Covid and A Game of Cricket, Overseas

In the last week of December 2020, after a break of over nine months, the TNCA reopened its doors to lower division league. And for a couple of months, the unfinished matches of the previous season (2019-20) was played out and completed. But the Palayampatti Shield has not yet been won and it may still be a while before one sees a closure to that season. The 2020-21 league season has been a wash out and it is likely to be called off without a ball being bowled. While this has been the scenario in Madras, three former cricketers from the city have been playing league and club cricket overseas and reliving memories of their hey days of local cricket in Madras. And cricket has helped them handle, mentally, the big challenges arising out of the Pandemic.

Top order batsman Promodh Nagaraja Sharma played for YMCA (TSR) Club, one of the earliest cricket academies in the city, in the 1980s and later first division cricket for Rising Stars (Kunal). During his time, he played against the likes of Anil Kumble, VVS Laxman, Yere Gouda and the stars of cricket in Madras. On many occasions, he forgot the finger injuries when he had a bat in hand and played big knocks especially for YMCA (TSR). Much later, in the 2000s, after he had set up his own firm in the garment industry, Promodh, then in his 30s, managed a lower division team in the TNCA league for a couple of years and played a few gritty knocks.

What he has experienced this summer has surprised even the cricket crazy Promodh. He is touching 50, not an age when you would get on to the cricket field with a bat in hand facing fast bowlers who try to bounce you out. Promodh, the Chairman of  Fifth Avenue, a Global Sourcing Firm that is fighting the challenges of the Pandemic, believes playing a cricket game on the weekends offers life solutions that are not visible to the naked eye. He has been trying hard to get his family into Hongkong ( from India) but it has not been easy "You are losing millions of dollars everyday in business. The First wave, last year, and now the Second has hit us very badly. You are fighting your way each day engaged in discussions with your customers and your employees across the world. In such a depressing scenario, a day on the cricket field can provide a lot of positive impetus in facing up to the business challenges. Cricket has taught me a lot of life lessons and continues to, even during the Pandemic."

Like they did in the late 1980s, his fellow teammates TSR needle him and often test his fighting instincts on the ground. They repeatedly question his ability to face up to young fast bowlers. Never short on words, Promodh went to the nets and tested himself. At 50, the body does not listen to you as it once did three decades earlier but the love for the game meant he worked hard on his fitness. He told this writer from Hongkong that the mind is strong but the body has been a bit creaky “I have been trying to get ‘match’ fit and have a personal trainer who is helping me reach some goals vis a vis my fitness.”

Confident of putting up a good show, he took to the beautiful looking astro turf at GDB ground in the heart of Hongkong, from where he now runs his global sourcing business. 

On successive weekends, he notched up scores that left his teammates, and the opposition, stunned. One was not used to shorter formats in those years of his childhood when growing up under the watchful eyes of Rajan Bala, who he calls the best coach ever, he had to base his game on building a long innings. The world has changed over the last decade and with that, Promodh is experiencing a new found freedom. In his teenage growing up years, coaches would often ask him not to hit the ball in the air and not to play cross batted shots. And with them watching from the sidelines, a youngster was always under pressure not to play shots that the coach would not appreciate but at 50 Promodh has found the freedom to unleash himself on the cricket field especially at a time when the business environment is challenging often leaving him wondering as to when there will be the corporate turnaround “I love the game. It’s great fun to play formats like 20/20 which allow you to go for your shots from the first ball, which was not the case when we were younger. When I played the longer formats in the 1980s, you were expected to build an innings.”

And with every four that he struck, he received a big roar from his younger teammates. He actually struck fours and sixers with such regularity that it came as a pleasant surprise to his mates “What’s Greta fun for me now is working with the youngsters and trying to build a winning team.”

It may not be a high profile match, yet it is a competitive, one that throws up different scenarios during the course of the 40overs and gets you to act on your feet to counter the challenges thrown at you every moment on the field.

Over the last one month, he has relived some his favourite strokes from childhood – the cover drive and the square cut in particular. In one of the matches he played with the bat of Sanju Samson and discovered what the modern bats do to a batsman. His pulls and hooks found its way on to the nearby fields. Unfortunately as is the batting rule in the league, he had to retire after passing a particular score!!!

Promodh says that playing cricket in such challenging times helps bring out his fighting qualities that help in business “Cricket helps me stay competitive. It brings out those fighting instincts which make me what I am. The game has taught me a lot and today when I play partly for the sheer joy helping me unwind and relax, it keeps my reflexes and mind sharp for the Monday @ work.”

A day after scoring the half century, Promodh was involved in an important discussion with a global customer but the sporting and competitive spirit of the previous day helped him navigate through the discussion in what he terms is a tough business environment.

Thousands of miles away in the quiet and fortified town of Den Bosch, in Netherlands, a much younger 29 year old Mylaporean Vidhvath Viswanathan, who has a Professional Doctorate in Bio Process Engineering from Delft University, spends a large part of the week in serious research and development of a global life saving medicine working in Multi National Pharma Company. He too, like Promodh, finds cricket in the weekend relaxing and offering relief from the Pandemic.

With the uncertainty of the pandemic, Vidhvath, the Captain of the Concordia Cricket Club, was not sure if the 20-21season would be played. There was darkness all around in those early months of April and May last year and the whole scene was gloomy. But much to his delight and that of his team mates, the number of cases reduced drastically in Netherlands and restrictions on cricket was lifted in the country. The season started about 3 weeks later than usual and was a shortened one “For the first 4-6 weeks we were only allowed to play within our own clubs. So, we had a mini auction and divided ourselves into 4 teams and played an internal T20 competition."

Later, in the second half of 2020, when the rules were relaxed a bit more, he was able to play in the official 40overs league “We had a group of 8 teams in our league and played only one match against each other (usually it would be 2 matches against the same team, one home and one away).”  

Much like the lower division cricketers in Madras, who travel a long way to play the 50 overs game, Vidhvath travelled over an hour by train and then cycled another 30minutes from the station to the ground 25-30 mins to cycle “The weekend provided an opportunity to meet friends over a coffee.” 

Interestingly, given the Pandemic, the cricket association announced very early that there would not be promotion/relegation for the year. Overall, Vidhvath played close to 15 matches in the 2020-21 season including in the internal competition leading up to the official league. There were dropped catches, a close match that his team lost, a dominating win and arguments with the opposition and the umpires leading to mixed emotions but at the end of the day it always led to a healthy chat among the team mates. A win meant a cheerful evening while a loss led to deep introspection but either way it engaged every member of the team into a healthy discussion on how a particular scenario was handled and how differently one could manage it the next time.  

In his childhood days in India, Vidhvath did not play much of red ball cricket but he says he was ‘always up’ for a tennis ball game either in the backyards of Abhiramapuram, a few buildings away from the once independent house of former Ranji Trophy winning captain S Vasudevan (Ranji Captain Vasudevan). 

After his move to the Netherlands, he began playing serious ‘red ball’ cricket and began enjoying it. The captaincy of the club gave him a great experience of having to think for the team, handling the different mindsets of his team members and meeting their expectations and demands on the cricket field!!! "Pep talks within the team  and motivating the team to do better each time in terms of better temperament, patience and consistency led to a positive environment. I saw each player giving his best and almost everyone contributing one way or the other to the team’s cause. And that satisfaction at the end of the 20-21 season was rewarding."The green cricket ground, the trees in the background, the intensity of the game and the discussions before and after the game help in creating a positive mood around the players that they then carried and shared with those in other walks of life.

It was also an experience Vidhvath carried into his research work at the Multi National Pharma Company. For someone involved in high end research, the cricket matches and bonding with team members especially in such challenging times has helped get the mind away from the negatives and has raised the hopes for the future.

Interestingly, Vidhvath also performs other functions off the cricket field. He enjoys scoring and he travels on weekends when he does not have a match to don the role of a scorer. As part of the team bonding, the team ended the season with a dinner after its last game, one that has now become an ‘end of season’ tradition.

The 2020-21 season gave the much needed relief to Vidhvath in the gloomy scenario. He and his teammates are now awaiting news for the new 21-22 season. Locked inside a house can lead to vitamin deficiency and this is quite common in the Netherlands especially in the winter when the days are much shorter. At work, being in medical research, it has been a good year for him and he believes cricket has played a role in creating positivity around him “We are hoping we can have at least half a season from June.”

Balaji Ramalingam is an Artificial Intelligence Scientist at AstraZeneca in the UK. He and his team help in delivering AI tools that enable data driven decision making. A prodigious in-swing bowler, he played fifth division league in Madras just under a decade ago. While he too focuses on high stress work as a Scientist, the weekends are spent on the lush green cricket grounds. On Saturday, he played a full day match that helped him engage actively with sporting people and a breath of fresh air in a world that is full of negative news.