I got hooked to cricket when I was a six year old ...

I got hooked to cricket when I was a six-year-old kid. My eldest sister was on her annual visit from her in laws home and she bought me full set of cricketing gear. It was an exciting year, Ray Lindwal was creating terror, Pankaj Roy got out for 99 in one of the Test and I with my cricketing gear was a leader among my friends, sort of. I have had no prior exposure to cricket but seen my mother listening to cricket commentary on the radio with great interest, Vizzy, Phadkar, Berry Sarbadhikari, Surita Pearson and Amarnath were some of the familiar names of commentators. In those days one didn’t have to be a former player to be a commentator. My mother talked with great reverence and nostalgia about Merchant, Hazare, Phadkar, Mushtaq Ali and others. Listening to mother I figured them in my mind as giants and conquerors. It was fun listening to the commentary along with mother, though for most part I couldn’t follow what was being talked about. At times noticing my perplexed expression mother would try and explain to me. Radio in those days occupied the pride of place in the household, more than ever TV would many years from them. We had a Murphy multi wave radio, which I claimed as my own (and continue to do so even now) because the set was purchased on the day I was born! The radio was set on a square table with curved legs. Ma had crocheted several covers for the radio and a few a tablecloths for the table as well. A chair with round arms and back was placed before the radio. Ma preferred listening to the commentary with her eyes closed and legs stretched out, perhaps visualising the in her mind the game that was on. Come to think of it I never asked my mother whether she had ever watched a Test match or not but the roar of the crowd and the excited description by the commentators must have helped her in imagining the atmosphere. Of course, I never made it big in cricket. About that some other time, perhaps.