Achrekar 'Sir': Champion maker at dusk

Pandit says, "My father was swept by a wide range of emotions. He hadn't come across such a person in the past. He didn't know how to react. Obviously he gave in."

Two years later Pandit would score 301 runs in a Harris Shield game (Shardashram v King George). Pandit lost his wicket to the last ball of the day but was doubly pleased with his effort.

In the dressing room he got a hefty dose of hugs and pats except from Achrekar who stood there, livid.

"All of a sudden he made me red with a deafening slap," Pandit says. "Sir didn't let me forget it. He told me, 'you cannot throw your wicket like that at any level of cricket. That was a loose shot. You could have carried on and got another hundred tomorrow.'"

Kambli remembers how his Achrekar Sir gave him an earful when he started flying a kite in the middle of a school match. "Sir would never admit of nonsense on the field. At the nets, practice, practice and more practice was his way," Kambli says.

At the end of it he loved his pupils so much that he would take complete charge of their lives. "But he always had an aura about him that kept all of us on guard," Praveen Amre says.

Probably it was this aura that caused one of the greatest tragedies in Indian cricket.

"It was a school match at Mumbai's PJ Hindu Gymkhana," recalls Achrekar's daughter, Kalpana Morkar, who has kept up the good work at the academy.

"He was having lunch during the innings break. Some of them noticed that food was dripping from his mouth. Nobody could gather the courage to rush towards him. He was hospitalised only in the evening but had they reacted swiftly the damage wouldn't have been as severe."

He hasn't been the irate Achrekar ever since. Only a miracle can restore a dead nerve on his right brain. How much it has hurt Indian cricket can be gauged from the fact that Ajit Agarkar is the last cricketer from Shardashram Vidyamandir School to represent the country. Perhaps Achrekar is the last of the rare breed that transform sportsmen with the inner touch.

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