Dicky Rutnagur was on best behaviour when the 79-year-old cricket writer was given a lifetime achievement award at the annual dinner of the Indian Journalists' Association (IJA)
Dicky Rutnagur was on best behaviour when the 79-year-old cricket writer was given a lifetime achievement award at the annual dinner of the Indian Journalists' Association (IJA). He used neither "bloody" nor "bastard" ufffd two of his favourite words.
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| Dicky Rutnagur (extreme left) Srichand Hinduja, Gopi Hinduja and cricket writer Ashis Ray (right) at the annual dinner of the Indian Journalists' Association (IJA) in London recently. |
For example, he had raged against what he felt was steady debasement of the Ranji Trophy: "You know you need a strong base of domestic cricket and we had it in India and they destroyed it, the bloody idiots."
The veteran cricket correspondent took off his pads, metaphorically speaking, after a career spanning nearly six decades during which he covered 300 Tests. Comparing Sachin Tendulkar with Sunil Gavaskar, he had said: "I would say Sachin is India's greatest ever batsman but if I had to pick a batsman to play for my life, between the two I would pick Gavaskar and, all time, if I had to pick an Indian batsman to play for my life I would pick Vijay Merchant."
He was very fond of Nariman Contractor, the Indian captain who was nearly killed in the India-Barbados game in 1962 by a delivery from Charlie Griffith.
Fortunately, Contractor survived. "He's very dogmatic, very foul-mouthed, I'm very fond of old Nari," Dicky had confided.
As for young Pataudi ufffd Dicky knew he was romancing Sharmila (because they came to his room for drinks) but did not give away their secret ufffd his opinion was: "If he had not lost his eye (caused by a car accident during his Oxford days), he would have been one of the two greatest batsmen of his time, the other being Sobers."
Two weeks ago, an emotional Dicky was helped on stage by his son, Richard, an Oxford cricketing Blue, to be felicitated by the Indian High Commissioner Nalin Surie and Srichand and Gopichand Hinduja.
Apart from a Waterford crystal bowl from the IJA, he was also gifted a Mont Blanc fountain pen by Dilip Doshi, the former Indian Test player as a symbolic gesture to indicate that, on occasions, "the pen is mightier than
the bat".
Courtesy: The Telegraph (Kolkata)
