Fielding questions
"Ladies and gentlemen, thousands of spectators
Watching Don Bradman batting, Vinoo Mankad bowling..."
This 'cricket song', in the tune of 'Thaaye Yasodha' (Ragam-Thodi, Talam-Adi), was the invocation song at P S High School last Saturday evening. The occasion was a discussion on the topic 'Indian Cricket at Crossroads', conducted by the Indian Liberal Group, Chennai Chapter.
The speakers of the evening were three stalwarts in sports journalism - sports journalist R Mohan, former Ranji cricketer and sports journalist V Ramnarayan, and sports journalist and author Partab
Ramchand.
There was a huge variety in the audience, if one were to go by their ages. It was 8 to 80, as Partab put it, only to be corrected by an observant Ramnarayan that there was also a a 92-yr-old! Young cricket buffs had a lot of questions to ask the three experts about what they thought of the dipping form of Sourav and about Greg Chappell's appointment as Indian coach. The elite panel handled their queries with ease.
A bit tougher were the questions posed by the middle-aged and older people. The 92-yr-old gentleman was perplexed why Indian cricketers failed to run well between the wickets, and famous coach Dharmalingam, who was part of the audience, gave his valuable observations on the role of a coach.
The hour-long discussion was followed by an interactive and informative quiz, conducted by Partab. The questions are tough, he warned the audience, but they proved to be quite easy for the 9-to-92 crowd. India is a cricket-crazy nation all right!
The evening at P S High School, Mylapore, was a fun-filled ... err.. cricket-filled one. As a banner there revealed - "Life is a game of cricket, players, rules and umpires. Play to rules, you win!'
Srinivasa Ramanujam
