“I am a broad fan of yours. Could well just I invite you to lunch, sir?”
The seek files from used to be posed to the Indian cricket captain, Vijay Hazare, by an Indian fan on the team’s first put up-Independence tour of England. “Thanks for the invitation, but I’d rather comprise the money” used to be the response!
This sounds worship a peculiar response this present day, but lend a hand then it wouldn’t comprise surprised somebody. Hazare used to be merely mouthing a reality of life, one in every of poverty of Indian cricket and of its gamers, for plenty of the early ancient previous of the sport in the nation. India played its first Take a look at match in June 1932, and for plenty of the first 60 years the listing used to be one in every of a nationwide cricket team made up of poorly paid gamers, some of whom would even forgo lunch to put money from their allowances.
Within the summer season of 1952 Hazare, a college teacher’s son from Sangli, had the uncommon privilege of main the Indian cricket team on a paunchy tour of England, playing four Take a look at matches and quite so a lot of alternative other first class video games. It used to be a prolonged tour with India playing practically every county team, every Oxford and Cambridge Universities, an MCC eleven and quite so a lot of alternative ‘festival matches’ over a 5 and a half of month duration.
India used to be a mere 5 years passe as a sovereign nation, its coffers were meagre and out of the country change reserves even scantier. Paying cricketers representing the nation used to be a low priority.
The tour of England would abet Indian gamers some distance flung from house for over six months, throughout which they would possibly per chance perchance be given extremely slight portions of allowances for their on a standard foundation charges, around one pound sterling per fortnight. This allowance needed to take care of the participant’s laundry — rather truly wide for sportsmen — and a few meals on non-match days from the pittance handed out to them on a on a standard foundation foundation. Avid gamers would possibly per chance perchance perchance neatly were undernourished on tour, in most cases forgoing, or compromising on meals to position one thing away for getting items for their families.
The Queen is launched to Sunil Gavaskar by captain Ajit Wadekar on the ancient 1971 tour when India beat England for the first time out of the country. Cricketers were paid Rs 50 per day as Take a look at match rate throughout this period.
Straight after England, Hazare again led the squad for the nation’s first tour of the West Indies in behind 1952. The BCCI, to put every penny, had the team commute on a ‘banana boat’ from England to the West Indies. This boat had emptied its load of bananas in England and used to be returning empty lend a hand to the Caribbean. The board will deserve to comprise negotiated a truly cheap rate for the passage of its cricket team! I used to be instantaneous by one in every of the gamers that the voyage used to be rather turbulent!
To be exquisite to the BCCI though, they no longer lower than managed to send a team for the first time to the Western Hemisphere. The Indian Football Association in distinction used to be so sad that after India qualified for the 1950 football World Cup in Brazil (the fully time the nation ever qualified for a football World Cup) it had no money to have interaction the boat trace to Rio and withdrew on the closing minute.
One of Hazare’s colleagues on the 1952 England tour used to be Vinoo Mankad, one other Mumbai cricketer of peculiar methodology. He used to be fortunate to comprise fellow Bombay cricketer Vijay Merchant, from the textile mill proudly owning family of Thackerseys, as his friend and mentor. He would on a long-established foundation subsidise Mankad’s dietary wants in England. Mankad had signed as a lot as play league cricket in England as a ‘reliable,’ a paid cricketer for Lancashire in an otherwise newbie league. After paying his residing charges and sending money to his family in India, Mankad, it used to be said, would skip meals infrequently, no matter Merchant on a long-established foundation sending him ‘milk money’.
Interestingly, Mankad got into what used to be arguably BCCI’s first pay dispute throughout the 1952 England tour. When he used to be first chosen for the tour he asked to be compensated for missing his profits from the Lancashire league matches (BCCI match rate used to be a pittance as when put next to what the Lancashire league paid). A aroused BCCI dropped him from the team, fully to bring him lend a hand in the 2d Take a look at after the team’s sad efficiency in the first. Mankad would race on to captain India in six Assessments starting in 1954.
Discouraged payments to Take a look at cricketers used to be the tell honest by the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and all they methodology by the first half of of the 1980s. A meagre match rate Rs 250 for playing a Take a look at for India used to be the norm for a truly very prolonged time. A truly promising younger bowler, whose ambition used to be to play for India — he used to be like minded ample — used to be strongly dissuaded by a then Take a look at cricketer. “Attain you would possibly per chance perchance starve?” used to be the rhetorical seek files from asked.
The Take a look at cricketer himself, Ramesh Divecha, had an equally bitter expertise. An Oxford graduate working for a reputed multinational firm, he used to be known as in and reprimanded by his boss for soliciting for ‘leave’ each time he used to be chosen to play for the nation! “You would possibly per chance perchance want to capture out of your job and your cricket”. He quit the sport after that.
The Rs 250 rate per Take a look at match rate used to be divided into Rs 50 per day. So there used to be debate and dissatisfaction if the match resulted in lower than 5 days both ensuing from rain or early completion, because the associated rate would possibly per chance perchance perchance be diminished proportionately. Avid gamers were paid laundry allowance one at a time, and heaps of would put the money by washing their garments themselves.
Vijay Hazare (fifth from left), led the 1952 Indian cricket team to England, a time when he would put lunch money.
Avid gamers who lived in the metropolis the place the match used to be played were disallowed hotel allowances ! It will deserve to were the esteem of the sport and pleasure in playing for India that used to be the incentive to play Take a look at cricket. The financial conditions at Ranji Trophy and affirm stages were even worse.
I vividly remember one incident the place the poverty of the BCCI used to be demonstrated rather palpably. It used to be in Calcutta in 1962. India used to be to play Ted Dexter’s England team in a Take a look at match on the Eden Gardens.
Bombay batsman and Take a look at cricketer R.B.Kenny had shifted to Calcutta in as of late ensuing from a job switch. Kenny used to be a truly appropriate, luminous batsman who had played a valuable role the outdated year when Richie Benaud’s Australian team used to be overwhelmed by India at Kanpur. He had change into a like minded friend of mine.
Kenny known as one day to quiz for a favour. Three Bombay gamers were arriving a day early for the Calcutta Take a look at and had no discipline to quit as the Board fully effect them up throughout the Take a look at. The effect a question to used to be to quiz if my family would possibly per chance perchance perchance accommodate these gents in our broad house for one evening sooner than hotel rooms would possibly per chance perchance very neatly be distributed to those gamers. These three younger gamers, Bapu Nadkarni, Ramakant Desai and Chandu Borde, formed the core of Indian team in as of late.
I spoke to my father, who had once been the Secretary of the Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association and used to be neatly identified in cricket circles. He said there would possibly per chance perchance perchance be a conflict of interest in files superhighway hosting the gamers because he had already promised to accommodate the Take a look at umpires for a evening in our house.
In a roundabout arrangement we figured out some cheap rooms at Maharashtra Niwas, no longer removed from our house for this accepted trio. I additionally remember going to Howrah Railway Plot to gather the gamers. They had travelled for two nights, 2d class in a inform from Bombay to Calcutta to play for India. And for the document, India beat England in that Take a look at with famous contributions from Borde, Desai and Nadkarni.
A equal story issues Budhi Kunderan, the swashbuckling India wicket-keeper from the 1960s. He lived along with his broad family in a loud Bombay chawl when he used to be chosen to play for India on the age of 21, against the visiting Australians in 1960 on the Brabourne Stadium. Looking out a like minded evening’s sleep the evening sooner than his debut Take a look at, he spent the evening on a parapet subsequent to the metropolis’s Azad Maidan.
Cricket as a paunchy-time profession used to be ethical out of the seek files from for heaps of cricketers except you were the son of an industrialist worship Merchant and Madhav Apte, or your father used to be a Nawab worship in the case of Pataudi. Your complete methodology upto the 1980s, even legends worship Sunil Gavaskar, Ajit Wadekar, Eknath Solkar, and masses others. held paunchy-time time jobs with main corporations whereas restful playing for the nation.
When India below Kapil Dev surprised all individuals by successful the 1983 World Cup, the board (BCCI) launched an ad hoc bonus of 1 lakh rupees for every participant. It took the board practically two future years up with the funds to provide like minded on their promise.
Inequity that with the incontrovertible reality that the likes of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah are at the moment paid an annual wage of Rs 7 crore every by the BCCI. In addition, they additionally gather Rs 15 lakh as a rate for every Take a look at match, Rs 6 lakh for an ODI and Rs 3 lakh for a T20. Besides, they gather Rs 5 lakh for every Take a look at or ODI hundred or 5 wickets, Rs 7 lakh for a