Can Anyone Hear Me?

by Peter Baxter

  Within a few minutes we heard the news that he was giving them. Percy Norris, our jovial host from last night, had been shot dead on his way to his office this morning.

  After our immediate reaction of shock and sadness we started to think about what this meant for the tour. The general consensus was that this was likely to be the final straw. The Test Match should surely at least be delayed and maybe it – and the whole tour – were in doubt.

  After reporting the events to the news desk in London, I went to the High Commission to interview the acting replacement deputy HC, Roy Carter, who made the case for continuing the tour.

  Despite misgivings among many of the team, the Test went ahead the next day, after one of our photographers had – perhaps unwisely – tested the security arrangements by introducing himself to the increased ranks of police at the stadium gates in an Irish accent with, ‘Good morning. I’m from the IRA. Could you show me where the England dressing room is?’ He was escorted to it.

  Perhaps in the circumstances it is not surprising that England lost that Test match. In a makeshift commentary box, Mike Selvey, newly retired from county cricket, made his TMS debut and on the field Chris Cowdrey did so for England.

  Thursday 29 November 1984

  The sixth Indian wicket fell to Chris Cowdrey in his first over in Test cricket and we soon heard that his father – Colin – had been in the car listening and had been so excited by hearing him brought on to bowl, that he had turned the wrong way into a one-way street. He was just explaining this to a policeman who had stopped him, when Chris took his wicket – the not inconsiderable one of Kapil Dev. The policeman shared Colin’s joy and let him off.

  On the rest day I used for the first time a piece of kit which was later to escort me through several tours of the sub-continent.

  Friday 30 November 1984

  My interview with Gower I put over in the evening by means of a machine called Comrex, which encodes material from the cassette recorder to be decoded at the other end. Apparently it greatly improves the quality. Leaving me, it sounded as if both David and I had been breathing helium, but in the studio in London they pronounced themselves well satisfied.

  Later in the tour I was told that this frequently made the difference between being able to broadcast the reports and interviews and having to reject them and so I became adept at dismantling telephones in order to attach clips to the terminals inside.

  As the Test match came to its end in Bombay, from the city of Bhopal, four hundred miles to the north-east, came news of a massive and deadly chemical leak from the Union Carbide factory there. Soon we heard that the death toll was likely to be in the thousands. In later years no firm figure has ever been reached, but subsequent deaths related to the leak could have taken it past eight thousand.

  It was suggested to some of the journalists in our party by their offices that they should try to get there, but understandably the Indian authorities had made that impossible. Nonetheless, one of our number, filing reports from Bombay airport, had his copy in the paper given the by-line ‘in Bhopal’.

  The cricket tour, meanwhile, continued to Pune, formerly known as Poona, which was what all the locals still seemed to call it, for the first one-day international.

  As usual in a new place, I started by visiting the local All India Radio station.

  Tuesday 4 December 1984

  It had been, I gathered, a Roman Catholic boys’ hostel and was rambling and airy, with offices opening onto the balcony which ran the length of the building. I found the Station Engineer’s office and there met the most useful person – a smiling, sari-clad lady called Jai Laxmi, who was to look after me.

  It seemed, though, that AIR’s Delhi or Bombay offices had not told Pune to expect the BBC, so it was just as well I had called in. A small party happily accompanied me to the ground, to show me where they would put me tomorrow. It turned out that the people who install the lines were expecting me, at least, which was a start.

  After a long day of travelling and sorting out the logistics I arrived back at the hotel in the early evening from another hairy auto-rickshaw ride as the phone in the hotel reception was ringing. ‘That’ll be for me,’ I said in jest. And it was! I was handed the phone with a matter-of-fact, ‘It is the BBC in London.’

  The position we were allocated for the match was on the roof of the pavilion, well away from the rest of the press, who were at the far end. I was therefore very grateful for the company of Mike Selvey.

  Wednesday 5 December 1984

  During the afternoon two men came importantly up to our commentary position. ‘Hello,’ said one of them, ‘I am Sanjay, surgeon. This is my friend Ashok, computer analyst.’

  ‘I didn’t think we ordered a surgeon and a computer analyst,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ said Mike, ‘But it’s handy to have them on call.’

  Jai Laxmi, our engineer, was brilliant, taking no nonsense when dealing with the usual obstructions to our getting on the air. I was to come across her again three years later during the World Cup, when, at the end of a day’s commentary, Christopher Martin-Jenkins and I were asked to contribute an item to the Sports Report 50th anniversary bash. We set up a scenario in which I was an Indian telephone operator and CMJ was trying to deliver a report, which I kept interrupting to enquire if all was well, or whether he wanted to continue and then usually telling him to ‘Speak on’, while he reacted with increasing irritation.

  As we were recording it, I was embarrassed to see Jai watching, looking rather bemused. Happily this turned to amusement as she appreciated what we were up to. We must have done a reasonable job, because I was told later that when the recording was played at the Sports Report celebration party, it was assumed by many that it was genuine.

  Significantly, England had their first win of the tour, thanks to a second successive century from Mike Gatting and, perhaps, India’s failure to push on, as Vengsarkar seemed to be more concerned about reaching three figures. As England neared victory the crowd showed their displeasure with a shower of bottles and other missiles, which held up play for twenty minutes.

  In the aftermath of the assassination of Mrs Ghandi, the tour had thus far avoided going too far north and their game against the North Zone which followed, and had originally been scheduled for Jammu, had been moved to Bombay. It was as if Yorkshire were playing a touring team at Hove and the emptiness of the Wankhede Stadium over the three days of the drawn match reflected that.

  Now we did have to return to Delhi, which we had scuttled out of five weeks before. At the All India Radio headquarters I found that an old friend, Jasdev Singh, whom I had first met in 1970 when he was a Hindi language commentator at the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games, was now the Director of Sports Broadcasting. He greeted me like a long lost brother and introduced me to all our technical back-up. One of these gentlemen, when we arrived at the Ferosz Shah Kotla ground where the Second Test would start next day, proudly produced a thick cable which erupted in multi-coloured wires, like a bunch of flowers and announced, ‘This is your line to London.’ I don’t know why I was not reassured.

  When I arrived the next day I found that they had set up their equipment over the whole of the front desk of the commentary box, leaving no room for the commentators themselves. It took some persuading to get them to see why this was not very practical.

  Victory in this second Test, set up by a Tim Robinson century and driven home by the spin of Pocock and Edmonds, brought England excitingly right back into the series, which, for those of us who had been here three years before, was both a surprise and a relief. During the course of the match I made two notes in my diary of incidents which may have had a bearing on the future of Test Match Special.

  Saturday 15 December 1984

  In the commentary box, in the absence of our Indian summariser, Abbas Ali Baig, who had gone to Bombay on business, we had the help of the
manager, Tony Brown, and a new recruit, Vic Marks, who was very impressive, with a delightful sense of humour.

  Sunday 16 December 1984

  The news was broken during the day that Paul Allott was to return home, as the back complaint which had kept him out of both Tests so far was showing no sign of improving. Jonathan Agnew will be his replacement.

  Throughout the latter stages of the match came various bits of news that made it clear that there were difficulties with our next venue, Gauhati in Assam. There were a few problems there, mostly as a result of immigration from Bangladesh, immediately to the south of the state, having got out of control. Tales of a very uncertain security situation were being bandied about and the first edict said that while the team could go to fulfil the fixture with the East Zone, no press would be allowed into Assam.

  Tony Brown, however, was adamant. If the press were banned, the team would not travel. So special permits were issued to us and we were told that we would have to sign declarations that we would report only on cricket and nothing else. Our misgivings about doing that were never put to the test, as no such document ever materialised.

  The flight east took all morning, touching down at Patna and Bagdogra, the nearest airfield to Darjeeling. It gave us fantastic views of the Himalayas, Everest and all.

  Gauhati is a place of forested hills, on a bank of the wide Brahmaputra River, which traverses Assam before sweeping down through Bangladesh to the Bay of Bengal. For all the worries about permits to come here, it turned out to be – to our eyes at least – delightfully relaxed.

  I took a rickshaw down into the town from our hillside hotel overlooking the river to reconnoitre the ground. I was dumped at a sports ground, which turned out to be the wrong one, but I had a pleasant walk through the streets, following several mis-directions (including one from a man who pointed in two directions at the same time) before I found the ground, with its grey dusted outfield and grey plasticine-looking pitch. I gathered that this was because of the river silt which is used in its preparation.

  The hotel on the elevated river bank, at a point where the river was over a mile wide, was called the Bellevue, but known to rickshaw drivers as ‘the Belly View’. Here the drain in my bathroom smelled so foul that I had to smoke a cigar in the room before bed each night to counteract the stench.

  There were no phones in the rooms, so my daily reports from the hotel in the evenings had to be done from the manager’s office. I would wait for these to come through each night, while conducting a game of Scrabble with Mike Carey of the Daily Telegraph. These contests drew quite an audience of hotel staff, so that when the inevitable power cuts came a burning torch would immediately be provided in a wall bracket, to illuminate the action.

  Then an excited messenger from the manager would arrive. ‘Mr Peter! Please come. London is on line.’ The manager would sit there unperturbed as I dismantled his precious Bakelite telephone to connect the wires from my Comrex.

  The Test win in Delhi, squaring the series at one-all, was followed by an innings victory over East Zone in Gauhati, in which Vic Marks found that the Brahmaputra river mud very much suited his off-spin. As a result the whole party was in good spirits as we moved on to Calcutta for Christmas – there to find the hotel bar shuttered and barred for three days because of local elections. Unfortunately the same regulation also meant that the wine that was being imported for our Christmas celebration was not allowed to be moved from the airport’s bonded warehouse.

  Determined efforts were made to ensure that the latter consignment would reach our hotel in time for Christmas Day.

  Monday 24 December 1984

  At 11.30 at night I headed off down Chowringhee Road to the Victorian Gothic splendour of Calcutta’s St Paul’s Cathedral for the midnight service. At one point during this, I had a tremendous feeling of the familiarity of home. The candles flickered and were reflected in the stained glass windows. Until I raised my eyes to the ceiling fans hanging down on their long shafts, it could have been England. The plaques on the walls showed British names, dead long before their time in an alien land.

  Tuesday 25 December 1984

  My third Christmas on tour was far and away the most enjoyable. The traditional party given in the morning for the players by the press had been better organised, despite the panics over the last few days over moving in our consignment of wine and beer.

  The press contingent, with a few notable absentees who were shy of their singing abilities, lined up for a rendition of the Christmas carols that Mike Carey and I, fuelled by a few reasonable sized whiskies, had been putting together over the last couple of days. Lyrics were credited to Carey, Baxter and Johnny Walker.

  Two of the carols recalled umpires who had made their presence felt in the series, ‘God Rest You, Swaroop Kishen’ and ‘Dohtiwallah’s Coming to Town’. There was also ‘The First L.B.’, but the most popular with the players was not really a carol at all. It surprised and delighted its subject, Tim Robinson.

  Sung to the tune of ‘Old Man River’, it went:

  Here we all work on the Brahmaputra.

  Here we all work while the white folk play.

  Wielding them bats from the dawn till sunset,

  Getting no rest till the close of play.

  Don’t hook up or put a catch down,

  ’Cos that upsets Mr Tony Brown.

  Play right forward or get right back –

  That’s the only way on this sort of track.

  Old Man Robbo, that Old Man Robbo,

  He must know something. He don’t say nothing.

  That Old Man Robbo, he just keeps batting along.

  He’s not like Gower; he’s not like Gatting,

  For some strange reason he keeps on batting.

  That Old Man Robbo, he just keeps batting along.

  You and me, we sweat and strain

  On really good pitches or affected by rain.

  Guard those stumps, defend that bail;

  If you get bowled you get a rocket in the Mail.

  We gets weary and sick of touring,

  Just like Boycott, it’s bloody boring,

  But Old Man Robbo, he just keeps batting along.

  India had just acquired a new leg-spinner, so we finished our little concert with a parody of White Christmas:

  I’m dreaming of Sivaramakrishnan,

  With every paragraph I write.

  Will they pick his googly on the banks of the Hoogly,

  Or simply appeal against the light?

  I’m dreaming of Sivaramakrishnan

  Just like the ones we used to know.

  Was it Abdul Qadir or Robin Marlar,

  Who couldn’t turn it in the snow.

  I’m dreaming of Sivaramakrishnan,

  With every paragraph I write.

  May his spells be merry and bright

  And may you continue to smash him out of sight.

  The team departed in good spirits and returned to present their fancy dress to us. We gave our vote to Neil Foster in a sari. Other outfits included Paul Downton as a turbaned security guard, the social committee of Vic Marks, Chris Cowdrey and Graeme Fowler as the three wise men and Phil Edmonds as an oil sheikh. The captain, David Gower, came as a tiger.

  On Boxing Day we flew south to Bhubaneswar, the usual base for a fixture in Cuttack, where the following day we had the second one-day international. Needless to say, we had a delayed flight and, it being Boxing Day, I had a scheduled live contribution to make to the afternoon sports programme at home.

  Wednesday 26 December 1984

  As soon as we arrived I went to the hotel’s telephone operator. ‘I’m expecting a call from London,’ I said.

  The man looked surprised. ‘You want laundry?’ he asked.

  I tried to explain and, as he seemed t
o think that calls from London were unlikely to succeed, I asked about calls out.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said, proudly. ‘I can get you one in only twelve hours.’

  I did not take part in that edition of Sport on 2.

  The next day England’s winning roll continued, though not without some drama, as they chased a substantial Indian total in rapidly gathering gloom. The batsmen were offered the light several times in the last hour, but, by referring to Graeme Fowler’s wife’s pocket calculator, kept finding themselves behind the required run-rate. As soon as they were ahead of it, Paul Downton and Richard Ellison let the umpires know they were happy to accept the offer, but were kept out there to survive another over before the umpires agreed.

  By that time disappointed fans were lighting protest fires in the concrete stands, providing useful light. I had to deliver my final report under a handy security lamp and I saw one journalist writing his piece with a candle mounted on the carriage of his typewriter.

  At least by this time we had developed a modus operandi in which I would record the close of play interview in the dressing room and then play it to the press box before sending it to London. It seemed to suit all parties in what were difficult conditions, but I cannot imagine it would have been accepted on subsequent tours.

  The run-up to the third Test in Calcutta was dominated by one issue. The great Kapil Dev had been dropped by India after Delhi, for disobeying his captain’s orders. The selectors stuck to their guns in the face of considerable pressure and I thought I detected pleased surprise in the captain, Sunil Gavaskar, when he invited me to interview him in his hotel room while his wife was putting the children to bed.

  Strangely the Test started on New Year’s Eve, which meant that we ushered in 1985 in fairly muted form. On the rest day, though, I had an invitation out.