(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)Murphy’s Law of Parental Agony states that just before a kid’s exams, there will be a cricket match. The B&H WCC in ’85 was more than that – it was a series that changed the way a country saw cricket on TV. L Suresh relives the ‘good old days’…
“Team Ek, Channel Nine’ was the chant of the year in ‘85, to which a cricket-crazy country came to a grinding halt and watched wide-eyed as incredible camera angles, innumerable replays and unbelievably professional commentary transformed a tournament into a tale of fantasy. Like extended foreplay culminating in an erotic climax, the series started small in the sports pages of newspapers, worked its way through live commentary on radio and ultimately exploded into a splash of colour and technical wizardry on television as India stormed its way into the finals. And the road to victory was paved with a series of firsts, not just for the Indian team, but for the Indian fan as well.
A new dawn: The euphoria of getting up at five in the morning, dashing off to beat a million milkmen at the queue and running back in record time to switch on the TV, to hear the ‘thunk’ of ball hitting the stump and sending it cartwheeling – that was music to the ears… The result was Robbie Kerr bowled by Kapil Dev. The feeling was that of a heady cocktail that tasted better than… milk.
Discovering colour: After bugging Dad for a colour television (and ‘fixing’ its arrival just in time for the WCC), imagine seeing a close-up of the ball and realizing that it’s no longer a shiny red, but a pale white! Of course the irony of the situation was dwarfed by the larger-than-life sights – from the united colours of seven cricket-playing countries to the meticulous colour coordination of batsmen, down to their pads and gloves!
Thinking big, before IMAX: While Krish Srikkanth went about manufacturing shots that the world didn’t know existed, Channel Nine captured his aggression with cameras placed in angles that one didn’t know existed. Slo mos from a zillion angles, a giant screen on the field, shots from an overhead chopper… every moment was straight out of a Hollywood thriller.
Australian for commentator: As knowledge lent itself to insights, wit translated into free-flowing expressions and as far as cricket was concerned, it had found the Voice of God in Richie Benaud. Today, listening to the current stock on DD, there’s no doubt that we’ve gone back in time. If only we’d gone back sufficiently enough - to the times before TV was invented.
What d’ya say, mate? Swearing, sledging, cheering, celebrating, sounds of the batsman tapping the pitch down, the ‘whoosh’ of the ball beating the bat… the viewer, for the first time, was privy to all that was happening on the pitch. ‘Where the heck have they put the microphone?’ debates raged in classrooms. Today, twenty years later, we know.
Babewatch: Who cared if Pamela Anderson wasn’t there? Beer, babes and cheeky banners ruled – surely anything that was so much fun had to be classified as sin.
The duck who walks: Walt Disney would have been proud of this. The sight of an animated duck who burst into tears when the batsman ‘went for nought’ and walked with him as the batsman trudged back to the pavilion was a sight to see…and remember.
Images of another day: If Simon O Donnell’s broken bat and Lance Cairns’ baseball bat made spectacular viewing, three unforgettable images remain etched in the mind from the finals. Frame 1: Qasim Omar ‘shooting the duck’ on the giant screen when he gets out for nothing. Frame 2: Sadanand Vishwanath executing a lightning stumping, appealing to the leg umpire and charging down the pitch to congratulate Sivaramakrishnan – all before Miandad could figure out what had happened. Frame 3: Shastri driving his Audi around the ground, with the whole Indian team, in and on it.
“Tram Conductors vs Bus Drivers” read a banner at one of the stands during the final. They couldn’t have said it better, for it was the ultimate joyride any Indian cricket fan could’ve ever had.
“Team Ek, Channel Nine’ was the chant of the year in ‘85, to which a cricket-crazy country came to a grinding halt and watched wide-eyed as incredible camera angles, innumerable replays and unbelievably professional commentary transformed a tournament into a tale of fantasy. Like extended foreplay culminating in an erotic climax, the series started small in the sports pages of newspapers, worked its way through live commentary on radio and ultimately exploded into a splash of colour and technical wizardry on television as India stormed its way into the finals. And the road to victory was paved with a series of firsts, not just for the Indian team, but for the Indian fan as well.
A new dawn: The euphoria of getting up at five in the morning, dashing off to beat a million milkmen at the queue and running back in record time to switch on the TV, to hear the ‘thunk’ of ball hitting the stump and sending it cartwheeling – that was music to the ears… The result was Robbie Kerr bowled by Kapil Dev. The feeling was that of a heady cocktail that tasted better than… milk.
Discovering colour: After bugging Dad for a colour television (and ‘fixing’ its arrival just in time for the WCC), imagine seeing a close-up of the ball and realizing that it’s no longer a shiny red, but a pale white! Of course the irony of the situation was dwarfed by the larger-than-life sights – from the united colours of seven cricket-playing countries to the meticulous colour coordination of batsmen, down to their pads and gloves!
Thinking big, before IMAX: While Krish Srikkanth went about manufacturing shots that the world didn’t know existed, Channel Nine captured his aggression with cameras placed in angles that one didn’t know existed. Slo mos from a zillion angles, a giant screen on the field, shots from an overhead chopper… every moment was straight out of a Hollywood thriller.
Australian for commentator: As knowledge lent itself to insights, wit translated into free-flowing expressions and as far as cricket was concerned, it had found the Voice of God in Richie Benaud. Today, listening to the current stock on DD, there’s no doubt that we’ve gone back in time. If only we’d gone back sufficiently enough - to the times before TV was invented.
What d’ya say, mate? Swearing, sledging, cheering, celebrating, sounds of the batsman tapping the pitch down, the ‘whoosh’ of the ball beating the bat… the viewer, for the first time, was privy to all that was happening on the pitch. ‘Where the heck have they put the microphone?’ debates raged in classrooms. Today, twenty years later, we know.
Babewatch: Who cared if Pamela Anderson wasn’t there? Beer, babes and cheeky banners ruled – surely anything that was so much fun had to be classified as sin.
The duck who walks: Walt Disney would have been proud of this. The sight of an animated duck who burst into tears when the batsman ‘went for nought’ and walked with him as the batsman trudged back to the pavilion was a sight to see…and remember.
Images of another day: If Simon O Donnell’s broken bat and Lance Cairns’ baseball bat made spectacular viewing, three unforgettable images remain etched in the mind from the finals. Frame 1: Qasim Omar ‘shooting the duck’ on the giant screen when he gets out for nothing. Frame 2: Sadanand Vishwanath executing a lightning stumping, appealing to the leg umpire and charging down the pitch to congratulate Sivaramakrishnan – all before Miandad could figure out what had happened. Frame 3: Shastri driving his Audi around the ground, with the whole Indian team, in and on it.
“Tram Conductors vs Bus Drivers” read a banner at one of the stands during the final. They couldn’t have said it better, for it was the ultimate joyride any Indian cricket fan could’ve ever had.
(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 08 May, 2005)
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