Club rivalry is serious in Kolkata in a way it is difficult to explain.

I grew up in Kolkata knowing that East Bengal and Mohun Bagan fans do not gel.

Support could be hereditary. Households used to get marked as "East Bengal" or "Mohun Bagan".
+ People get scandalised if a boy from one of these married a girl from another.

Not unexpected of fans who could refer to their club as maa.

Over the years, things have mellowed down.

But you hear stories of violence on derby days.
+

1971.

Two Test matches down. The decider at The Oval.

England 355, India 284, trail by 71.

Wadekar allows six overs of medium pace before turning to spin. Luckhurst is run out, but England are 24-1 when Chandra comes to bowl the third ball of the last over to Edrich.
+ He has planned a googly, but Sardesai utters something at the last moment.

“Mill Reef daalo”.

Over the years, the sentence became part of Indian cricket folklore.
+

The one Durani spell we seldom talk about is on Day 1, Calcutta, 1964/65.

This was a very strong Australian side. The series was 1-1. This was the decider.

Simpson and Lawry were busy being Simpson and Lawry (they added 97).

Then Durani bowled Lawry.
+ Now the left-handed Cowper arrived.

Durani used a leg-trap. Nadkarni caught Cowper.

The next ball was short. Burge pulled for four.

Durani followed this with a no-ball.

The next ball was short again, but this time Hanumant held the catch at square-leg.
+

Blame the administrators for this.

Between 1926 and 1982, the only Full Member they added was Pakistan – and the reason was geo-political reasons.

For decades, the authorities slept, happy with keeping Test cricket to a handful of nations (and even then there was hierarchy).
+

https://twitter.com/Cricthoughts03/status/1612341866946793474

Even now, in the 21st century, there is a World Test Championship where 3/12 teams don't play.

3/12 teams will play 5-Test series, the others will rarely play 3-.

It does not make money in most countries.

Tests are becoming more and more polarised.

And that is just men's.
+

In 2021, I went to the theatre to watch exactly one Hindi movie: 83. And I would have watched it irrespective of the language.

In 2022, I watched only one new Bollywood release: Darlings, on OTT. I did not feel like watching anything else.
+ Even if I did watch other new Hindi releases on OTT in 2021/22, I have no memory, so they didn't leave an impact.

Over this time, I cleared a 'backlog' of movies made in other Indian languages and Bangladesh.

I don't miss anything. In fact, I wish I had done this earlier.
+

On Vijay Arora's birth anniversary, here are some memories.

I first saw him in Ramayan, where he played Indrajit. Easily one of the most impressive performances of the serial.

Indrajit created an impression on the young me.
+ Those days, there was only one channel, Doordarshan.

This was the era before they started the Friday night movie. There was one Hindi movie, on Saturday evening (this was later scheduled to Sunday evening).

We also had Chitrahaar and Rangoli.
+

Virat Kohli took over as Indian Test captain in 2014/15.

India played Test cricket for 82 years until then, but had never tasted such success.

They did win, at times even away from home, but nowhere close to what they did in the Kohli era.
+ Kohli captained India 68 times in Test cricket.

India won 40 of these, a number bettered by only Smith, Ponting, and Waugh.

Sounds big, but it is actually bigger than it seems.

The 40 Test wins were 24.1% (almost a quarter) of India’s 166 triumphs when Kohli resigned.
+

This is not a cricketing thread. This is about the humble showcase, the pride of the middle-class Bengali.

I am not sure whether the showcase is a pan-India concept, but here, it is universal.
+ A middle-class Bengali family typically owns a bed, a cupboard, and an alna.

This is what an alna looks like, I have never translated this to any other language.
+

I never met Travis Basevi in person.

Yet, I met him, in 2008. Online.

By then he was a celebrity among cricket followers on the internet, fans who spent hours on Aslam Siddiqui’s forum or the Victor Trumper Cricket Board.

(don't bother, just 1990s/2000s things)
+ With Vishal Misra, Travis had built the scoreboards on CI.

Travis then built the Wisden Wizard, a tool with numerous functionalities (you could even customise queries!).

I actually loved the Wizard more (nothing to do with I work for Wisden, it gave the user more options).
+

🧵

I saw a "Bengalis don't have a concept of fasting" tweet.

It reminded me of @Polotwitts, a former colleague whose thoughts, diet, Hindi accent, everything is as Bengali as anyone else's.

She once fasted... for Virat Kohli.

I took her permission before tweeting this.
+ On the 2014 tour of England, Kohli scored 1, 8, 25, 0 in his first four Test innings.

Paulami was anxious. She lived near a famous Kali Temple (1), but there was another Kali Temple (2) that yielded these results.

She did not eat anything since morning and travelled to (2).
+

Vasbert Drakes, to my knowledge, is ths only cricketer to be given out in a first-class match when he was in another continent.

https://twitter.com/sidvee/status/1577123924244328448

If you know of other examples, please let all of us know.

Long thread, personal memory, some cricket.

Sou-da is no more. I completely forgot his real name was Saurabh Ghosh.

I think he was five years my senior, but that is irrelevant.

In Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, he was ubiquitous, and that was what mattered to anyone.
+ I remember our first meeting.

Me: Hi.
Sou-da: Hi huku.
Me:

I have seldom been left this dumbstruck in a first interaction.

I had heard the phrase “photographic memory”. Sou-da was a living example.

There are many memories. Here is a special one.
+

Utpal Chatterjee's birthday.

Many memorable moments.

I shall recollect the last of them, from the 2004/05 Ranji Trophy, when he came out of retirement for Bengal for one final time.

Before that, some context.
+ Until 2002, Bengal, the best team from the East Zone, almost always qualified for the second round.

That changed when they introduced the Elite and Plate Leagues.

The top teams were pitted against one another, and promotion and relegation came into play.
+

On this day, 1869, Frederick Buckle played a most unusual role in a First-class match.

Middlesex were hosting Surrey at Lord's.

Surrey had a problem. They missed key cricketers like Stephenson, Thomas Humphrey, and Charles Potter.

They had to get last-minute replacements.
+ Buckle was one of these call-ups. Unfortunately, he could not make it on time.

Middlesex were bowled out for 96 in under two hours.

Buckle had still not arrived. He had buckled under 19th-century London traffic.

His Surrey teammates did not rise to the occasion.
+

In 1980s India, they often rewarded PoM for the last match of the series, and the PoS to different people.

Vengsarkar won PoS for home series vs SL 1986/87. He should also have won PoM (he made an incredible 166 on an underprepared wicket).

But Kapil won.
+

https://twitter.com/JayeshNair/status/1546544486003593216

Kapil had 60 and took 4-69 1-36 (he also got his 300th wicket here), but Maninder took 6 wickets, Shastri 4, Yadav 4.

More importantly, it was a really difficult pitch. The ball bounced at random heights, jagged around.

It should have been Vengsarkar.

There wa solid drama.
+

A Test match is going on in Trent Bridge.

Here, on this day, 1928, one of my favourite incidents took place.

It concerns Harold Larwood and a telegram.
+ By then Larwood had played Test cricket, and had married Lois Bird (in front of only three people other than the registrar and immediate families, but that is another story).

Nottinghamshire were playing Hampshire that day.

Larwood was not at his best.
+

What is your favourite cricket bidding story? Here is mine.

About 15 years ago, Dreamcricket wanted to buy the rights for cricket matches on neutral venues, but lost.

So they bought paid $25 for a cricket ground on – you have to believe this – the Moon.
+ They registered it as the Dreamcricket Lunar Cricket Field.

The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 prevented governments from buying property outside the Earth, but it did not prevent individuals.

Co-founder Venu Palaparthi came out with the coolest of explanations:
+

This day, 1972, the PA system at St Helen's, Swansea announced something most unusual.

This was Day 2 of Glamorgan versus Somerset.

There was some rain on Day 1.

Even then, Somerset's crawl – 113/2 in a day's cricket – was too slow.
+ They did not accelerate even on the second morning. Remember, this was a three-day match.

As the match went well into the fifth session of the match, Glamorgan secretary Wilf Wooller could not take this anymore.

A bit on Wooller first.
+

There have been greater cricketers than "Tiger" Lance, but almost no one had a better sense of humour.

He was the king of one-liners and comebacks.

Here are a few examples of his finest (the list is long).
+ Before that, one must mention that Lance was a fine all-rounder (5,336 runs at 35, 167 wickets at 26 in First-class cricket).

Unfortunately, he played only 13 Test matches for South Africa, spread across eight years.

Their board refused to play anyone but the white nations.
+

John R Reid was born on this day, 1928.

He captained New Zealand 34 times, and led them to their first *three* wins.

But Reid's legacy exceeds beyond that, for success as captain was just another aspect of his terrific career.
+ But for Garry Sobers, Reid might have been the greatest all-rounder of the era.

He could hit hard off both the front foot and the back.

He could bowl fast, medium-paced off cutters, and even off-breaks.

He was a terrific fielder.

And he started a Test match as wicketkeeper.
+

On this day, 1936, umpire Billy Bestwick gave Denis Compton LBW.

It was a poor decision, everyone knew that.

Even Bestwick. And yet he ruled LBW, that too on Compton's First-class debut.

Because he had to.

It was complicated.
+ Compton was playing for Middlesex.

Sussex scored 185, in which Compton held his maiden First-class catch, of Jim Parks.

He also got his maiden wicket, of Jim's brother Henry.

Middlesex then became 48/5, of which Maurice Tate took four.
+