FEROZ SHAH KOTLA

Memories of another day at the Kotla

BY K DATTA

AFTER LONG decades of effort the Delhi and District Cricket Association can take pride at the structure it has built at the venue exactly 75 years after the Maharajkumar of Vizianagram gifted it the Willingdon Pavilion in 1933. It is now be a cricket centre befitting the nation's capital, complete with floodlighting for cricket after sundown. But it has always been a stage for great memories beyond the brick and mortar, steel and glass and lamps to light up the pitch and outfield.

There was a time when Feroze Shah Kotla was just a cricket ground with shady trees and slopes and a quaint little pavilion. The traffic was not maddening as it now is. To enjoy the place you just had to walk from Delhi Gate, choose a match of no special importance, sit under the trees when the weather was hot or on chairs outside the pavilion with the sun on your back in winters. The tents put up during Test matches could be an eyesore, but still, overlooking the inconvenience, you still managed to enjoy the cricket.

The Feroze Shah Kotla ground, which came into existence five years after the cricket board came into being at the Roshanara Club, had its baptism as an international venue when John Goddard's touring West Indian team played India, led by Lala Amarnath in a Test in 1948.

Big cricket returned to the ground in the shape of unofficial "Tests" against visiting Commonwealth teams in 1949, 1950 and 1953 managed by former England wicketkeeper George Duckworth and captained by L. Livingstone, Frank Worrell and B. A. Barnett. The languid grace of Worrell's batting and mysterious spin bowling of West Indian Sonny Ramadhin left a lasting impression of the days when visiting teams were put up the Maiden's Hotel in the Civil Lines area outside Kashmiri Gate.

The best thing for Kotla was the staging of the first-ever India-Pakistan Test match in 1952. Thousands flocked to the ground as Abdul Hafeez Kardar, who had played for pre-partition India, brought Pakistanis over to play the Amarnath-led Indian team. The 1952 match is still etched in the memory for the way a 16-year-old called Hanif Mohammad, opening the Pakistan innings with the seasoned Nazar Mohammad, defied the legendary leftarm spinner Vinoo Mankad and his ring of close fielders.

Then there was Ajudhia Nath Mehra, who would bat without gloves to get a better grip on the handle, prefer to find room for strokes in the air rather on the grass. A ferocious scorer of goals from penalty corners in hockey, where he once played for the North West Frontier Province, he would warn fielders to keep their distance.

Spectators from the 1950s and 60s will also remember the redoubtable Y. M. Chaudhary who played for Delhi before he joined the Railways. The stoutly built batsman played in khadi whites and unforgettable to this day is the century he scored against Bombay's world-class spin duo featuring Vinoo Mankad and Subhash Gupte, who turned his most ardent admirers.

Such are the memories of Kotla, which in its next 75 years is bound to give us even more to cherish.

(K Datta, veteran journalist, is a former Sports Editor of the Times of India)