Chennai's grounds for cheer

It must have been 1956, for I remember listening to the radio commentary at home on Murrays Gate Road near Mylapore, Madras, when Jim Laker took 19 for 137 against the Australians at Old Trafford. I was not yet ten and went to a Tamil medium school, so much of the commentary must have gone way above my head. Still, there wasn't a single cricketing point that I--or my teeming army of brothers and cousins--missed. The explanation is simple: we belonged to a completely cricket-crazy extended family.

Murrays Gate Road was a quiet enough street. 'Suprabha' was our home, a two-storeyed bungalow facing a vast expanse of empty land at the far end of which was the old office of the leading Tamil magazine Ananda Vikatan belonging to Gemini Studios. Bang opposite our house was a gateway with the two hardly clad Gemini lads playing their mythical pipes on top of pillars flanking a non-existent gate.

The 'ground' as we called it is untraceable today, as it has been completely built over, a residential area called Venus Colony. My friends and I, however, enjoyed unrestricted access to the 'ground', where the wicket was naturally levelled by humans and cattle using it as a shortcut between our street and the famous Venus Studios. Unlike most kids, we played with real cricket balls, thanks to a regular supply from our family's first division league team Mylapore Recreation Club.

The wicket was normally a sleeping beauty, except when it rained and the buffaloes supplying our homes milk created ridges and cavities on it. The result was that while many of the schoolboys on Murrays Gate Road grew up to become ace spinners and pace bowlers, few of us barefoot, unprotected cricketers acquired the necessary batting technique to trouble scorers unduly in our adult years.

Mylapore- Triplicane and Egmore-Purasawalkam were the strongholds of Madras cricket in the early years. The league matches between Mylapore Recreation Club (MRC) and Triplicane Cricket Club (TCC) were even dubbed the local version of the War of Roses between Yorkshire and Lancashire in English county cricket. M J Gopalan and C R Rangachari were the stalwarts of TCC while the descendants of Buchi Babu moved from Madras United Club, or MUC, where he first defied the British, to Mylapore, to make MRC a strong force. While Mylapore, Triplicane and south Madras beyond the Adyar continued to produce cricketers of merit in independent India, a new centre of cricket emerged in T'Nagar and the surrounding areas, known as Mambalam, West Mambalam and so on.

A whole new generation of talented and enthusiastic cricketers followed the birth of Mambalam Mosquitos towards the end of the 1940s. The trend continued and grew in strength, so that by the time the 1970s came round, Mambalam was as much a stronghold of cricket as the traditional nurseries of the game. And if there is one place in Chennai where cricket is played with a fervour and numbers unmatched by any venue outside Mumbai's maidans, it is the Mayor Somasundaram ground in T'Nagar belonging to the Chennai Corporation.

I refer in particular to the number of cricket games that can be in progress simultaneously there. Anyone who has stood and watched the mind-boggling number of informal cricket 'matches' that can be on at any given time on Mumbai's Azad Maidan will understand what I refer to here. At Somasundaram 'ground' too, a young collection of cricketers can walk in and pitch their stumps in a territory they informally come to own over a period of time, and start an evening's practice session or 'sign match' at will. It can be confusing for the onlooker when he finds the third man of one 'match' literally rubbing shoulders with the first slip of another (or occasionally even with someone, God forbid, involved in some other sport), though the players themselves suffer from no such handicap, as they focus on their own game to the exclusion of everything else.

In the 1980s and nineties, I was an occasional visitor to watch my younger friends who were regular players at 'Somasundaram ground'. It was a revelation to me how many state level cricketers active in Chennai during that period owed their beginnings to that venue. The TVS and Alwarpet Cricket Club wicket-keeper Venkatasubramaniam, popularly known as 'Bondu', was one of them. Anyone who had watched his brilliant takes behind the wicket and his attacking batsmanship, especially against short-pitched bowling, could easily guess where he learnt to hook and pull with such power. His quick reflexes and footwork were unmistakable products of tennis ball cricket honed over the years at the ground bearing the former mayor's name.

Another fine batsman who comes to mind immediately is K Bharatan, the Railways batsman who made waves in the eighties and nineties. Leg spinner S Madhavan and fast bowler T A Sekar are a couple of other cricketers who were often seen there in their youth.

On a recent visit to Somasundaram ground, I was delighted to find cricket still alive and kicking there, more alive and more kicking than before, if anything. The advent of 20-20 cricket and the huge following IPL V now enjoys in the city, the cricket is only more explosive and colourful, with a large number of CSK uniforms turning the whole landscape into a yellow spectacle. My young friend Arun Venugopal, my former student at Asian College of Journalism and now a sports correspondent with The Hindu, was an unfortunate spectator the other day when a fielder at backward point in one match had his retina marginally displaced by a vicious pull from an adjacent match. The number of simultaneous games has grown geometrically to hazardous proportions.

The Chennai Corporation's role in continuing to provide recreational space in the wake of the increasing urbanisation of our times, is worthy of grateful applause from the public, though the car parking woes of busy neighbourhoods often threaten to hijack such spaces. It has taken great vigilance on the part of public-spirited citizens and an enlightened judiciary to prevent the complete takeover of the Somasundaram grounds of Chennai by commercial interests.

Closer to where I live is the Raja Annamalaipuram Corporation ground, where as many as 15 matches can be in progress on a Sunday morning. This was the venue of the successful Tamil movie Chennai 600028, a stirring drama with informal cricket but fiery competition as its core issue, buttressed of course by the usual dose of romance and action. A succession of 10 to 12 over matches take place on a lovely cement concrete half-wicket with batting only at one end, while many side games are in progress on parallel wickets throughout the rectangular ground. In the midst of several brilliant cricket shots an equal number of agricultural hoicks dot the bewildering scenario of potential border disputes. Today, I watched at least one boundaryline catch the equal of any I witnessed in the latest IPL season, with a compound wall just inches from the catcher.

More than 50 years after my brothers, cousins, friends and I revelled in the luxury of our vast maidan, corporation grounds and school grounds whose managements generously open their gates to neighbourhood children are the saving grace of our teeming urban jungle. They literally keep our kids off the streets.