Third Man was like spending a cosy, rainy afternoon with a friend, Ramnarayan is an engaging raconteur whose chatty prose induces nostalgia among those like me who grew up in gentler times, His memoirs are an intimate account of the of domestic cricket whose names are unfamiliar to the current generation,
Personally, this took me back to thes when I used to carry a pocket transistor to school and between classes, listen to the Ranji Trophy commentary crackling through the sound waves from places like Kanpur and Nagpur.
Childhood idols like Abid Ali and ML Jaisimha come alive on the pages of this treasure trove of memories along with a host of unsung heroes who graced the annals of Indias domestic circuit.
A lovely read from someone who comes through as easygoing and not overly bitter at being only the Third Man who gives the book its title.
This book will probably appeal mainly to those people who were in their teens in thes ands in Madras and were also avid cricket lovers at that time.
Even the author seems to have resigned himself to this fact because the book has a few Tamil expressions without even any attempts at a translation as if to imply that the people who will read it mostly would belong to this group.
Since I fall into this demographic, I did certainly enjoy reading it because the book talks about the cricketing exploits of so many ordinary middleclass cricketers who delighted the spectators in Madras and Hyderabad with their great skills in batting and bowling but never got to playing for India at the Test level.
The author himself was one of those unfortunate ones, The book is as much about the cricketing life of the offspinner Ramnarayan aka the author who played firstclass level cricket for Hyderabad in thes, as it is about all the other famous and not so famous cricketers he rubbed shoulders with.
It is refreshingly outwardlooking and hardly selfabsorbed, In fact, the author is generous in his praise for so many cricketers with whom he played and also against, One of the endearing aspects of this memoir is that it is totally without any rancor, even against people who may have harmed his career,
To start with, I consider myself an avid cricketfollower from thes onwards, both domestic and international, What puzzled me about this book was that I was totally unaware of Ramnarayan till I read the book last week! I consoled myself saying that his career took off only in thes and that too in Hyderabad.
By that time, I had moved to Bombay and so had lost touch with the local cricketing scene in Madras, Ram played for Hyderabad in the Ranji Trophy under the captaincy of the mercurial Jaisimha as an ace offspinner and gradually rose to catch the attention of great cricketers of those days like Hanumant Singh, Pataudi and V.
V. Kumar. He was tipped to play for India but that honor eluded him till the end, the main reason being that he had to fight for a place when stalwarts like Prasanna and Venkatraghavan were already entrenched in the team.
Ram writes about a lot of other fellowcricketers who also were in the same boat orthodox spinner Mumtaz Hussain, opening bat V, Sivaramakrishnan of Tamil Nadu, spinner Rajinder Goel and so on, The book contains sections on cricketers he played with and admired like Pataudi, Bishen Bedi and Jaisimha and others whom he had only known through the radio like Jim Laker of England.
The section I liked best in the book was the one on the art of spin bowling, As an exponent of the art, Ramnarayan demolishes the oftrepeated cliché of commentators praising a slow bowler for varying his line and length intelligently, He says that a spin bowler never varies his length except to adjust for the reach of a tall batsman or to combat the footwork of a nimblefooted player.
To him, a 'good length' is sacrosanct, He says that he even had confirmation of this instinctive understanding from the great batsman, Hanumant Singh, who told him, ", . . whatever you are doing, bowling at your normal pace and trajectory, flighting the ball a little extra, pushing the ball through quicker or bowling the wrong 'un, make sure that the ball invariably lands on the same spot same length, same line.
This way the batsman is always in doubt, while you are giving nothing away by way of width or poor length, . ".
The book brings out an era of cricket in India when most players were rather welleducated and held responsible jobs successfully even as they played cricket at a high level.
The author himself was one such, He writes that the Tamil Nadu offspinner Vasudevan went back to computer programming after the end of his cricket career and became a successful software professional, A lot of the book is drowned in statistics and in a multitude of names of players, This was a little tiresome and made me flip through these passages without paying much attention, The language itself is good and shows the author's skills as a journalist in his postcricketing life, Out of modesty perhaps, the author has not said much about his contributions after retirement from cricket, to the classical arts through his magazine 'Sruti' which promotes Carnatic music.
For those who can identify with thes ands scene in Madras and Hyderabad, the book is a breezy and enjoyable read, For others, it may be a bit like Mumtaz Hussain's wrong 'uns! A lovely read even if it is not a long one, The foreword from Harsha Bhogle pretty much sets the expectation, A brilliant account of the cricket in yesteryears
A good repository of stories and characters in Hyderabad and Tamil Nadu cricket which would not been known to many others Don Rangan was my favourite
You feel like you were a part of the dressing room watching the rise and fall of Ramnarayan
Having grown up reading Saturday Sports Special, I felt at home
Sporting Autobiographies / Biographies: The types I hate:
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Heavily ghostwritten works, where you do not find the sportsperson, only the ghostwriter e, g. Arsene Wenger's biography, and way too many others
, Ones that play it safe and are overcomplimentary to everyone and their grandmothers e, g. those of most currently playing sportspeople, Andrew Flintoff's
. Ones that are just intent on settling scores e, g. Alex Ferguson's
. Ones that go on and on about personal milestones, and have no stories or interesting anecdotes to tell e, g. Peter Roebuck's Sometimes I Forgot to Laugh, unfortunately, Especially because Roebuck is my favourite cricket writer, Read Roebuck's It Never Rains, instead, It's the journal of one cricketing season, and is absolutely excellent
, Ones that lack enthusiasm, humour or warmth e, g. Sachin Tendulkar Playing It My Way
, Ones where the sportsperson comes across as a proper ass e, g. eh Nope. Many examples, but no names, alright
This is none of the above, Stellar stuff. Recommended. The book has its blemishes, but none are significant, The good things about this book, on the other hand, are numerous the opposite of the six points above, to start with, And many more.
Author V Ramnarayan
Genre Autobiography, Sports, Cricket,
Ranji Trophy
Source Print
Rating
Read SepOctober
sitelink blogspot. in/ Revelling in the challenge of his position as Third Man, Ramnarayan was an integral part of many Hyderabad victories in the Ranji Trophy, performing alongside names like Abbas Ali Baig, Abid Ali, ML Jaisimha and MAK Pataudi.
He also had the opportunity to bowl to stalwarts of Indian cricket like GR Vishwanath, Ashok Mankad, Brijesh Patel and the Amarnath brothers and rub shoulders with the likes of VV Kumar, Bishan Singh Bedi, Salim Durrani and Hanumant Singh in the vibrant first class scene of a largely amateur era.
The stories featured in this book are recollections of a life spent playing and observing cricket, They are stories of a time when sheer love for the game drove people to cricket grounds, At a time when rampant commercialization has overtaken the game, these stories bring back memories of a simpler time, Nostalgic and insightful, Third Man is a welcome addition to cricketing lore contributed by a former cricketer who, as a journalist today, straddles the worlds of sports and arts.
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