It is the television, carrying matches live into the home, that shapes the consciousness of the Indian cricket fan today. However, growing ...
It is the television, carrying matches live into the home, that shapes the consciousness of the Indian cricket fan today. However, growing up when I did, my window to the world was the radio. I first heard The Beatles on the BBC World Service’s Top Twenty programme, and it was on that same channel’s Test Match Special that I followed every stroke of a Test hundred at Lord’s by Garry Sobers.
That was in 1966, when I was eight. Three years later, New Zealand toured India for a three Test series, and I suppose I must have followed some of the cricket on All India Radio. However, no memories of that remain. But I do remember very clearly the impression that Kiwi cricketers made on me in the summer of 1973. I had just come off an intensive season of schoolboy cricket, playing every Sunday from February to April for my school’s First Eleven. When the summer holidays commenced, it was too hot to play cricket in my home town, but I could at least follow the game – and at a much higher level too – via the radio.
In this summer of 1973, Glenn Turner became the first batsman in 35 years to score...
