Just not cricket: Shivaji Park loses ‘ground’ to netas

For any batsman the most depressing sound on a cricket field is the one made by the disturbed timber behind him.

For any batsman the most depressing sound on a cricket field is the one made by the disturbed timber behind him. But lately, at Shivaji Park, wannabe Sachin Tendulkars are hearing noises of another kind. And it’s sending them back to the pavilion faster than the red cherry would.

With political rallies taking centrestage at the park, one can only hear the crushing sound of bamboo rafters being dropped from trucks, not the soft thud of bat meeting ball. And fans of the game feel this is destroying Mumbai’s cradle of cricket forever.

Standing not far from where Sonia Gandhi stood more than a week ago, Amar Vaidya, 60-year-old coach of Young Maharashtrian—one of the eight clubs at Shivaji Park—is helpless as he points to the ground blotched by hastily uprooted barricades and littered by torn flags and soiled newspaper cones.

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“The pitch is a mine-field, the outfield dangerous and the schedule is in a mess,” he says, as he points at several holes, besides the permanent six slots for the stumps, on the 22-yard pitch. Vaidya, whose father Anna was former Test star Sandeep Patil’s coach at the same ground and has trained kids here for three decades, says the nursery of Mumbai cricket has gone barren. You can safely call Shivaji Park a vast parched brown plot with eight barely-green raised islands that pass off as pitches.

“After seeing this do you expect to see top cricketers from here? The pitches and the outfield are so bad that teams are not ready to play games against us. Most of the times, I just go through a training session just praying that no one gets injured,” he says, as he explains the reasons why just one Shivaji Park product is a permanent member of the Indian team (Tendulkar, of course) and just a couple represent Mumbai.

That’s a far cry from the the 60s to 80s scenario when the words ‘Shivaji Park’ were a regular feature on the call letters sent from BCCI office. He adds that the decline of cricket at Shivaji Park and the dipping fortunes of Mumbai cricket—they are nowhere after three Ranji games—isn’t just a mere coincidence.

The Mumbai Cricket Association, too, is aware of this but claim its hands are tied. Prof Ratnakar Shetty, MCA treasurer and BCCI’s Chief Administrative Officer, says there are hardly 60 days of cricket at Shivaji Park in a year. “We actually avoid scheduling games there as we are not sure if the ground is available or not,” he says. Shetty says the BMC has total control of things and MCA’s opinion doesn’t matter. “Sometime ago they asked if they could host a Marathi play at Shivaji Park. We wrote back saying no but still they went ahead.”

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The vast open expanse in Dadar falls under the ‘park’ category, not ‘recreation grounds,’ thereby meaning that there can be no limit on the number of days that the ground can be given out for non-sporting events. “There is no law restricting the number of days it can be used for purposes other than cricket,” says Ashwin Khanolkar, Assistant Municipal Commissioner of G-North Ward, adding: “We ask organisers to get a NOC from the Mumbai Cricket Association stating that no official matches are scheduled for that day.’’

But the damage to the ground by such events leads to more non-cricketing days. Vaidya, pointing to the Congress rally mess, says he may do some temporary patch-work which will be futile. A banner at the Shivaji Park gate explains why. Next on stage in a week’s time will be cine star Nana Patekar, who has been roped in to address a Bhandari samaj gathering from across the country.