VOICE-OVER:
Three years after the original groundbreaking Young Lions programme, we revisit the boys on whom we were the first to cast a spotlight. Will the pace of Deennawaz Shah triumph over the quicksilver footwork of T.E. Sarfraz, and can either of them match the mighty forearms of Manjunath Kumar?
YOUNG LIONS: THE NEXT GENERATION BURGEONING LEGENDS
MONDAY 6.30 P.M. REPEATED ON WEDNESDAY
We discovered our first Young Lion this evening three years ago in a slum in Dahisar. Today, he lives in a good neighbourhood in Chembur: proof of the magical power of cricket to uplift lives in today’s India.
In this clip, taken at the Catholic Gymkhana, 23 April this year, Manjunath Kumar shows us why he is so speciaclass="underline" the ball, pitched short, moves into him at 110 kilometres per hour. Observe how the Young Lion’s first movement is across the line, ‘I intend to pull this,’ but then he braces his ribs, ‘I will let this go by,’ only to turn his wrists at the final instant, and send it flying down to the fine leg boundary: ‘Fooled all of you.’ Cricketing experts describe young Manju as cunning, deceptive and brutal. Before we talk to him about his practice methods and cricketing secrets, let us see him handling the full-length delivery. This next clip is from MCA, 14 February, Valentine’s Day…
A Portrait in Numbers: Manjunath Kumar
Young Lions Expert Panel Ranking: 2nd
Height: 5'2''
Weight: (no data)
Average (within India): 46.70
Average (outside India): 45.00
Strike rate (per 100 balls): 91.40
Highest score (within India): 497
Off-side to leg-side scoring ratio: 38:62
Coach ranking (city-wide survey of school coaches): 2
Peer ranking (city-wide survey of school cricketers): 19
How angry my brother must be after seeing that programme.
•
The net is held aloft by bamboo poles; inside the net stands Radha Kumar. Blue helmet, trembling bat. The net makes a box around him, as a draughtsman makes cubing for a study of his model. Now a red ball comes at Radha, who lifts his shoulders and lets it go. All around the net, people take a step back. The ball hits the net, it vibrates; the onlookers draw closer again. The batsman shuffles his centre pad, his pads, and then, after sweeping the ground with his bat, suddenly removes his helmet, throws it to the ground, and waits. Now the spinner bowls at him. Down the pitch, cover-driven.
Standing behind the net, Manju feels his big brother’s familiar timing. That remains. What is gone is the power that accompanied the timing.
To Manju’s left, a girl in a grey T-shirt stood watching him: her thick hair, freshly shampooed, parted down the middle, was drawn over her shoulder in a neat, glossy swoop, like an eagle’s folded wing.
Like all celebrity sportsmen, Radha Kumar was allowed the luxury of a pitch-side girlfriend, even if there was some ambiguity about the status of their relationship. Running her fingers now and then through her glistening, geometrically perfect length of hair, Sofia kept watching the younger Kumar, oblivious to the handful of male spectators who were watching her.
‘I’m going to pitch it short, Radha. Helmet.’
As Radha bent down and reached for a blue helmet, his eyes met his younger brother’s.
Radha Krishna Kumar: now a former Young Lion.
Manju smelled fear. He could smell his brother’s sweat: and of the seven types of sweat, this was the one signifying fear. Yes, fear: Manju smelled every fear in the world coming from his brother’s face; and smelled every fear in the world coming from his brother’s bat.
‘Duffer! Duffer! What have you done to your batting?’ Tommy Sir had come to the nets yelling at the top of his voice.
‘You changed your grip! You cut your backlift!’
‘My father. Coach Sawant,’ Radha explained. It had been a decision taken jointly by Sawant and his father, based on computer analysis of Radha’s recent dismissals, the backlift should be sacrificed for a longer stay at the crease.
Tommy Sir placed his hands on the netting and shouted at the boy inside.
‘You’re now batting like a girl. Congratulations.’
Radha removed his helmet; he wiped his face with his shoulder; he tried to deny the charge.
Tommy Sir’s voice softened when he saw the boy’s face inside the helmet.
‘You should ask me about these things, son. But don’t worry: you are lean, mean and magnificent. He reached over and patted Radha’s shoulder. We’ll fix your problems, don’t worry. Now it’s time for your brother to bat. Manju, pad up.’
When she heard this, Sofia turned with a smile towards the younger Kumar, letting him see all the dark spots on her neck. At once Manju glowed with pleasure: for he knew that he was the only boy in all of Mumbai who was truly lean, mean and magnificent with a cricket bat.
•
After sixteen days apart, the two friends were meeting again, at a table in the Golden Punjab Hotel, not far from the Vashi train station.
Javed was still grinning and wobbling his head like Harsha Bhogle. He had gone with his father to Aligarh, and from there they had taken a taxi around Uttar Pradesh. It was the first time he was seeing his home state. From the Taj in Agra, they went to Benaras, and then to Kanpur. UP was one big fucking brain-wave, man. Amazing. Near Agra, Javed and his father went to this dargah — ‘You know what that means, Manju? — and there was this marble slab inside, and there was this long groove in the marble, and you know what my father told me, Manju? That in the old days a Persian poet used to sit on that marble slab and write with a peacock feather, and that when he grew tired, the poet would set his peacock feather down in that groove in the stone. I touched that groove, Manju: look!’
Javed showed his fingertip, brought it nearer, and touched it to Manju’s forehead: Manju smiled, as if thrilled, but then began to cry.
As he sat curling a lock of hair over and over again around a finger, he could see, through his wet eyes, grey tubes of chicken seekh kebab in a rich red sauce lying on a plate in front of him. Using three fingers, Javed picked one up, squeezed the kebab in two with his thumb, and rolled the longer half towards his friend. Manju shook his head; he kept working at the lock of hair on his forehead.
‘And what are you crying over this time, my little Sachin?’
‘You don’t know what happened to me. You were gone for so long and you don’t know what happened. You didn’t even call me from Aligarh,’ Manju said, and the tears came out freely.
‘Sorry. Tell me what happened.’ Javed left his food. He came and sat by his friend and listened.
Chemistry Practicals Lab made him nervous, Manju confessed, so he had misread the level of the hydrochloric acid in the long test tube during titration. He kept taking the upper meniscus reading — he showed Javed how the liquid sticks to glass and gives you a false reading. After that even his litmus tests were screwed. Screwed. He was going to fail and they were all going to mock him, and then throw him out of college, and he would never become a scientist in America.
‘That’s all? No one’s going to throw you out of college. Before the year end you will be the best student in chemistry. I promise you. Does Javed ever lie?’
‘No,’ Manju said, still curling the lock of hair on his forehead. ‘Have you made new friends in college, Javed? Even before you went to Aligarh I didn’t hear from you for two days.’
For once Javed spoke slowly and clearly. ‘I’m here, you’re there, how can we meet every day?’
It made sense to Manju, and yet it was unfair. He thought it had been a deal; he would study hard and get into science at college and in return he would see Javed every day.