They say if you were good enough to survive in the top division of
Mumbai's Kanga Memorial Cricket League, the Ranji Trophy would turn out
to be a piece of cake.
The Kanga League, a club tournament, has a storied history. Wet,
uncovered pitches, matches in the rain, tall grass in the outfield, and
no helmets meant the conditions favour bowlers as heavily as they do
batsmen in the modern international game.
Tendulkar in 1988: a run-ogre © Unknown
Sachin Tendulkar
made his Kanga League debut at age 11 in the G division, in 1984, for
the John Bright Cricket Club. Ramakant Achrekar, Tendulkar's coach, was
so confident of his abilities that he told John Bright's owners that
Tendulkar would only be available for a year.
"He will be playing higher-level cricket next year," Achrekar told
Sharad Kotnis and Prakash Kelkar, who had asked the coach to allow the
young batsman, who was attending summer-camp nets, to play for their
club.
John Bright was originally a recreational cricket club owned by a Parsi
family from Dahanu, 140km north of Bombay. The family travelled on
weekends to play Kanga League matches, stopping in the suburb of
Borivali on their way in for an update on the status of weather in South
Bombay. It was on one of these stopovers in 1983 that Kotnis and Kelkar
bought the club from the Parsi family with the idea of promoting young
cricketers who could then progress to play for Kotnis' other club,
Shivaji Park Youngsters, which played in the higher division. The new
John Bright was restructured to feature six to seven senior cricketers
and four or five young players, who the seniors could mentor.
"The Kanga League was dangerous, but that was a test for these boys,"
says Kelkar, an administrator with the Mumbai Cricket Association for
more than 30 years. "Not everyone was selected to play, these were
special boys. These guys played with tennis or cork balls, so their
movement of feet was so good, they become strong to play [with the]
season ball."
The 11-year-old Tendulkar showed remarkable ability to defend on those
treacherous pitches, according to Nadeem Memon, one of the senior
players in the side.
For the next three years, Tendulkar batted and batted and batted. There
were no rest days. He rode pillion on Achrekar's scooter from ground to
ground, and team to team. From John Bright CC, he graduated to Sassanian
CC, then to Shivaji Park Youngsters, changing schools to concentrate on
cricket, giving bowlers false hope with his small frame, but then
flattening them with powerful assaults. Whether it was the Kanga League,
Police Shield, Purshottam Shield, Times Shield, age-group cricket or
school tournaments, Tendulkar collected runs like a well-oiled machine.
In a Purshottam Shield match in 1987, he scored an outstanding 70-odd against a Cricket Club of India side that featured
Madhav Apte,
the former India batsman who was the president of the CCI at the time.
The CCI was already following Tendulkar's rise, especially after he hit
five consecutive hundreds in the Giles Shield. His inclusion in the
premier club was discussed by the club's cricket committee.
"In the case of Tendulkar, it was very clear that he would play for a
club Ramakant Achrekar wanted him to play for," says Hemant Kenkre,
Tendulkar's first captain at CCI. "If he should play or not play for CCI
was eventually Achrekar's decision."
Tendulkar had a lot to gain at the club. Firstly, CCI was an A-division
club with direct entry to the top divisions of all the Mumbai
tournaments. Secondly, inclusion by the CCI would have allowed Tendulkar
to develop his game further in international-class facilities at the
Brabourne Stadium. The pitches at Brabourne were carefully curated,
unlike the up-and-down ones in the maidans, which, although they tested
the batsmen, were also thought to be the source of faulty techniques
among players. Thirdly, the club would allow Tendulkar access to mentors
such as Dilip Sardesai, Hanumant Singh and Milind Rege.
But Tendulkar needed to overcome a technicality to play for the club.
Minors - under the age of 18 - were not allowed into the main clubhouse
at CCI that housed the player dressing rooms in the '80s. Tendulkar was
15 and thanks to Apte, an exception was made to allow him into the
clubhouse. The ruling is still in place and Tendulkar is the only
cricketer for whom an exception was made.
“
"He turned the Bombay style of batting on its head"
One of Tendulkar's first captains, Hemant Kenkre
In July 1988, Tendulkar was included in the squad for a match against
Karnatak Sports Association for CCI's Kanga League match at Cross
maidan. He walked in at No. 4, as Achrekar had insisted. At the other
end was Kenkre, CCI's captain for the match, and he knew that in the
Kanga League "the mud hits your face before the ball does".
The bowler, Sharad Rao, was known to be a difficult medium pacer, who
played first-class cricket for Karnataka. Kenkre remembers how that
first delivery was lofted straight over Rao's head for a six with so
much ease it was hard to believe it came off a 15-year-old's bat. It was
as straight as it could have been, "in the line of the stumps".
In another match later that season, Kenkre remembers the team was
struggling and messages were sent out to Tendulkar to not do anything
stupid. Tendulkar defended till lunch but asked permission to play
naturally in the afternoon session as he was uncomfortable playing the
waiting game. In the three overs after lunch, he changed the complexion
of the match with a calculated attack on the bowlers. His aggression
rubbed off on the batsmen who followed.
"He turned the Bombay style of batting on its head," says Kenkre.
"Before that, if you lofted the ball as a batsman, the coaches used to
get upset about why you want to take the risk. But that is the beauty of
Achrekar. He allowed Tendulkar to play that way."
As early as his first season with CCI, there were many across Bombay who
believed Tendulkar would play for India. As Kenkre puts it, "Tendulkar
could have played for any unknown club and still made it big, he was so
good. From the first day, it was very clear that this guy was destined
for greatness. Unless he messed it up himself."