Soft-spoken, unassuming, stylish. This was my first impression of the man who has contributed enough to Kerala cricket specifically, and cricket in general to be counted among the greats. And I was right. Even as he told me about his many achievements, I had to work out for myself how important these achievements were, because he said it as if they weren’t really that much, were they? This is the story of cricket as he knew it...
His interest in cricket started in 1958/59 which was when he saw his first match.
His family were traditionally textile merchants from Gujarat, established in Cannanore since 1875. His own father was a sportsman and a cricket aficionado. He took Mr. Mahendra to his first match, played between Kerala and Mysore at Mangalore in 1958/59. That started what would later become the story of his life.
After his father’s tragic demise in late 1959, Mr. Mahendra was moved to Cannanore, and schooled in St. Michael’s.
Those days, there was nothing to do, no way to pass time – definitely no TV. There was just this huge ground in front of his school – the Fort Maidan. He spent most of his time there, watching older people from the Cannanore Cricket Club play.
That was where he saw his first Ranji game, in 1960/61. He’s seen popular players like C.K Bhaskar,T.K Madhav, Balan Pandit, Ravi Achan, B Bhaskar etc, play in that match and counts himself blessed to have been given the chance to play with some of them later.
In the Cannanore cricket club as a teenager, he played with some of the famous old cricketers who told him stories about the history of cricket in Kerala in general, and specifically Malabar – about people like the Aaron brothers, Sandy, Leslie, Lindsay, BNW Ford, KV Ramanan, Babu Acharath, Dan, and his very own club secretary N Madhavan, who actually ran cricket in the area for three or four decades.
He counts himself lucky to have travelled with CCC during his teenage years, and played with older cricketers in places like Mercara and Polibetta in Coorg and Wayanad where some of the old British players still played.
Cricket in Kerala was introduced by the British and the planters from Coorg, Wayanad, and places like that. It was completely non-profit – which meant, remuneration was minimal, and there were no facilities that the club itself provided. People brought their own equipment.
But there was real passion for the game then, and those who played it were all but addicted, just like Mr. Mahendra himself.
“I was told that Sir Colin Cowdry, who would later play test cricket for England, used to come to Fort Maidan with his father for nets, at the Cannanore Cricket Club”, he remembers with a smile.
The British would frequently use Indians to fill up the eleven. Kerala was one of the first places in India where common Indians played cricket, along with British counterparts.
This started quite a plethora of firsts in Kerala. Mr. Mahendra himself, as president of the Cannanore district association in 2002 hosted the first – and only, so far – bi-centennial game played in the country between India and Sri Lanka veterans.
Famous cricketing families from the area include the Aarons, the Mampally’s, the Kayi family – not to forget the royal families which have been patrons of the game since time immemorial, and if not for who we would not have had one of the last remaining cricket grounds – the Tripunithra Palace Oval.
As it is, he counts it tragic that some of the best grounds of the time – the Cannanore Fort Maidan, the Mananchira cricket ground in Calicut, Palghat’s Victoria college ground, etc, where famous Ranji matches were played. All of these grounds had beautiful surroundings and will be missed by all those who played there.
But, like Mr. Mahendra says, it’s heartening to see that the KCA has managed to substitute these grounds with other beautiful places exclusive to cricket, like the Perthanmanna and the Thellichery grounds.
Mr. Mahendra remembers the time when the organisation couldn’t even provide proper transport facilities– all of the team members would travel to different parts of Kerala tightly packed in unreserved compartments of trains – none of the luxury that today’s players enjoy!
Today, thanks to funding by the BCCI (again, thanks to sponsorship because of cricket’s gaining popularity), the KCA has got better equipment, better grounds, better facilities and can provide better remuneration to its players. Even the organisation itself, which was only a small offshoot of the Sports Council of Kerala, has reached amazing heights today.
His own career in cricket started in 1960, loafing in the Fort Maidan grounds, watching older people play. He attended a coaching camp in 1962, under Balan Pandit, famous coach and cricketer of the time, and yet another camp some time later under T.S. Worthington – a player for England, Derbyshire.
His first big break came in ’65, when he was selected to play against London school boys, as part of the South Zone team. That was the 1st international game played in Kerala at Alwaye, FACT grounds, and JK counts himself lucky to have been a part of it.
The following year he led the South Zone schools, and was selected to play for all five test matches for schools against Australian school boys.
Then, in 1967 he was asked to attend trials to be selected for India’s 1st schoolboy team to tour England. That was a big surprise, and a pleasant one at that. But Kerala in those days had no turf wickets – only mat. So he had to go to Bombay a month before the trials to practice, which, again, was funded by my own family. He practised, there, along with Eknath Solkar, who would later become a star test cricketer.
The one-week trials were held at CCI with twenty six boys competing, overseen by selectors like Mr. Vijay merchant, Col. Hemu Adikari, Kandu Ranganekar, Mr. V. Pattabiraman and others from Bombay.
“One of the best moments of my life,” he recalls, “was when I was standing in the CCI grounds on the last day and Mr. S. Sriram, the then secretary of BCCI, patted me on the back, and signalled that I was hot to be selected for the team the next day”.
And he was. That, he claims, was one of the most defining moments of not only his life in cricket, but his whole life.
In 1968/69, Mr. Mahendra played for the Mangalore sports club in a tournament which was the only one of its kind in the world – which was played to finish. It lasted five to six days and Mr. Mahendra played with some of the big names of the time, like the Suvarnas, the Alvas, and the Kamats of Mangalore. This was along with another former cricketer, Mohammed Ibrahim.
Although he played mostly for the North Zone, Kerala, he’d also played two years for the Central Zone, where he worked for FACT in 1969.
His career has spanned miles across Kerala, as he travelled with the ECC team to Mudis and Munnar, played cricket in Fort Cochin, Tripunithra, played at the Pooja Knockout Tournament and many other prestigious places alongside some of the biggest names in cricket at the time.
The late 60s and 70s, he says, were the golden years of cricket in Kerala. Balan Pandit brought about a big change in terms of technique, and the basics of cricket – he was responsible for having created a score of really good cricketers for about three decades.
JK quit playing for the Ranji Trophy in 1978 to go back and take care of his family business, which was when he moved to Chennai, then Madras. He continued to play here for the MCC, and returned to play his last game for Kerala in Ranji against Karnataka at Fort Cochin in 1980.
After that he took a break from cricket to concentrate on making a career for himself, since cricket was not a career then. He spent a few years in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, playing there only socially.
JK’s best memory of cricket:
“...was in 1968. Kerala was due to play a game against Tamil Nadu at the India cements ground, Sankar Nagar.
I was part of this team along with Balan Pandit, Madan Mohan, Ravi Achan, SP Malik, TVS Mani, etc.
I was injured in a previous match against Hyderabad and my place was taken by OK Ramdas, who scored good 70. Hence in this match, I didn’t find a place in the eleven. But I batted well at the nets the previous day, and here I remember my coach and a great cricketer, Balan Pandit, went up to the captain and opted to stand out and put me in instead. Fortunately or unfortunately, the next morning, cap. Madan Mohan was injured and I was included. I scored a neat 40 in both innings. This incident is an example of the sportsmanship of those days.”
His Best Match:
“Was in 1974, when Kerala played Karnataka in Thalassery, my own home ground. There were seven Indian cricketers playing for Karnataka namely Chandrasekar, Prasanna, Kirmani, GR Vishwanath, Brijeh Patel, and Sudakar Rao
Although I was a leg spinner, I asked the captain to let me bowl medium fast, and took five and three wickets respectively in both innings. I also scored 49 in the first innings. This is rated as my best match in my own home ground. In fact, Viswanath, whose wicket I took in both innings early, came to me after the match and said ‘you made me your bunny’.”
But if Mr. Mahendra has had his good moments in Kerala cricket, he’d had his share of bad too.
Back in 1968, when he’d led the Kerala state schools, he had already played Ranji and two years of Indian school boys prior. The interstate matches were played in madras. Their then manager, Mr. Krishnaswamy attended the South Zone schoolboy’s selection after the matches. Here, he showed unfortunate lack of diplomacy while arguing for JK regarding change of captaincy. Dr. Thirunapaiya, who was selector with S. Sriram, among others, wanted to replace JK, who was captain, with a boy from Karnataka.
What resulted from this was that Mr. Mahendra did lead the inter-zonal matches in Karnataka.
But the repercussion of Mr. Krishnaswamy’s words were felt later, when the Indian schoolboy’s team to tour Australia was announced.
Mr. Mahendra had been told, in no uncertain terms, that he was tipped to lead the team. But when the names were announced, Mr. Mahendra realised that he was nowhere on it.
“The journey back to Kerala then was one that I will never forget,” he recalls with regret, stressing that no one even knows about this incident, not even his team members.
Today we have the mass media, and even the KCA association is in a far better place to speak up for upcoming cricketers, which was something that Mr. Mahendra didn’t have then.
This incident in his past gave him strength when he was made national junior selector by KCA in 97-98, and he vowed to himself then, that he would not let any cricketer be marginalised, who deserved better. That is how, when Srikumar Nair performed, he selected him with no further ado for the under-19 world cup in South Africa.
Today, Mr. Mahendra is still part of cricket as part and co-founder of the Kerala Veteran Association. They have played many matches around the world through this organisation, and hosted India-Pakistan veteran matches at Calicut and Cochin.
Today, he’s come full circle, with his son – who played for the state, in the Ranji Trophy, and now plays for Denmark. This is something for Kerala to put down in its history – a father-son who’ve both played internationally.
Mr. Mahendra’s best years were spent in Kerala, playing cricket; his best memories belong to it and, in his words, “I’m really happy to see the kind of growth that – not only KCA, but also cricket all over the country have gone through”.
But Mr. Mahendra is slightly disappointed with how few cricketers have come up in the last few years from Kerala.
“Malabar,” he says, “was a force to reckon with in Kerala cricket during the sixties, seventies and eighties. We had a bunch of cricketers who represented Kerala Ranji Ravi Karsandas, OK Ramdas, Ashok Sehgal, PV Surendran, N Amaranth, Ivan D’cruz, Ferny d’cruz, CK Gopi, KP Ravi, A Sathyendran, Sushil Haridas, etc from Cannanore. and from Telassery, MA Nandakumar, T Shivdass, P Mackey, Nizar, Muhammed and others who brought glory to Kerala cricket whereas in the last 20-25 years, there have been very few representations, which is disappointing, given the kind of improved facilities that are being provided”.
Kerala has come a long way from a group of sweaty boys packed to the full in unreserved compartments, and playing with crude equipment mostly provided by themselves. Today, the KCA is an organisation that has brought forth players like Tinu Yohannan, and S. Sreesanth.
Today, Kerala also has its own team in the prestigious Indian Premium League, and we’re even looking forward to an upcoming international stadium in Cochin in the next two-three years. This promises to be a boon to Kerala’s cricket.
BY SOPHIA YUSUF
