01 April,2016 12:01 PM IST | | Ashwin Ferro
The former West Indies pacer, now a commentator in the WorldT20 tournament, was unable to find whites to fit in when the team was in Mumbai during the 1989 Nehru Cup semi-final
Former West Indies pacer Ian Bishop, now a commentator doing duty in the ICC World T20, had quite a peculiar problem when the team was in Mumbai to take on India in the 1989 Nehru Cup semi-final. The 6-feet-five-inch Trinidadian was unable to find whites to fit in.
Ian Bishop
We learn that then West Indies captain Vivian Richards approached his friend, the late Hemant Waingankar and requested him to solve his young fast bowler's problem.
Along with his colleague Anil Joshi, Waingankar took Bishop in his Fiat car to Avanti Collections at Dadar where Bishop's trousers were ordered.
Proprietor of a Dadar shop, L Dada measures up Ian Bishop
On the way back to the hotel, Joshi suggested to Waingankar that they take the youngster to their friend Sunil Gavaskar's new home at Worli. The batting legend was not at home but Bishop was just happy to be there.
"Oh yeah⦠that happened, but I can't remember much about it now," said 48-year-old Bishop when mid-day reminded him of cloth store.
MCA scorers Hemangi Yerzal (left) and Vrinda Rathi at the Wankhede Stadium's Press Box yesterday. Pic/Ashwin Ferro
When reminded that he also visited Gavaskar's home, Bishop paused and said with a smile: "Yeah Sunny's house⦠yeah⦠but that was a long, long time ago, so I can't recall much about it." Can't blame the gentle giant, it was close to 27 years ago.
From 'Sachin Sachin' to 'Rohit Rohit' at Wankhede
The Mumbai crowd loves its cricket and cricketers to bits. And with time though their preferences may have change, the manner in which they express themselves, hasn't. 'Saachin Saachin' was a chant the Wankhede was synonymous with for decades and even the great batsman acknowledged the goose bump-feeling in his farewell speech after his 200th Test against the West Indies at the same venue.
Yesterday, during the semi-final between India and West Indies, the full house chanted the name of another Mumbai batsman, who got after the Windies attack. Chants of 'Roohit, Roohit' reverberated from the stands as opener Rohit Sharma hammered Windies' medium pacer Andre Russell for consecutive sixes in the sixth over.
Unfortunately, the chants didn't last long as Sharma was trapped leg-before by leg-spinner Samuel Badree 12 balls later for a well made 31-ball 43 (3x4s, 3x6s).
Female scorers sorry for state of women's cricket
IT was rather unfortunate to see yesterday's ICC World T20 women's semi-final between West Indies and New Zealand played in front of a virtually empty Wankhede Stadium. But MCA's three female scorers, Varsha Nagre (29), Hemangi Yerzal (29) and Vrinda Rathi (27) who were on duty at the Wankhede press box tried to put things into perspective. "The Indian crowd wants to see Indians do well but unfortunately our girls didn't even make it to the semi-finals.
It's difficult for stands to fill up if there is no local team on view and for this, our team is to blame. However, the authorities would do well to bring in some girls schools to watch the women's matches. That would serve as a good encouragement to the team," said Rathi, who has played cricket for the Mumbai University team in the past.
Yerzal, another former Mumbai player felt that while women talk about getting equal facilities and more money, at the end of the day, it's the performance that counts. "With the BCCI now taking the women's team under their wings, we should be performing better. I don't intend to criticise the team but the fact remains that there is no dearth of facilities for our women players now so here's hoping they do well in the future. That will bring in the crowds and elevate the status of the game in the country," said Yerzal.
3000 burgers & 1000 sandwiches for fans
Indian cricket fans sure have an appetite, and this can be gauged by the stock of food that was being brought into the Wankhede Stadium yesterday for the India vs West Indies semi-final match. One of the vendors at the burger stall put this appetite into perspective with some staggering numbers. "We have ordered around 3000 burgers, veg and non-veg combined. It's priced at a nominal R100 for both veg and non-veg and we expect all to be sold out by 9pm latest," said the vendor.
The nearby Subway sandwich outlet was a little pricey and probably that's why the stock was comparatively lesser. "We have around 1000 sandwiches - two veg and two non-veg varieties - priced at R200 and R250 each," said the sandwich guy. However, these numbers are specifically for India matches. For non-India matches the food ordered is considerably less.
"I travelled to the Nagpur match too (India vs NZ) and the quantity of food we ordered there too was the same. However, for the England vs West Indies game at the Wankhede recently, we had ordered only 1000 burgers and some remained unsold there too," added the burger seller.
