Change-the changing face of cricket-- as i see it--

I played real cricket --- what i mean is with a proper hard cricket ball, and not with a tennis ball. I am talking about 1960 and later --- actually it ended in 1965 , when I joined the urstwhile Mogul Lines Ltd, a shipping company --- i boarded my first ship in 1965 --as an officer Cadet---and that was the end of my cricketing career .

I was a member of the Dadar Union in the early sixtees. Sunil Gavaskar had just surfaced at that time and I remember bowling to him as a youngster -- he was somewhat younger than me. Naren Tamhane was the coach and Patil and Ramakant Desai were coaching the pace bowlers --- they coached me .

Helmets were not heard of. we wore the gloves and pads and the genital protectors which we sometimes strapped on outside the trousers . Then later Nari Contractor got badly injured by getting hit from a bouncer from Gilchrist --- and the helmet system came into being.We were forced to play very fast table tennis to improve our reflex actions and were taught to catch a very fast moving cricket ball --- to harden our hands--- nowadays players are having such pretty and soft hands !!

A test player of india, Mr Kotak , i met recently after many years--he is now a professional chartered accountant and is around 58 years old. Whenever he visits my office, we invariably talk about the good old times--- about Polly Umrigar, and Wesley Hall. Change is always regretted the oldies such as Kotak and myself--- lets go back to the old ways sometimes . capt samson ezekiel.

The Only Surety in life Change---

The only thing certain in life is Change--- this is an old saying in Greek--as i was told long ago--nothing can be guaranteed--- ask the Japanese of recent times--they always expect the rocking of the earth and are more or less ready for earthquakes--but what they experienced as a change of pattern was astonishing and unbelievable---change for the sake of change is also not such a nice thing-- stability can never be achieved in such hurried changing of everything--- the laws of cricket are changing almost every day-- the good old test matches of 5 days duration is history-- someone came up with a one day international and 50 over each team concept and started it all-- now we have the IPL with 20 over each team type matches which ,one wonders if can be called cricket at all-- why not call these different games different names-- for instance how about calling it Bricket or something--- brickbatting --- or may slogket--- the classic defensive game has gone forever for which Vijay Merchant was so famous for-- well, then Change is inevitable so also must undergo a change of name-- the fusion of the old and new --- at 64 i am a survivor ,i guess--and dread to see too many changes before i say goodbye to this life on earth --- capt samson ezekiel

email : captezekiel@gmail.com