Thread by @ovshake42

Had *that* incident not taken place, Raman Lamba would have turned 59 today.

Lamba was a childhood hero.

slightly unusual one, but eye-witnesses will probably see reason in this.

I had grown up on stories about Pataudi and Jaisimha and Engineer and Baig.
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I was told about their debonair presence on the ground.

We had two men of our generation who could match them in panache.

Of them, Azhar led India for almost a decade; and Lamba faded into nothingness.

Both men were flamboyant without trying, in their own different ways.
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I wanted to imitate them.

But Lamba was inimitable.

Had I met Lamba outside a cricket ground I would probably have mistaken him for a film star.

From the hairdo to the swagger, every bit of him was special, but none more than his batting.

I remember his international debut.
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India were chasing 251, a big score in those days.

Gavaskar could not get off the block early.

When Lamba walked out (debut, remember) he treated the bowlers with utter disrespect.

Remember, Australia would win the World Cup next year.
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He raced to 64 in 53 balls.

There was strokeplay of a brand I had never seen before.

The most astonishing of these was a six over point off McDermott. The shot remains with me for three decades.

Doordarshan feeds often made it impossible for us to track the balls.
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What we could track was how he stepped out, even to fast bowlers, how fast that bat came down, how hard he hit the ball, and how ridiculously calm he was on the field.

Later that series he made a target of 239 in 45 overs look puny.

That day his 74 came from 68 balls.
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And he followed that with a hundred at Rajkot.

I wonder whether anyone had any doubt regarding the Man of the Series award.

In his first series.

Then there was his fielding.

Lamba ran extremely fast, and when he threw them from the fence, they came like a bullet.
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The wicketkeeper seldom had to move to gather them.

There have been greater cricketers, but few as infectiously energetic.

I wonder whether Indian cricket has ever had a bundle of energy like him.

And then, suddenly he sank without a trace.

He was nowhere.
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I read of his achievements in domestic cricket, but he failed at the highest level.

There was one final hurrah, in the Nehru Cup, where he got three fifties.

He was set to return in the first Test against Pakistan in 1989-90 (Tendulkar's debut).

But an injury kept him out.
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In fact, the injury paved the way for Azhar, whom Lamba would have replaced.

Azhar never looked back. In a matter of months he would walk out to toss in the Indian blazer.

But back to Lamba.

We read about his spat with Rashid Patel.

We read about him marrying an Irish lady.
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We read about him playing club cricket in Bangladesh.

So popular did he become (obviously) in Bangladesh that he used to jokingly refer to himself as Don of Dhaka.

His teammates had asked him to wear a helmet that day, just before that fatal blow happened.
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He never listened to them.

Typical.

Lamba and caution never went hand in hand, at least not on the cricket field.

He was fielding too close to the batsman that day.

I wonder whether he ever knew fear.

I cannot imagine a retreating Lamba.
A childhood hero, you see.
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.@vijaylokapally summed him up beautifully: “He always dressed young, thought young and played young. Alas, he died young.”