From Presidency to Pentangular

A cricket romantic would not be oblivious to the game's history.

If cricket has swum upstream from a traditionally British sport to a national obsession in India, we owe it to the era of 1892-1946. It is said the Presidency, Triangular, Quadrangular and Pentangular tournaments, played in Mumbai during the time changed forever the skyline of Indian cricket.

Arbi, the veteran sports journalist of Calcutta, says about the transition: "It was the indeed the Quadrangular that gave us the courage to seek entry into the international arena, an indication of what our cricketers may achieve against the best in world."

From Presidency to Pentangular, a unique handbook by Vasant Raiji, statistician Mohandas Menon and umpire Marcus Couto chronicles in intimate detail those early seeds of light. At first flip-through, the overkill of stats/figures could make us perceive it as a reference manual for connoisseurs. Or a coffee-table album to skim through. But the book is more than that. Written in a fluid style, it should arm you well for fireside talks on the game.

Raiji exploits several engaging cricket anecdotes as he interprets the cultural and social mosaic of the period. He paraphrases in the preface: "Those who took part in the tournament did it purely out of love of the game and the true spirit of cricket prevailed throughout those memorable days."

The spirit, though, did not slacken the intensity. The Hindus in 1907-08 and later the Muslims in 1912 somewhat loosened the Parsis' stronghold in the contests as both teams moved towards greater summits of stature.

A galaxy of Test players enriched the matches. We cannot but envy the age that witnessed the military bearing of C K Nayadu, the stately stride of Vijay Hazare, the golden-arm of Vinoo Mankad and the gay cavalier of Wilfred Rhodes, arguably the greatest all-rounder of the time. We are told that Harold Larwood (of the Bodyline fame) and Prince K S Duleep Singh (Ranji's famous nephew), too, sizzled the stage.

A few myths get shattered on the way. It would bemuse most that contrary to popular belief it was Duleep Singh who first employed the reverse-sweep shot to counter R J D Jamshedji's negative bowling in the Quadrangular. So much so that Dolly Kapadia, the Parsi captain, appealed to umpire Joe Birtwhistle to declare the batsman out for using unfair means.

What would not intrigue us is reference to a spinner, S M Joshi, who ran through the Europeans on a turning track. Some things in life just don't change.

A memorabilia such as this should touch the raw nerves of budding cricketers. Since no clips of those matches are available, we could take recourse to a few inspiring short narratives. My favourite is the part that hallows Vijay Hazare's triple century (Rest vs Hindus, Pentagular finals, 1943-77) – a knock that "Sir Neville Cardus would have described as heroic loneliness."

Of late the game has bled dry at what we could call miscarriage of values. In cricket's volatile age, would reference to the 1940 Pentangular finals stir?

The authors' recall that even though the Hindus, riding on the crest of Mankad (73) and Merchant (88), were running away with that match, Mohd Nissar refused to heed Muslims' skipper Wazir Ali's call to bowl at the batsmen's body. "He (Nissar) was of the view that such tactics would have violated the spirit of cricket as it was played and interpreted then. The Muslims lost but Nissar won many friends and admirers by this sporting gesture."

Raiji's honest account of those days is admirable. A snippet in the Trivia section reveals that even legends detested grass. In the 1944 season, a cult figure in Indian cricket refused to play at CCI if the authorities did not mow the wicket. Perhaps, after knowing this, we could soften our standpoint on today's batters.

Tragic that political unrest and subsequently the country's partition led to the demise of the Bombay tournament: "Mahatma Gandhi's view that he was opposed to communalism in every walk of life including sports had an impact on the student world."

Yet, it is the language of sports that has been the greatest unifier in this century. As cricket writer Edward Docker quotes from a letter to the Times of India: "If ever India is to win communal unity it will be on the cricket fields, and cricket fields of Bombay in particular."