Dungarpur loved cricket differently from all of us

And he told stories,often the same stories but we didn’t mind listening to them; about Bedser and Merchant,Vijay Hazare and Peter May and Colin Cowdrey. But more than anyone else,of CK Nayudu. If Rajbhai was CK’s biographer,he would have emerged as Superman,flying through the air to vanquish the opposition,even Jack Hobbs. For,you see,a little part of Rajbhai was English. It influenced him,sometimes overly so,like when he relied on the opinion of two English umpires to conclude that Srikkanth was no longer the right man to lead India. But I think deep down inside he was Dungarpur and Bombay and India,not the Oval and Surrey and England.

He loved Sachin Tendulkar,opened the doors of the CCI for him when he was merely 14 and not permitted into the Club House. He loved Anil Kumble,picked him on very little evidence and then lobbied to get him a passport in time. He loved Rahul Dravid and he loved Sunil Gavaskar and the little spat between them was but a semi-colon. I don’t think there were too many full stops in his relationships.

But more than anyone else I think he loved Mohammad Azharuddin. When I asked him if he would speak to me for the book on Azhar I was writing in the early nineties he agreed immediately,called me to the CCI and let another appointment pass while he spoke. He spoke of dignity and culture,of the many meetings he had with Azhar and then spoke into my little recorder the words that everyone now knows,“Miyan kaptaan banoge?”. More than anything else,he said,he wanted an honest man to lead India even if he didn’t know “where slip should be positioned”. He had seen a side to Azhar that I was to repeatedly see in those years. And he refused to believe the stories that followed. I am not surprised Azhar went to Dungarpur to show his respect. It would be like him to do so.

It was ironic and sad that the man who told more stories than anyone else lost that very faculty towards the end. When I last met him he looked glum and,for a man so fertile,the word vacant probably best described him. It was time to go. The person who now answered to his name was an impostor. He wasn’t just mistiming his shots,he didn’t know they existed. He had lost his greatest strength and a villain had robbed him of his romance. That is the way of the world and one day it will happen to all of us.

As it did to Noel. A jovial,cheerful man who loved football. If Liverpool were playing,or Portugal,or of course his beloved Vasco,he could be irrational,in that kind,loving way. He had his mines,his business interests,even a foot in politics I suspect,but more than anything else he had football. We last met when he was doing Euro 08 from ESPN Star’s studios in Singapore and I was doing the Asia Cup. Our timings didn’t always match until one day I heard his voice booming from the end of the corridor. It was his last day and he came smiling at me,shook my hand,put his hand in his bag and came up with two packets of cashews from Goa. He had been carrying them for almost a fortnight. He was that kind of man.

The team Noel supported won the last match he broadcast upon. The day before Rajbhai passed away,India moved,even if fleetingly,to No 1 in the ICC rankings. A couple of days later Sachin scored a century he would have loved watching from his spot at the CCI. Do you think these things are also meant to be? It’s a soothing thought going into the Champions Trophy.