Practise Makes a Man Perfect and Match Practise Makes Him Even Better.

My parents relocated to Mumbai from Delhi in 1971 when I was a 5 years old. I was lucky to have moved into a colony at Mahim with over 100 families with kids more or less my age. Our colony has lots of open space and being sea facing we also get fresh sea breeze. We kids made the most of this open space to play field games like cricket, hockey, football.

Mst. Alankar is well known for having played the role of Jr Amitabh in blockbuster films like Deewar, Sholay, Don amongst many other films.(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we2K5TDkRP0 ; https://nettv4u.com/celebrity/hindi/movie-actor/alankar-joshi ). Mst. Alankar was also a cricket enthusiast and batted left handed. He was equally thrilled to share the limelight as he got to play alongside test cricketers like Dilip Vengsarkar, Karsan Ghavri and of course Kapil Dev.

In 1977, I started playing leather ball cricket at the age of 11 when my mother enrolled me and my elder brother for a summer cricket coaching camp under Ramakant Achrekar (1932-2019) at Shivaji Park (walking distance from my colony). Achrekar Sir, even then, was already a coach for nearly half a dozen first class players which included the likes of Balwinder Singh Sandhu, Chandrakant Pandit, Lalchand Rajput. He subsequently became famous for coaching Sachin Tendulkar, Vinod Kambli, Pravin Amre and was also awarded the Dronacharya Award. Achrekar Sir’s motto was Practice makes a man perfect and match practice makes him even better. Legend has it that he would make Sachin bat in more than one match in a day, taking him from one ground to another, pillion on his Lambretta scooter to get him more match practise. At the end of my summer coaching camp, at the age of 11, Achrekar Sir enlisted me to play my first match. This was a friendly fixture, played between, hold your breaths,  two ladies teams, one of which was captained by his daughter Vishakha. From then on, he graduated me to play with the big boys and I continued to be under his tutelage till my Xth std Boards. 

The next year 1978/79, I was picked to play for my school, IES Eng. Med School, Dadar. We had a competitive team which then included Sanjay Manjrekar as our Vice Captain. Year after year, we had a record of making it at least to the last four of the inter school Giles Shield tournament. Next year, under Sanjay’s captaincy we made it to the finals and won the coveted Giles Shield played at the Wankhede Stadium, the mecca of Indian cricket.

Cricket then was more of a hobby for me than a competitive sport with the main attraction being the special concessions – such as leaving school a couple of periods earlier everyday for net practice and leeway to bunk school during match days.

Our sports teacher at school, H S Bhor, popularly known as Bhor Sir was the most dedicated teacher I have seen. He had a reputation of being very strict but once you got to know him better, he had an equally soft heart and a genuine passion for encouraging students to take up sports.

When it came to english, he had a way with words which would have us in splits. Legendary amongst his memorable anecdotes includes the one when he barged into the classroom and announced to the class to “ Open the doors of the windows, to let the climate come in” or the one when he got angry and summoned “both of you three come here”. While Motichand Shah was our cricket coach, Bhor Sir was the manager of our team. Unlike other coaches and sports teachers who got students to focus only on sports, Bhor Sir ensured that the students managed to balance well between sports and academics, for which I’m ever thankful to him. 

Initially, during summer holidays, I trained under Ramnath Kenny ( 1930-1985) at the Bombay Cricket Association’s (BCA) summer coaching camp at downtown Azad maidan. Then, I would travel alone from Mahim to VT (now known as CST) taking the harbour train and then take a short walk to reach Azad maidan. The to and fro train ticket then cost 90 paise. Ramnath Kenny inculcated the discipline of being regular during practise, taught  the importance of taking care of your cricketing gear and as a cricketer the discipline to always turn out dressed in whites. After my Xth std Boards, I took cricket more seriously and started doubling my time at the nets during summer, practicing at Achrekar Sir’s cricket academy in the mornings and then at the BCA summer coaching camp under Ankush (Anna) Vaidya (1920 -2006) at Shivaji Park Gymkhana in the afternoons. Anna Vaidya was a diminutive 4 ft something who during his heydays had made a mark as a wicket keeper. He was the coach of Balmohan Vidyamandir. As a coach, he was much feared for his focus on rigorous fielding practise which included “roller catches’’ for the slip cordon fielders and of course, the wicket keeper. In spite of his focus on fielding, it’s quite ironic that fielding was not one of the strong points for Sandeep Patil who was one of Anna Vaidya’s star wards. Sandeep Patil is remembered even now for the 6 boundaries he smashed in one Bob Willis over at Old Trafford in 1982 and his magnificent 51 not out in the 1983 World cup semi-finals against England.This had eventually set the stage for India to play against the mighty West Indies in the final at the mecca of world cricket, The Lords. And what a final it turned out to be! It changed the fortunes of Indian cricket forever.  Looking back, those twice a day extensive practise sessions, ended up being the tipping point for me in cricket. I got selected by Shivaji Park Gymkhana to play Kanga League in the A Division. This inducted me into Mumbai’s seriously competitive club cricket. With my good performances, I got noticed and was selected in the Podar Jr College cricket team by V. S Patil (Patil Sir). 

V S Patil (1927- 2014) is known for coaching/ mentoring international players like Dilip Vengsarkar, Ravi Shashtri, Sanjay Manjrekar  besides quite a few Mumbai Ranji Trophy players like Shishir Hattangadi, Allan Sippy, Jitendra Thakare , Sameer Talpade, Jatin Paranjpe, Vignesh Shahane, Sairaj Bahutule and a few more. V S Patil was a seam bowler, known as “Marshal” in the cricketing circles for his strict discipline, control on the ball and dedication to the game. V S Patil till date holds the record for most wickets in the Kanga League, with a haul of 759 wickets between 1952 and 1984 for his beloved club the Dadar Union Cricket Club( popularly referred to as DU) . At Podar, Patil Sir would set the practise nets on the centre wicket with both sides of the net  opened wide to allow for a match-like feel to the batsman and bowlers even during practise sessions. He also insisted on the batsmen and bowlers having a longish stint at the practise nets without either of them giving an inch. He would identify the weak areas for a batsman and then himself would take the ball and have a go at the batsman to iron out weak areas. The practise sessions at Podar were held at Matunga Gymkhana right opposite the college. They were the talk of the college with some students even bunking classes to watch Ravi Shastri, Sanjay Manjrekar, Shishir Hattangadi bat at the nets. At Podar, given the rigour in our practise sessions, my confidence grew from strength to strength. I was invited by Patil Sir to play for Dadar Union (DU). The club boasts of test players like Ramnath Kenny , Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar, Sanjay Manjrekar and many more players who were a name to reckon with in Mumbai cricket. Till date DU holds the record for winning the Kanga League A Division title maximum number of times(12).

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Patil Sir had a soft spot for some of his wards. I was fortunate to be one of them. Before our Rohinton Baria Inter Varsity Tournament he had handed over one of Dilip Vengsarkar’s bats to me to be used during our varsity tour which turned out to be the turning point in cricket for me. Patil Sir always had some unique advice for his mentees. One of his surprising advice to his wards would be – “ it’s ok to have many girl friends, but only one? Never”. Before any of our cricket tours, he would make it a point to walk up to us and remind us “to carry an extra bag, so that we could fill it with runs scored during the tour”. 

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The outcome of Patil Sirs uncompromising approach of giving 100% under any circumstances inspired us to do justice to all his efforts by giving our best every time we stepped out on the field. As a result all Podarites, be it  Dilip Vengsarkar, Ravi Shastri, Sanjay Manjrekar or even me or my other Podar team mates, we have always ensured to play a key role for the team in any game we represented. For e.g I was a key member of the Mumbai Varsity team which won the Rohinton Bari All India Inter -Varsity Trophy in 1984/85. Similarly, when it came to the West Zone Varsity team winning the Vizzy Trophy in the same year, Sanjay and me played a crucial role. Subsequently, in 1986/87, when Mumbai won the U-22 C K Nayudu Tournament, my contributions to the team lead to me getting selected to play for the West Zone U-22 team. 

The hallmark of all my coaches was their approach to our upbringing which inculcated a certain discipline and commitment in us towards the game. This enabled us not only to face tough situations but also ensured we delivered under trying conditions, on and off the field as well. Be it the challenge of having to live with basic arrangements at the All India Rohinton Baria or take the instance of the All India U-22 C K Nayudu Inter-Zonal Tournament (1986/87) which was held at Guwahati. We travelled all the way to Guwahati from Mumbai via Allahabad by train. Our train connection from Allahabad, the Teen Sukhia Mail was running late by 24 hours. This meant that instead of reaching Guwahati one day prior to our match, we reached Guwahati in the early hours of our match day. The team selection happened the previous night en-route in our train bogie. In Spite of all this trouble we made it past our first round and clashed against Central Zone in the next match which was the semi-finals. Against Central Zone, I got in to bat at a critical juncture with our West Zone team on a hook but I managed to settle down well and score 185 runs to pull us out of the woods and help win the match. That year, I was also happy to have been able to score a double hundred in the inter-collegiate semi-finals against a strong Jhunjhunwala College side which had the best pace attack. After this, I led our Podar college team to win the Inter-Collegiate Trophy after a lapse of more than 5 years and got a chance to dedicate the trophy to Patil Sir.

Podar College Inter Collegiate Winning Team 1986/87 with V S Patil in the centre & the momento bat autographed by all the players

Here’s cheers to my coaches – Ramakanth Kenny, Achrekar Sir, Bhor Sir, Anna Vaidya and V S Patil, all of whom believed in the tenet “Cricket nurtures character” and played a crucial role in grooming me during my formative years. They helped me not only improve my game through their rigorous practise sessions and mentoring but also by backing me at crucial times through the ups and downs which influenced my career choices.

Acknowledgements: My friend Ashish Parulekar for being part of my blog support team.
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