Stadiums are sprouting across the country. The BCCI is flush with broadcaster money and franchise fees. Indian cricket has never been richer, never more prosperous. The game is spreading into corners of the country where it once barely reached. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, new academies, turf wickets, and floodlit stadiums testify to a sport at its commercial and cultural peak.
The Mumbai Ranji Trophy team led by Shardul Thakur began their 2025-26 campaign against Jammu & Kashmir at Srinagar on Wednesday. Their supporters will be wishing for title No 43 by the end of the season.
Incidentally, this is the 50th anniversary of Bombay’s 1975-76 triumph engineered by that master tactician, the late Ashok Mankad. In the lead up to the final, his team which had three debutants — Sandeep Patil, Rahul Mankad, and Vijay Mohanraj — outwitted a fancied Hyderabad unit which boasted of Test players MAK Pataudi, skipper ML Jaisimha, Abid Ali, Abbas Ali Baig, and Kenia Jayantilal, despite conceding a first innings lead to the visitors at Wankhede Stadium. Hyderabad’s off-spinner V Ramnarayan claimed seven to dismiss Bombay for 222 on Day One, but the hosts stormed back and leg-spinner Rakesh Tandon claimed six while Paddy Shivalkar sent back four Hyderabadis to cause one of Bombay’s famous wins.
Bihar were conquered in the final at Jamshedpur for Ashok to be presented the silverware for the second season in a row.
Mind you, Bombay were without the services of Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar, and Eknath Solkar, who were on India duty on the 1975-76 New Zealand and West Indies tours.
Ashok could make a bowler weep with his patience and a teammate and friend laugh with his wit — sometimes in the same afternoon. His cricket, like his life, was about endurance, but never without humour.
He saw grace where others did not. Once, when friends teased a bespectacled woman’s looks, Ashok waved them off with a Gujarati gem: “Chashma kaado to Hema Malini lage che beta!” — “Take off her specs and she looks like the Dream Girl.” That was him— quick with the line, but gentle in its landing.
His trusted Herald car was another running gag. Its floor had all but vanished, offering passengers a view of the tar below. Ashok would slap the steering wheel, laughing: “Raja, free air-conditioning from below!” Rolls-Royces gave status; his Herald gave stories.
Teammates knew him as the spirit of the Bombay dressing room. He could come back from a duck and have everyone chuckling before the next batsman had strapped on his pads. As captain, he was shrewd enough to know that confidence mattered as much as technique. When the 12th man trotted out with a drink, Ashok would take a sip and exclaim, “Wah wah, what a drink, Raja!” That word — Raja — was his magic. In that instant, he made a reserve feel like a king.
In my first full year [1982-83] of the Ranji Trophy, I had a decent season with over 550 runs in seven matches. We lost the final to Karnataka in the first innings. In a crucial moment of that match, I dropped a catch at midwicket off all-rounder B Vijayakrishna — a swat to midwicket, an instinctive snatch, and then… a drop. Bombay had probably dropped the Ranji Trophy with my catch. That said, both sides had their share of dropped catches.
A month later, at a function, Ashok came up to me and asked softly, “Raja, are you able to sleep well? Because I haven’t been able to.” It said everything about him — how much he loved winning the Ranji Trophy, and how much he lived for Bombay winning it. The look in his light eyes told me a story I haven’t been able to forget to this day.
On his birth anniversary the other day, we remembered Ashok — a cricketer of pedigree, a hungry domestic “langar” (anchor in English), a raconteur by instinct, and a man whose laughter outlasted his runs.
One imagines him now, chuckling still, sipping his ale, and breaking into his favourite Kishore Kumar tune, Yeh Shaam Mastani. A song picturised on Rajesh Khanna, incidentally, the very nickname his friends gave him (Kaka).
And just like that melody, his memory lingers — timeless, tuneful, and touched with mischief.
Somewhere, surely, there is a darbar of friends leaning in to hear your anecdotes, as that wicked laughter echoes on — like the sound of sweet part of the willow on ball at the Wankhede Stadium.
Shishir Hattangadi is a former Mumbai Ranji Trophy captain and opening batsman. He tweets@shishhattangadi
Clayton Murzello’s Pavilion End will be back.
Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.