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.