Can Anyone Hear Me? (11 page)

Wielding them bats from the dawn till sunset,

Getting no rest till the close of play.

Don't hook up or put a catch down,

'Cos that upsets Mr Tony Brown.

Play right forward or get right back –

That's the only way on this sort of track.

Old Man Robbo, that Old Man Robbo,

He
must know something. He don't say nothing.

That Old Man Robbo, he just keeps batting along.

He's not like Gower; he's not like Gatting,

For some strange reason he keeps on batting.

That Old Man Robbo, he just keeps batting along.

You and me, we sweat and strain

On really good pitches or affected by rain.

Guard those stumps, defend that bail;

If you get bowled you get a rocket in the Mail.

We gets weary and sick of touring,

Just like Boycott, it's bloody boring,

But Old Man Robbo, he just keeps batting along.

India had just acquired a new leg-spinner, so we finished our little concert with a parody of White Christmas:

I'm dreaming of Sivaramakrishnan,

With every paragraph I write.

Will they pick his googly on the banks of the Hoogly,

Or simply appeal against the light?

I'm dreaming of Sivaramakrishnan

Just like the ones we used to know.

Was it Abdul Qadir or Robin Marlar,

Who couldn't turn it in the snow.

I'm dreaming of Sivaramakrishnan,

With every paragraph I write.

May his spells be merry and bright

And may you continue to smash him out of sight.

The team departed in good spirits and returned to present their fancy dress to us. We gave our vote to Neil Foster in a sari.
Other outfits included Paul Downton as a turbaned security guard, the social committee of Vic Marks, Chris Cowdrey and Graeme Fowler as the three wise men and Phil Edmonds as an oil sheikh. The captain, David Gower, came as a tiger.

On Boxing Day we flew south to Bhubaneswar, the usual base for a fixture in Cuttack, where the following day we had the second one-day international. Needless to say, we had a delayed flight and, it being Boxing Day, I had a scheduled live contribution to make to the afternoon sports programme at home.

As soon as we arrived I went to the hotel's telephone operator. ‘I'm expecting a call from London,' I said.

The man looked surprised. ‘You want laundry?' he asked.

I tried to explain and, as he seemed to think that calls from London were unlikely to succeed, I asked about calls out.

‘Oh yes,' he said, proudly. ‘I can get you one in only twelve hours.'

I did not take part in that edition of Sport on 2.

The next day England's winning roll continued, though not without some drama, as they chased a substantial Indian total in rapidly gathering gloom. The batsmen were offered the light several times in the last hour, but, by referring to Graeme Fowler's wife's pocket calculator, kept finding themselves behind the required run-rate. As soon as they were ahead
of it, Paul Downton and Richard Ellison let the umpires know they were happy to accept the offer, but were kept out there to survive another over before the umpires agreed.

By that time disappointed fans were lighting protest fires in the concrete stands, providing useful light. I had to deliver my final report under a handy security lamp and I saw one journalist writing his piece with a candle mounted on the carriage of his typewriter.

At least by this time we had developed a modus operandi in which I would record the close of play interview in the dressing room and then play it to the press box before sending it to London. It seemed to suit all parties in what were difficult conditions, but I cannot imagine it would have been accepted on subsequent tours.

The run-up to the third Test in Calcutta was dominated by one issue. The great Kapil Dev had been dropped by India after Delhi, for disobeying his captain's orders. The selectors stuck to their guns in the face of considerable pressure and I thought I detected pleased surprise in the captain, Sunil Gavaskar, when he invited me to interview him in his hotel room while his wife was putting the children to bed.

Strangely the Test started on New Year's Eve, which meant that we ushered in 1985 in fairly muted form. On the rest day, though, I had an invitation out.

I had been invited by Kiran Mavani, our scorer, to his flat a few miles south of Calcutta at the Caledonian Jute Mills, where he works. The simple company flat had a splendid position on the bank of the Hoogly River at a point where it
widens as it approaches the sea several miles further downstream.

Kiran took me across the river in a ‘country boat', which had the shape of a large canoe. It was propelled with some effort by a single oar at the stern in the hands of a bearded character in a loin cloth, who later produced what looked like a table cloth to act as a sail for the return journey.

Smog, rain and probably a lack of will on the part of India in the absence of Kapil Dev, condemned the third Test to a draw.

A remarkable day for the fact that Gavaskar decided to bat on to lunch and beyond. He was finally shamed into a declaration twenty minutes after the interval, when Gower brought himself on to bowl. Edmonds had been seen reading a newspaper at square leg and the crowd had hooted their derision at their own side.

When Gavaskar led his side onto the field at the start of England's reply, he was pelted with fruit, which took another ten minutes to clear up.

There was some discussion between the captains over Vengsarkar's continual appealing for catches off the pad. It ended with a handshake. Gower's comment later was, ‘Well, Sunny's not got many friends these days.'

So we moved south to Hyderabad for a four-day game against the South Zone. A circle of temporary stands had created a cosy stadium on an open ground in the suburb of Secunderabad. The
press box was on the roof of the dressing rooms, which formed the only permanent building on the ground.

My first contact was with the camp telegraph office, which I found in the usual gaily-coloured tent. ‘Can I have a collect call to London, please?' I asked the official.

‘In many countries you cannot make a collect call,' came the answer.

‘But you can in India,' I said.

‘Yes'.

‘How long will it take?'

‘Four hours.'

‘Can you direct dial it if I pay you?'

‘Oh yes!' – this with a big smile.

I gave him the number.

‘I will book it with operator.'

‘I thought you said you could direct dial.'

‘Oh, you can direct dial to England – from Bombay, Delhi and Madras.'

It was another forty minutes before I got through to London, where I was told, ‘Can you ring the other studio?' I had to explain that I was not calling from Birmingham.

It was a sign of how good the press/team relations were on this
tour that on my birthday, which fell during this match, the team manager, Tony Brown, came to the press box to present me with a cake.

An ironic story reached us from Bombay while we were there. Ravi Shastri, who had made a painfully slow hundred in Calcutta, had just hit six sixes in an over for Bombay against Baroda. The unfortunate bowler was the left arm spinner, Tilak Raj.

The first day in Madras (known these days as Chennai) was all action, again in contrast with Calcutta.

We had a day of ninety-mile-an-hour cricket. Runs came quickly, but so did wickets. India were dismissed for 272 in 68 overs, with Neil Foster taking six for 104 on his return to the side. He visited us in the commentary box during the last ten overs of the day, from which England reached 32 for no wicket.

Yet again it was a heartening story we brought to those who tuned in to
Test Match Special
from a snowbound Britain. Robinson and Fowler created a new first wicket record for England against India – 178. Robinson made 74 and Fowler carried on to his third Test hundred. He looked shattered when I talked to him in the dressing room. He is such a perky character that I was delighted for him.

As for those listeners in snowbound Britain, a newspaper cartoon was saved for my return. It showed a man angrily shovelling
deep snow from his front doorstep as a radio says, ‘Another four for Fowler, pluckily toiling away in this heat.'

The next day both Fowler and Gatting went on to double hundreds.

A half-hour thrash by England in the morning saw the score pass 650 and they declared at 652 for seven – a new post-war record for them. India needed 380 to avoid an innings defeat and they started disastrously, thanks to Neil Foster again.

Azharuddin and Amarnath held England up, with Azharuddin making his second Test hundred in as many matches, but the spinners made the breakthrough on the final morning. They were all out before tea for 412 and England needed only 33 to win. Neil Foster finished with eleven wickets in the match and England lost only Fowler in their pursuit of a nine-wicket win. England had – remarkably – come from behind to lead the Test series 2-1 with one to play.

A third one-day defeat for India in Bangalore brought with it yet another bout of bottle throwing, which held up play for a while and threatened to see the game abandoned.

The fourth one-day international followed immediately in Nagpur. Arriving in the evening, I discovered that I had been selected to share the honeymoon room with Mike Carey, complete with mirrored ceiling above a double bed. Fortunately a twin bedded alternative was found.

From previous tours Nagpur had a poor reputation, but the ground was pleasant enough, in the shadow of an
English-looking church. My commentary position (even though I was only doing telephoned reports) was excellent and the calls worked perfectly. However, as soon as India had secured a three-wicket win, a telephone engineer started ripping wires out with gay abandon. I had to restrain him and completed my match reports with him holding the operation together with his thumb.

The final one-day international was in Chandigarh, 150 miles to the north of Delhi. We arrived early in the morning on the day before the match and as it was a Saturday a proper broadcasting circuit had been booked from the local All India radio station.

I arrived at 9.30 a.m., to be met by blank looks and an all too familiar phrase. ‘It has not been intimated to us that you are coming.'

It was India's Republic Day, so nobody of authority was there. I was asked to return at eleven, to see the station engineer.

In the meantime I went to have a look at the ground and found the press box situated behind the sight screen. The explanation was simple. ‘We were asked to put it as straight behind the bowler's arm as possible.' I did point out that there might have to be a slight alteration to the plan.

At eleven o'clock I was back at AIR.

‘The engineer will be here in two minutes.'

Sure enough, in just over an hour and a half he turned up.

After
telling me that my visit had not been intimated to him, either, he asked me to wait. But the programme, Sport on Four, was due on the air within the hour.

‘Will I get my circuit to London in time?' I asked.

‘Please sit down and wait.'

‘No. Please tell me now. Will it appear for this live programme?'

He looked me in the eyes for a moment and then, against all his instincts to prevaricate, gravely said, ‘No.'

I thanked him for his unique honesty and went back to the hotel to try to use the phone.

I did not manage to get onto the programme, but I heard later that Tony Lewis, presenting it in London, had read out my telex message telling of hopeless communications.

By the evening the hotel foyer looked like the set of a farce. All those doing pieces for Sunday papers, as well as me, were trying to get through on a switchboard that coped with the excess traffic by cutting off those already talking. My match preview was finally dispatched at the fifth attempt.

The next day the final one-day international was restricted by a waterlogged ground to fifteen overs a side. Considering the unfit conditions it was probably only played at all because a huge crowd had been crammed into the ground well before the scheduled start.

The delay gave us time to sort out the press box problem, with
the solution being the roof of the pavilion, up a 50-foot aluminium ladder with an awkward twist to it. It was particularly problematic if you had to negotiate it every half hour to meet a phone call from London in the secretary's office. However, the char-wallah incredibly made the climb with an enormous tray of tea balanced on one hand.

The game came down to a dramatic final over bowled by Chris Cowdrey in which he took one for three to give England a seven-run win.

The next day I handed on the baton of tour coverage to Christopher Martin-Jenkins, who had just been re-appointed for his second spell as BBC cricket correspondent. I headed for home, leaving him to deal with the final Test and a one-day tournament in Australia.

I had been reluctant to go on the tour, but, by the end I was sorry not to be seeing it through to the final Test. By drawing that match, England achieved a unique feat in coming from behind to win a Test series in India.

At the beginning of December 1984, India won the first Test match of England's tour in Bombay. Those of us who had been in India three years before had seen England lose the first Test similarly there before going on to suffer five interminable draws. One thing had changed since – and possibly partly because of – that series. A minimum number of overs was now set to be bowled in a day's Test cricket, though interpretation of what might be bad light, as the shadows of stands came across the grounds was still open to debate and might curtail a day.