SPECTATOR SPORT
In the lap of the gods
Frank Keating
WHAT diversions are in store for Old Trafford? To be sure, the venomous little public spat between two former Indian captains, Bedi and Gavaskar, enlivened even the epic Lord's Test. Any excuse, and Indian cricket's clash of personality, princi- ple, and politics makes a Thatcher cabinet intrigue look as benign as a nuns' picnic. Bedi, cricket traditionalist as well as fiery Sikh, got very hot under his parka over Gavaskar's curt application of Groucho Marx's definition of club-joining in uncere- moniously turning down MCC's offer of honorary life membership because of his treatment over the years at the hands of Lord's 'petty officialdom'. If anyone was going to scold Gavaskar for such sacrilege, it had to be a fellow Indian. Their capacity for fraternal feuding is timeless, age-old, tribal. Politics, sure. Religious wars, more like.
The English wring hands and wail at the change of one Test cricket captain. In the dozen years since Bedi was ruthlessly ditched as India's captain they have had many more than even Mrs Thatcher has had Trade Secretaries. What's Hindi for Et tu, Brute? Someone in the know suggested the other day that the current Indian captain, Mohammad Azharuddin, is only in the job to carry the can for what, with their bowling attack, could only be certain defeat this series. Such are the religious
conspiracy theories that have ever wafted round Indian cricket. The shy, pale `Azhar' happens to be the only Muslim in the team. He was picked by the Hindus, they say, to be on a hiding to nothing, though the opulent pageant of his sumptuous innings at Lord's bore little resemblance to the boy on the burning deck, did it?
India, to be sure, have more gods on their side. As each one of his sublime string of boundaries clumped the boards at Lord's, Azhar sweetly and momentarily raised his eyes to heaven; to thank Allah, he said. One of my all-time best dinners was at Kanpur, up on the banks of the Ganges, ten years ago, at the family home of Mrs Marshneil Gavaskar, Sunil's wife. Also there was another former Indian captain, Gundappa Vishwanath. His wife, Kavitha, is Marshneil's sister. It was the end of India's winning series against Eng- land. After the second Test, Vishy was going to be dropped, he knew, if he failed again. He and Kavitha made a pilgrimage high into the Tirupati Hills to the temple of their god, Lord Venkatashwara, to whom he vowed that for every run he made in the third Test he would present his Lord with the equivalent of grams in silver. He hit Botham and Co for a dazzling 107 the following week at Delhi, and duly ordered up a silver bat weighing 107 grams. Was it coincidence that the bill for it came to 222 rupees — just one more than his brother- in-law Sunil's record score against Eng- land? If he could just beat that in the next Test, pledged Vishy, he would send yet another silver bat, weighing 222 grams, up to the temple in Tirupati. You know the rest. At Madras, in the fourth Test, Vish- wanath made an exact and scintillating 222 before being bowled by Willis.
Before Vishy had finished his tale that night, we had been joined at table by yet another former Indian Test captain, the Nawab of Pataudi, the onliest `Noob', who lost an eye at 20 yet still managed six Test centuries and a double one against Eng- land. Had divine intervention helped the Noob? How long after he lost his eye, I asked, did he realise he still might be a Test batsman. 'As soon as,' smiled the Prince, `my good eye could focus on the awful state of English bowling.'
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