Reminiscence: My first match
Naturally, when I first tried to go down memory lane to reminisce about my first match at a sports venue, my first international match as a sports reporter came to mind -- the Bangladesh-India opening match in the Silver Jubilee Independence Cup in January 1998. It was the match through which I was introduced to the etiquette of not clapping in the press box. I could recall all the details and enthusiasm surrounding the match that Bangladesh lost by four wickets at the Bangabandhu National Stadium.
That match, however, immediately faded once I went deeper down memory lane as an old film strip in my mind emerged… me perched atop trees at Circuit House Playground in Mymensingh to watch the fast bowling craft of Golam Nawsher Prince in a local tournament.
How can I forget the enthusiasm, madness and festivity when I watched the Lila Devi Shield -- the annual football tournament for boys? The northern district headquarters in Bangladesh had a rich football culture, but there was no shortage of cricket tournaments.
We grew up listening to our seniors talking about a match between the visiting Sri Lanka side and a local side in 1978 in Mymensingh, to the extent that it now seems that I had actually watched this match at the venue.
The first match I remember watching at a proper venue was between Hyderabad Blues and Central Zone, led by Roquibul Hasan, if I am not wrong, at the district stadium in 1982. My memory of this match is mostly unclear but one thing is as clear as if it happened yesterday was the madness among the fans who had thronged the stadium in huge numbers. It was not easy, especially for a boy, to enter the stadium with a few friends, sneaking past the huge crowd. The other thing was the roar of the crowd after a young batsman smashed consecutive boundaries against Bhagwat Subramanya Chandrasekhar, the captain of the visiting team who is one of the best leg-spinners of all time.
The term pinch-hitting was unfamiliar to many cricket followers before the 1992 World Cup, when New Zealand employed a slightly different form of the tactic to considerable effect with Mark Greatbatch playing the role. So, definitely we had no idea about what role young Nazim Siraji had employed when he came to the crease to punish the Indian maestro during his sparkling knock, but he had established an everlasting memory of what actually a 'dashing batsman' means.
That's it from Bishwajit Roy, from Mymensingh in 1982.
Comments