Chakravarty A: Killer Kiri the Bowler

Syed Mustaffa Hussain Kirmani was a bowler  with  a  lot  of
variety  in  his repertoire. I was fortunate to watch all of
his great bowling spells which he bolwed at Jhumri Talaiyya.
I  recollect one Spell against Kim Hughes' strong Australian
batting side.

There was some unseasonal snow in Jhumri  Talaiyya  and  the
mat was overprepared. The wicket gave an appearance of being
hairy and  slippery.  The  Indian  batsmen  were  thoroughly
outdone by Hughes and Border bowling inspired spells.
By afternoon of the first day, Australia started their first
innings.  Rick  Darling  played a good square drive of Kapil
and soon things were looking bleak for India.  In  a  daring
move,  the  skipper Venkataraghavan (with whom I have played
first class cricket for TN) gave the ball to Kirmani.

Kirmani has rightly been called the  Ambassador  among  fast
bowlers.  He  takes  about  20  paces  run up. He has a very
assertive run up to the wicket a nice shoulder  on  delivery
stride  and  it is always a toss-up between whether the ball
he balls will slip or the bowler himself. The sight  of  him
running  in, arms flailing, long hair waving in the air, was
enough to shake the stoutest of batsmen  (with  laughter)  :
even Vishy has been known to be wary of Kiri.

Kirmani has this  knack  of  finding  the  gap  between  the
batsmen's  arms  and, going on through that gap, finding the
next one between the inner arm and the  batsmen's  body.  In
fact,  there  have  been occasions when the ball, seeming to
have a life of it's own, has gotten carried away  and  found
the  gap between the stumps too, leaving the batsmen heaving
a sigh of relief  and  neccesitating  the  Indian  captain's
having  a  quiet  word  with  Kiri on his tendency to overdo
things a bit. Like a true team man that he is, Kiri got down
to his task with a smile, and soon the ball was all over the
place. He was doing everything with the ball, except  making
it  sing  (  a reflection of the Indian film industry's then
music draught, the poetic among the spectators felt). He did
get  a  bit  of  stick from the tail enders, especially from
Lawson, who is a good driver; but he  carried  on  undaunted
and went on to take a total of fifteen wickets in the match.
As usual Kiri's  fifteen  wicket  haul  brought  victory  to
India.

P.S.:I have only watched, repeatedly, video clippings of the
above  spell, and so there might be some errors in what I've
written.

P.P.S.:The above is what it explicitly appears  to  be  :  a
work   of   fiction.  Any  explicit  resemblance  to  actual
characters is just so much artistic  license.  Any  implicit
resemblance to actual "characters" is, of course, totally by
intention.

Thanks to Anand Chakravarty (achakrav@uceng.uc.edu) on r.s.c.

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