Cricket’s dawns and dusks

Dramatic Debuts and Swan Songs by Kersi Meher-Homji. Published in 2001 by ABC Books for Australian Broadcasting Corporation, GPO Box 9994, Sydney NSW 2001. Pp: 160. Price: Not mentioned.

Kersi Meher-Homji’s pen is prolific. This is his 10th book on his favorite subject — cricket. Fascinated by the mathematics and memorabilia of the gentleman’s game, Meher-Homji’s latest offering Dramatic Debuts and Swan Songs records the thrilling moments of dashing debutants and the dismay of cricketers who have flickered and faded.

Meher-Homji "does his homework brilliantly, but I doubt he has ever gone further into his locker to hunt down information in researching all the marvellous details in this book,” writes noted Australian cricketer Doug Walters in his Foreword. One of only 67 cricketers who have scored a debut Test century and one of less than a handful who have scored centuries in their first two Tests, Walters congratulates Meher-Homji on his "half century” of watching Test cricket since 1951 and reporting on most of the Test matches he has watched!

"Cricket bristles with sensational to emotional debuts and swan songs — with more human angle stories than a Mills and Boon novel,” writes Meher-Homji. So we read about a heart-wrenching Test debut by Australia’s Dr Roy Park — a much loved and admired doctor who was selected to represent Australia in 1921 on his home ground Melbourne after a series of successes in Sheffield Shield matches. He played the first ball and deflected it on to his stumps! He walked back to the pavilion accompanied by "deafening silence” from the crowd and was never selected again! His wife missed his entire Test batting career as she had nervously dropped her knitting ball and stooped to pick it up as he faced the first delivery!

Meher-Homji (left) with classy batsman Gundappa Vishwanath

We read of Englishman Graham Gooch’s "pair to rich-es.” Starting off with a "Daddles Duck” in his first two Test innings, Gooch retired 118 Tests later after making nearly 9,000 runs! "No swan song is so much a part of cricketing folklore as Bradman’s final Test,” notes Meher-Homji. "Lightly Fades The Don” describes the legendary Don Bradman’s final Test. Coming in to bat with a career average of 101.39 and needing only four runs to finish with a Test average of 100, the cricketing colossus walked out to bat at The Oval in 1948 to a tremendous crowd ovation. The opposing Englishmen gathered around and gave him three cheers and wished him good luck for his retirement. "That reception had stirred my emotions very deeply and made me anxious — a dangerous state of mind for any batsman to be in,” Meher-Homji quotes Bradman. One ball later came a perfect length googly — and Bradman was bowled! The master batsman thus ended his career at a phenomenal average of 99.94. And this from a batsman who was dropped from the team after playing his first Test!

Meher-Homji’s book chronicles the "Hundred and Out” syndrome (batsmen axed after a century on debut!), the conflicts and controversies. Lanky lad Mohammad Azharuddin made centuries in each of his first three Tests and created many a varied record. Yet he found his career at an abrupt end 17 years, 99 Tests and 334 Limited-Overs Interna­tionals later, amidst a cloudburst of match fixing allegations. Innumerable snippets tell us that only seven players have so far made their Test debut at less than 17 years of age, of which six are Pakistanis and one Indian — Sachin Ten­dul­kar who debuted aged 16 years 205 days in 1989-1990. R. J. D. Jamshedji has the distinction of being mentioned in the list of oldest players on debut, having played his first Test at the ripe old age of 41 years, 27 days. He was but a spring chicken compared to C. J. Vels of South Africa who made his entry into first class cricket at 60 years, 270 days!

Among the plethora of facts and figures that dot this book, besides Jamshedji just two other Parsis find a brief mention — Nari Contractor who is among the batsmen who scored a century in each innings in their first class debut and the author’s wicketkeeper kinsman Kharshed Meher-Homji who took one catch and scored zero not out in his only Test innings against England in 1936, which led him to boast tongue-in-cheek that no bowler had ever got him out!

Meher-Homji chronicles the high drama and trauma of bowlers like India’s Narendra Hirwani who wrote his name in the record books by capturing 16 scalps in his maiden Test, yet could not sustain his bowling performances. Australia’s Damien Fleming achieved the rare feat of a hat trick in his first Test — one of only three bowlers to achieve this distinction in 124 years of Test cricket!

Sustaining reader interest with tittle, tattle and behind-the-scenes trivia, we are told the "Me and Dad” story (Javed Miandad telling the Australians how to pronounce his name!) or about a rookie on his way to the venue stranded in the midst of the countryside beside an old silver Vauxhall Victor which refused to move!

With his previous books having exhaustively covered batsmen in their nervous nineties, the six hitters, the ‘duck’ hunters and hat trick takers, the Waugh twins and the cricketing clans, Meher-Homji must surely be scouring cricketing archives for a suitable subject for his next book! In the meantime, Dramatic Debuts and Swan Songs is the kind of comfortable companion you might like to take with you to while away the monotonous minutes of a long train journey!

A virologist by profession and cricket writer by choice, Meher-Homji can be contacted on e-mail: kmeher@ arcbs.redcross.org.au

Hilla P. Guzder