Can Anyone Hear Me?

by Peter Baxter

  TMS had gone on all day, but by mid-afternoon it was obvious that there would be no play. Luckily, CMJ has been in the studio in London to keep us going.

  During the evening, news came of a further snub to Peter Lush. When he reached Lahore, the general had been ‘out to dinner’. Peter has decided to stay the night and see him in the morning.

  The next day was the official rest day, during which I stayed by the phone to update any BBC radio or television network that rang, with only brief breaks to find out any new developments. The Serena hotel was laid out like some labyrinthine eastern sultan’s palace, with nooks and crannies and small courtyards, which seemed purpose built for conspiratorial whispered conversations. The fact that both teams were staying there added to the intrigue, though we saw little of the Pakistan team during the day.

  Friday 11 December 1987

  Everyone arrived early at the ground – except the England team. We found out why when they did arrive. Lord’s had issued the edict that Gatting must apologise unconditionally. And, fifteen minutes after the scheduled start of play, Peter Lush made a prepared statement to that effect, which seemed to imply that they deplored the need for this climb down.

  Ralph Dellor, who is part of the commentary team for these last two Tests, played a blinder with interviews and even got a few words from Shakoor Rana himself. They did not make him sound like the easiest of people to deal with.

  Later in the day the players issued a statement of their own, deploring in strong terms the actions of both boards in the dispute. The mood was very morose – and the weather matched it.

  That weather curtailed what playing time was left still further, though England did dismiss Pakistan, to give themselves a lead of 101. They set up a declaration next day, leaving Pakistan 40 overs to make 239. They were not interested and Javed Miandad seemed to take the decision on himself to call it a draw before the final 20 overs had even started. Nobody argued.

  When I interviewed him at the end, Mike Gatting said that he would never play in Pakistan again after the final Test.

  It was only when I returned home a couple of days before Christmas that I realised the impact all this had made. On occasions I had been leading news bulletins – sometimes vying for top billing with the meeting between presidents Reagan and Gorbachev. The demand for more and more on the subject continued right into the third and final Test in Karachi. Two days before that match the Chairman and Secretary of the Test and County Cricket Board, Raman Subba Row and Alan Smith, both arrived.

  Monday 14 December 1987

  We waited through the afternoon as they met Gatting and Stewart, then the whole team. They looked a bit shaken when they arrived at a press conference, flanked by Messrs Lush and Stewart and they were given a fairly rough ride there, too.

  Raman, when I interviewed him afterwards, seemed a bit surprised at the strength of feeling they had encountered. When I spoke to Gatting later, he seemed grimly satisfied that they had got their point across.

  Unfortunately, a lot of sympathy was to be lost when it emerged that a hardship payment was to be made to the team.

  The final Test was negotiated as a draw, with no more controversy, and everyone headed home for Christmas.

  England would not play another Test match in Pakistan for thirteen years, only going there in between for the World Cup in 1996. In the meantime, we were back in India in 1993.

  On this occasion it was Jonathan Agnew, not quite two years into the job of BBC cricket correspondent, who started the tour with the warm-up matches, while I was to join him for the international cricket. In the early days we encountered two major problems.

  Hindu-Muslim clashes over a shrine in Ayodhya, not too far from Lucknow, where the second warm-up game was played, eventually caused the first one-day international to be cancelled, as it was scheduled for Ahmedabad, where there had also been unrest.

  Then there was an airline pilots’ strike. This made what were already arduous travel plans even worse. The Indian government’s solution was to draft in pilots and aircraft from various countries around Asia. This might just explain why, when I reported to All India Radio for my appointment with the head of sport, I was asked, ‘You are from Uzbekistan?’

  Thus we went from Delhi to Jaipur by coach, for what became the first one-day international, and to Chandigarh by train for the second.

  It was in Chandigarh that Aggers was forced to change his hotel room after hearing a rat in his air conditioning ducts. Our travel courier, Raghu, was adamant, ‘Is not rat. Is pigeon,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve never heard a pigeon gnawing concrete,’ insisted Aggers.

  After the second one-day international, the series stood at one all and we returned to Delhi that evening by road. The bulk of the writers went on a bus as soon as the game finished, while we broadcasters and a few photographers were allocated seats in two of what were described as ‘fast cars’, because we had to do more work at the ground before we left.

  After dismantling equipment, I got into the second of these cars to leave.

  Thursday 21 January 1993

  Our driver was splendid. He spent a lot of time on the wrong side of the road, overtaking, and we began to revise the estimate of a six-hour journey to Delhi. We overtook the first ‘fast car’ with a cheery wave and then passed the bus.

  We’d been going for about an hour when our car’s engine cut out and we coasted to a halt. It refused all efforts to restart it. As it was a newish vehicle, the driver probably became the first man in India to use hazard warning lights.

  It was just as well that we had overtaken our colleagues – and imperative that they saw us in the dark beside the ridiculously overcrowded Grand Trunk Road.

  Fortunately, they did and we were able to cram onto the press bus for a very late arrival in Delhi.

  Though a plane was found to get us to our next destination, Bhubaneswar in the east, there were none available for the 300 mile onward journey north to Calcutta for the first Test. The Indian board, it seemed, reckoned that it was England’s problem how they got there. Eventually the tour manager, Bob Bennett, managed to arrange for an extra coach to be added to the Puri to Howrah night express train, which would stop at Bhubaneswar specially to pick us up.

  Monday 25 January 1993

  We scrambled onto our second-class sleeper carriage. The bunks were slightly padded plastic-covered shelves. As the train rattled off to its top speed of maybe 25 miles an hour, card schools started. Cans of beer and hoarded bottles of whisky were opened. Aggers fell asleep – amazingly – on the top shelf above our heads, after deciding that his sheet was best employed stuffed into the air conditioning vent by his head, and we all decided to ignore the mouse scuttling round our feet.

  We arrived in the extremely faded Victorian splendour of Howrah station, Calcutta, at five in the morning. Inevitably the photographers among us took pictures of the players disembarking from their night on the train.

  Unfortunately, by this time a condemnatory attitude towards the England team was growing at home, and newspaper picture editors were quick to caption these shots as depicting an unacceptably scruffy arrival for the Test match. When I heard about that, I immediately felt that pictures of the press party would have looked far more ramshackle.

  And other such unfair comments were made.

  Graham Gooch had been shown early on running round a training ground in – naturally enough – shorts and T-shirt. But outrage was expressed in some quarters that an England captain should dress like this. Later in the tour, Bob Bennett was suffering from a bad back. He was therefore half-lying on a sofa in Gooch’s room for a meeting between captain and coach. That meeting was followed by Graham agreeing to see the press for an informal briefing. Bob made to get up as we came in but, appreciating his pain, everyone told him to stay put.

  As Gooch was answering our questions, though, s
naps were taken of him with the manager sprawled beside him and these were then published as further evidence of the disarray of the tour.

  In Calcutta, Ted Dexter, the chairman of the England committee, which included team selection, joined the party. Comments he made about the pollution in that city (which is admittedly undeniable and leaves most who visit it with a sore throat) and about the players’ tendency to forgo shaving on hot mornings were given a great deal of prominence.

  Of course, if this had been a winning England tour, attitudes might have been a bit different, but all three Tests were won by India by a distance.

  In Calcutta the All India Radio station is a splendid building, as so many are in that city (or would be if they were maintained). It is handily placed right next door to the Test ground, Eden Gardens. On this, as on previous tours, I passed through its marbled entrance hall for a meeting with my opposite numbers, on my way to check out the commentary box a couple of days before the Test.

  The AIR building’s position did mean that it was convenient for them to approach looking after the BBC as a bit of a treat. Our engineering staff would often change for every session of play, which made building a rapport a bit tricky, particularly contending with what seemed to be a generally declining use of English.

  In my thank you letter to the station controller after the 1993 Calcutta Test I did express my gratitude, especially for the only day when we had an engineer who spoke a little English. But then I have to admit that my Bengali is not up to much.

  Tuesday 2 February 1993

  As I was leaving the hotel for the ground, Bob Bennett was doing the same and expressed an interest in the walk across the Maidan, which he had never attempted. So I advised him to take his blazer off and fold it to hide the England badge to avoid being mobbed and off we went, across Chowringhee Road, through the alley to the bus and train station and onto the Maidan. We crossed the foul-smelling ditch by the shack that is the Calcutta Sports Journalists’ Club, arriving at a busy junction.

  Yesterday, when I was trying to cross this junction, I queried with a policeman the use of the traffic lights. ‘What does red mean?’ I asked.

  ‘It means stop,’ he told me.

  ‘Why does nobody stop?’

  ‘Because all Calcutta’s traffic is controlled by hand.’

  Thankfully we got across without delay today and Bob thanked me for the experience as we arrived at Eden Gardens.

  Passes are always a problem in India, because everyone seems to be after them. On recent tours one accreditation from the board has usually been sufficient for all matches, but in 1993 every game required hours of negotiation and trying to establish who the key person for issuing passes was.

  By the time we got to the third Test in Bombay I had had enough.

  Wednesday 17 February 1993

  In the search for our passes, I was sent from room to room in the Bombay Cricket Association clubhouse. Eventually, in ‘Room 27’, I found a crowd of people yelling. Further investigation established that they were surrounding a man at a desk.

  I fought my way to the front and asked for the BBC Radio passes. ‘Come back tomorrow,’ was the reply, which sounded as if it had become his standard response.

  I flipped. ‘No, I will not come back tomorrow. We have paid many lakhs of rupees in rights for this series and have been given the run-around from start to finish.’

  He put his hand in the desk and pulled out five passes. ‘Sorry,’ he said. It was quite deflating.

  India never fails to surprise.

  In Madras on that 1993 tour I had spent just such a frustrating day at Chepauk Stadium, with the added problem of having to stand over a carpenter who I had paid to make some modifications to the box.

  Thus it was after half past nine in the evening when I regained the hotel, sweaty and filthy after twelve hours at the ground. I went straight to the bar for refreshment. An England supporter, already apparently well refreshed, turned to me as I waited to be served. ‘It’s all right for you lot,’ he said, ‘You get paid for your holidays.’

  His friends sensed that he might not have picked the best moment for such a remark. And swiftly removed him from harm’s way.

  Two memorable events marked that Test match. First Graham Gooch was unfit with a stomach upset (later several other players left the field with the same complaint). Secondly, we welcomed Brian Johnston for his first experience of cricket in India. He was anxious about getting ill and a hair-raising drive from Delhi to Agra to see the Taj Mahal on his first day in India had done nothing for his nerves. Still, he was hoping that a daily tot of whisky – which he detested – would keep any bugs at bay. Nonetheless, I don’t think he ever felt entirely well during his stay.

  On one of these tours you just have to accept that there will be a day when you are laid low. It is also inevitable that the timing of the affliction will be the least convenient it could possibly be. I remember one day in 1993 when I had suffered a particularly bad night. We were due to fly from Bangalore in the south to Jamshedpur, some way inland from Calcutta, a journey which I now anticipated with dread. However, to my profound relief the flight was delayed, and I found myself, for once, feeling grateful for the inefficiency of Indian travel.

  Eventually, however, we did get underway. The first leg of the journey was the two-hour flight north along the coast, which gave the mad pilot the chance to announce, ‘If you look out of the right-hand side, you will see the shadow of my beautiful aeroplane on the sea.’ He let out a yell – of either terror or relief, it was impossible to guess which – as we landed rather heavily at Calcutta a little later.

  The next phase of that journey was a bus-ride 200 miles east to Jamshedpur.

  Saturday 27 February 1993

  It was getting dark as we came out of the Calcutta suburbs into the countryside. We thundered on into the night on a surprisingly clear road for India, with many of us dozing off. Eventually we pulled up at a roadside shack, where drinks and snacks were on sale. At the sight of a party of English journalists coming in out of the night, the proprietors looked as astonished as if they had been invaded by Martians.

  On many miles of the next stretch it seemed the road surface had been completely eroded. We lurched along at walking pace, with expletives coming from the back seat, where Aggers had stretched himself at full length. Then the oil filter came off.

  There were a few stops to sort that out and then we found our road blocked by a tree trunk. The bus was then surrounded – apparently by bandits. Our courier, Raghu, who claims his uncle is a maharaja, went down the steps to talk to them. After ten minutes, we were allowed to move on. We asked Raghu how he had saved our lives.

  ‘I told them to fuck off!’ he announced proudly. ‘They were only minor dacoits,’ he told us.

  We overshot the turning to Jamshedpur by about ten miles, which added to an already very long journey – in total the bus ride took ten hours.

  Some of the town, as we drove into it, looked quite pleasant, but that certainly did not include the Hotel Natraj. However, such a journey makes even a grubby, dimly-lit room with frosted windows and a rock-hard bed seem welcome, though I drifted off to sleep to the sound of the Brummie tones of one of our number in the corridor, protesting, ‘You’re treating us like animals!’

  At the ground next day, I was introduced to the man selected to do the scoring for the BBC at the one-day international. ‘This is Mr Mukerjhee. He is the second-best scorer in all of West Bengal.’

  It begged a question. ‘Who is the best?’ I asked.

  ‘I am,’ said the proud official.

  Mr Mukerjhee’s local knowledge was tested next day by Aggers. The weather seemed unsettled, so his help was sought. ‘Is it going to rain, Mr Mukerjhee?’

  ‘Oh no.’

  Within minutes it was pouring.

  As the rain continue
d, Aggers turned again to Mr Mukerjhee. ‘Is this going to carry on all day?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ came the confident reply.

  The rain quickly stopped, the players re-emerged and finished the game.

  As India were going down to defeat, the crowd got hold of the metal numbers from the scoreboard and started skimming them head-high at the Indian fielders with lethal intent. The result – remarkably – gave England a three-one lead in the six match series.

  That tour finished with two one-day internationals in as many days at Gwalior, about 250 miles south of Delhi. Although accommodation had been booked and confirmed months before, the president of the Indian board of control, Madavrao Scindia (who just happened to be also Maharaja of Gwalior), cancelled all the bookings in order to keep rooms for guests of the board. The rumour was that the British press would be put up instead at Agra, 90 miles away. As I had to be there the day before and then early on each match day to set up, this was not going to work.

  Together with the press photographer, Graham Morris, I took the train down from Delhi the day before the first match. The hotel manager confirmed that there were no rooms for us. Though he refused to say how that had come about, he did advise going to the ground to see members of the cricket board.

  Wednesday 3 March 1993

  Happily the first person I found at the ground was Cammie Smith, the match referee, who asked how things were going. When I told him, he took me to Mr Nagaraj, the board secretary, and made it clear that the ICC would be interested in how this was resolved.

  It took time, and when I returned the hotel manager seemed nervous to go against the wishes of ‘His Highness’, but eventually we were given a couple of rooms.