S. Giridhar

“Finally, captaincy is something that can be experienced and felt, for the more one tries to describe it the harder it gets. Brearley tries to simplify it by saying that cricket captaincy is a combination of good man management and technical competence. Surely within those few words there is the wisdom of a lifetime. Worrell, Benaud, Brearley and those other great captains, they had all this in great measure. Somewhere ultimately we would like to believe that above all, the really great captains are also good human beings. In this hardnosed business of leading the country’s cricket teams we sometimes forget that.”
― S. Giridhar, Mid-Wicket Tales: From Trumper to Tendulkar

“Professionalism and discipline in Bombay cricket was paramount. You could be India’s leading test cricketer or the most precociously talented but the rules applied. Raghunath playing for Indian Gymkhana, has seen Ashok Mankad and Hanumant Singh as captains castigate and drop test cricketers who were even a minute late reporting for the game. The captain could merely be a respected cricketer and not necessarily a highly ranked state cricketer, but his writ would run. If Vasu Paranjpe decided to sit out a test bowler for coming late, then that was it and the test bowler would carry drinks for the day. In that respect alone Bombay was head and shoulders over Madras. Madras had a superbly organized cricket league, but their cricketers somehow never had the focus and discipline of the Bombay cricketer. Venkat was the glorious exception and for his stern discipline alone was he greatly resented by the easy going Madras cricketer. One incident remains etched in Giridhar’s memory. It was January 1972 and the second morning of the match between Madras and Mysore at the Central College grounds in Bangalore. 9 am and an hour more for play to begin, I (Giridhar) walk into the ground to chat with Venkat. He is already in full cricket gear, taking his customary practice catches. He is surrounded by only four fellow cricketers and as he takes his catches he keeps calling for the rest of his teammates to join him for practice. They all come in dribs and drabs, some still not in gear. He talks patiently and cheerfully to me but turns and lets out a fusillade at a fellow player who comes running, tucking his shirt in, and with his spiked cricket shoes in the other hand. Ask Venkat and he will tell you that no Bombay cricketer would ever take his cricket so lightly. Cricket was and is God to the middle-class Maharashtrian.”
― S. Giridhar, Mid-Wicket Tales: From Trumper to Tendulkar