singh, the excitement of Dr. Narottam Puri, and the rhythms of Dicky Rutnagur\u2014became the soundtrack of my life. We weren’t just listening to a match; we were watching a world being built inside our heads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n Six years after my first Test, I was a third-year medical student at GMC Nagpur. Diwali was approaching when my classmate Omprakash Singhania and I decided to watch the Irani Trophy final between Rest of India and Bombay. It had poured heavily the day before, leaving the ground wet, so we did what students do when they lack the luxury of cushions: we laid down sheets of The Indian Express<\/em> and our handkerchiefs, hoping our trousers would survive the day. We had come for the famous names\u2014Gavaskar, Vishwanath, Prasanna\u2014but instead, we were served a lanky, unknown teenager called Dilip Vengsarkar. When he walked in, the crowd groaned with the impatience of those who believe they have paid for stars, not apprentices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then he began to bat. What followed was so unexpected that it still feels slightly exaggerated, even though it happened in front of my eyes. Vengsarkar played as if he had no respect for reputations, hitting seven sixes against an attack that included Bedi, Prasanna, and Venkataraghavan. It was a display of fearlessness that belonged to a later era, christening him \u201cColonel\u201d in the eyes of the delighted Nagpur crowd. Years later, I found that Vengsarkar hit only 17 sixes in 116 Test matches; it appears he had spent almost half his lifetime quota on that one rainy afternoon, and I was lucky enough to be there for the spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n Over the decades, my preferred seat became the East Stand. It began as a student\u2019s choice\u2014cheap tickets and no need to pretend you belong elsewhere\u2014but I stayed for a different reason: the East Stand is real. It has no polish and no patience for pretence. You sit on concrete, you sweat, you inhale dust, and you discover that shade is a privilege. Yet it is there that the true pulse of cricket beats. The audience participates, offering unsolicited coaching tips to long-off fielders who cannot hear them and ridiculing misfields with the cruelty of experts who have never had to bend their own backs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I learnt the value of the East Stand the hard way in 2010 when I was gifted passes to a Corporate Box at the new Jamtha Stadium. The box was magnificent\u2014air conditioning, fine dining, and glass walls\u2014but within a few hours, we became bored. The match felt sterile, like watching fish through glass in an aquarium. The crowd\u2019s roar arrived muted and disinfected. We left shortly after lunch, mildly ashamed, as if we had betrayed cricket by expecting it to entertain us without the crowd\u2019s heat. That day taught me that comfort is sometimes the enemy of experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n The cricket I grew up with has transformed into a financial behemoth. Franchises are now bought for sums that could fund public health programmes for decades, and cricketers have become global brands with entourages larger than the team itself. When I look back at the receipts of the 1983 World Cup heroes\u2014match fees of Rs 1,500 and a daily allowance of Rs 200\u2014it feels like a different civilisation. Many players held bank jobs and lived carefully, counting money as middle-class families do. Today, the world applauds their \u201chumility\u201d for posting a photograph in economy class while they drive Audis. The game has grown richer, faster, and louder, but sometimes I miss the simple joy of watching cricket without knowing what a \u201cbrand value\u201d is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n In January 2026, I watched an India\u2013New Zealand T20 match at Jamtha with my son and my granddaughters\u2014three generations and a mind full of old memories. It took me back to that first match in 1969, where I was a wide-eyed schoolboy counting every run. This time, the match became almost nameless. From our seats, the scoreboard was too far to read, and I spent the evening doing something doctors are not trained for: guessing. Only after it ended did I realize Sanju Samson had opened or that Axar Patel was even playing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet something made up for the lack of data: the crowd, the roar, and the chants of \u201cIndia Jeetega!\u201d For four hours, thousands of strangers felt like family, and my granddaughters enjoyed every minute, oblivious to strike rates or partnerships. It took nearly an hour to walk a kilometre back to our car, and we reached home past midnight\u2014tired, hoarse, and happy. Somewhere between Jamtha 2026 and Sadar 1969, I realized the game remains the same, but the world\u2014and the eyes watching it\u2014has changed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The First Pilgrimage: White Flannels and Green Grass<\/h2>\n\n\n
The Voices in the Air: When Radio Was Religion<\/h2>\n\n\n
The Colonel Arrives: Nagpur, 1975<\/h2>\n\n\n
The Philosophy of the East Stand<\/h2>\n\n\n
From Romance to Industry<\/h2>\n\n\n
Three Generations, One Match (2026)<\/h2>\n\n\n