11 September,2009 07:55 AM IST | | Clayton Murzello
Hylton Ackerman, who passed away last week, was not a very well known name among cricket fans, but those who played with him and knew him well believe he was one of the true characters of the game.
Ackerman did not have the good fortune to wear his country's colours in international cricket. He would have in all probability, had South Africa not been banned during the apartheid years. But he made it to the Rest of the World (ROW) team, which toured Australia in 1971-72. Fans of India's batting legend Sunil Gavaskar would have heard of Ackerman because he opened the batting with the Indian master for ROW.
Ackerman battled a kidney ailment and was on dialysis for the last few years of his life. Thanks to the Gavaskar connection, I was tempted to interview him in South Africa, 2006. A phone call to him was a pleasant experience, but he expressed his inability to meet me due to his illness and dialysis. A recent report suggested that he gave up his fight in a dialysis room in Cape Town.
Despite his discomfiture, he spoke for quite a while on that November evening in Cape Town... the highs, the lows. He was not coy to relate an anecdote about him and Tony Greig, the other South African in the ROW, failing to recognise Sir Don Bradman when the great man came to receive them at Sydney airport in 1971.
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Ackerman, in fact, asked Bradman to watch his luggage while he visited the airport
toilet.
In my conversation with him, Ackerman was disappointed with his home board for sacking him as coach at their academy. "My sacking by the South African Board was the worst thing to have happened to me because SA cricket was my life. They (Board) gave me nothing when they sacked me. Not even a bar of chocolate," he said.
Old South African cricketers are not so fortunate as their Indian counterparts, who receive a pension and get their medical dues reimbursed by the BCCI. It is here where BCCI scores over the others.
Even the Mumbai Cricket Association provides for their former players. However, they may want to stop restricting the pension scheme to only Ranji Trophy players. What about those players who, despite their class and ability couldn't break into the formidable Mumbai Ranji side, but still represented the city in other first-class matches?
Back to Ackerman. He coached the likes of current South African star Hashim Amla and even India coach Gary Kirsten, who was once given a batting lesson using a matchbox as a bat. Who knows, an India player may be benefiting from what Ackerman advocated.
