The bowler delivered the ball just on or outside the off-stump. The batsman getting himself into position essayed a defensive stroke. Much to the latter’s horror and chagrin, the ball in a show of disrespectful defiance bounced off the ground and spun towards the stumps. In an act of instinctive spontaneity, the batsman turned back and using his gloved hand, almost swiped the offending ball away from its dreaded direction. As the wicket-keeper and the bowler chorused into full throated appeals, the batsman not waiting for the umpire to raise the inevitable finger trudged away towards the pavilion with a sheepish grin and with hands clasped behind his back, willow in between.
On the 9th of February, 1986, for a boy who just a day earlier had celebrated his 10th birthday, and who was glued to a newly procured ‘Solidaire’ brand of Television set, the bowler was wholly irrelevant, but the batsman excruciatingly so. For, the man dismissed was not just his favourite batsman, but his favourite cricketer. The unfortunate man, who by the end of that year, would go on to become the second most famous sportsman to use his hand where such employ was prohibited (the most famous being Diego Maradona and his proverbial ‘Hand of God’) was Mohinder Amarnath. While Maradona’s infamous mischief went unpunished and even went a long way towards landing Argentina the World Cup of football, “Jimmy” Amarnath’s exploit cost him his wicket. For the record, the match was the second final of the Benson & Hedges World Series between India and Australia, played at Melbourne. India lost the match by 7 wickets and the series 2-0. Lest I forget to mention, the ‘irrelevant’ bowler was the maverick Greg Matthews.
My earliest memory of Mohinder Amarnath is an enduring black and white picture of the man essaying a pull. The helmet without the grille is firmly positioned on a still head with the strap falling down a cheek. The face is a picture of solid concentration and the eyes are intent on following the trajectory taken by the ball. The swing of the Gun & Moore bat is complete and the back of the willow is slightly resting on the blade of a broad shoulder. The top and bottom hands are firmly in position and the wrists have been perhaps rolled to lend requisite control to the shot. While one foot is firmly planted way behind the batting crease, the other one is raised to provide the necessary thrust, swivel and balance required to execute the horizontal bat stroke.
As the image suggests, Amarnath has always been a picture of solidity, an epitome of prosaic stoicism and a synonym for resoluteness. His approach to the game has been gladiatorial, but without the explicit expressions of emotions that are cathartic. When during my school days, my friends and I were competing to collect post cards of cricketers, what influenced my choice was not the flamboyance of a Kapil Dev, the technical genius of a Gavaskar, or the pyrotechniques of a Kris Srikkanth, but the sheer grit, dourness and courage of Mohinder Amarnath. As David Boon once famously remarked ‘concede’ was not a word that was a part of this valiant warrior’s vocabulary.
For a die-hard fan of his, Amarnath could be at once effervescent and enervating; exciting and exasperating. He could not only stand his ground against the vilest of fast bowlers and hold his own, but he could also cause incredulity by getting out obstructing the ball (an ignominy which he racked up against Sri Lanka in a One day international in Ahmedabad in 1989)! But, without a semblance of doubt, for an unabashed admirer he was always eternal. He was the one languid and almost lethargic constant that never ever shied away from a battle and that never batted an eyelid before putting up a voluntary hand in times of need. This seemingly innocuous trundler with a singularly peculiar stop-start-stutter-stop-trot bowling action was an all-rounder who was instrumental in many a memorable Indian victory. But what set this endearing champion apart from cricketers of his time, was an inimitable personality sheathed in an armoury of candour and determination. During the legendary world Cup final of 1983, in which he went on to win the Man-of-the-Match award, he occupied the crease for the longest period (80 balls) and scored 26 runs. Sunil Gavaskar certainly knew what he was writing about; when in his “Idols” he rated Amarnath to be the finest batsman in the world.
An incorrigible player of the horizontal bat strokes, he was during his time, India’s most renowned revered and ravaged player of the hook and pull shots. In an era characterised by bloodthirsty fast bowlers and an unlimited dose of dangerous bouncers, Amarnath obstinately remained a happy hooker. But the consequences of such stubbornness were on occasions, to put it succinctly, painful. The list of injuries suffered were a test of skill and character, not only for the sufferer but also for the orthopaedic vested with the responsibility of treating them. Some of a surgeon’s delights were:
- A hairline fracture of the skull courtesy Richard Hadlee;
- Loss of consciousness, the benefactor in this case being Imran Khan;
- Unenviable loss of molars and incisors in an attempted bravado against the late great Malcolm Marshall; and
- A jaw breaker delivered by Jeff Thomson which meant that Jimmy could only have ice-cream for food
To quote that incomparable chronicler of cricket, Gideon Haigh on Amarnath’s ardour “In an era replete with fast bowling and unrestricted in use of the bouncer, he never stopped hooking – despite many incentives to do so.” The Rolls-Royce of fast bowling Michael Holding once famously remarked “what separated Jimmy from the others, , ‘was his great ability to withstand pain . . . A fast bowler knows when a batsman is in pain. But Jimmy would stand up and continue.”
For yours truly, the worship of Mohinder was not just restricted to the playing arena. During the course of a multitude of academic rigours in the form of taxing examinations, I used to alternate between Providence and Jimmy Amarnath for inspiration. The questions set by the examiners were always unsympathetic and unforgiving as the fast bowlers and I was Jimmy Amarnath trying to neutralise them with the right ‘answers’. However when it came to Mathematics, the ‘Jimmy logic’ was a perennial let down and the form that I displayed was almost equivalent to my idol’s own in 1983-84 during the West Indies tour of India when he scored a mere 1 run in six innings, with three ducks.
This World Cup winning hero for India was also an outspoken character. After all, he had scored his first hundred on a fast and bouncy WACA track with Jeff Thomson at his scorching best! Showing scant regard for the cricketing establishment in India, his infamous remark of the selectors being a “bunch of jokers” cost him his place in the side, although there were people aplenty who at that time, found a great deal of appropriateness in what Jimmy Amarnath had said. However, resilience being his middle name, Amarnath also carved out a reputation for being the ‘comeback’ persona of Indian cricket. From the time he made his debut in 1969, (a full 7 years before I was born), till he played his final game in 1989 (a full 13 years after I was born), he has had to fight many battles for securing a place in the national side. As Imran Khan writing in his “All Round view” opined, this was a man who ought to have played non-stop for India right from his debut to the time he retired. It is a remarkable tribute to his fitness that till such time he was actively playing the game, he was a brilliant fielder in any position in the field and could give a much younger team mate a run for his money when it came to putting in the paces during a fielding session.
There were batsmen who were much more prolific in run scoring; there were bowlers who could do much more with the ball and there were players who had an obviously better all-round cricketing ability. But there could have been very few cricketers who could challenge Jimmy Amarnath’s credentials as a player characterised by unbridled passion, fuelled by an unrepentant penchant, and wholly bereft of an unprepossessing petulance. As the immortal Vivian Richards himself testified, Jimmy Amarnath was “one of the nicest men to have ever played the game.”
The cricketing world might remember Mohinder Amarnath for his daring exploits against raw pace; it might also remember him for famously opening the bowling for India alongside the fierce Kapil Dev and infamously handling and obstructing the ball; it might also remember him for entering into internecine conflicts with his cricketing board.
But for me, Jimmy amaranth will be forever remembered as a true hero who stood for and by his ideals, invariably and inevitably. He will also be remembered as an unseen inspiration who helped me tide over many an exacting academic paper, barring those in Mathematics where more often than not, in sheer contradistinction to the ineluctably rock-solid defence of my hero, I was more often than not, bowled through the gate!