All went up in smoke for David

Fortyfour Novembers ago the 197879 West Indies cricket team landed in India for a sixTest seriesFor cricket lovers like myself much was expected from a team to be led by a new captain Sunil Gavaskar after Bishan Singh Bedi failed to lead India to victory in PakistanAlvin Kallicharranrsquos team opened the Test series in Mumbai As a 10yearold I was particularly keen on seeing how their wicketkeeper David Murray looked His 84 was the second best score after Kallicharranrsquos 187 in West Indiesrsquo only innings of that Test and he caught openers Gavaskar and Chetan Chauhan in Indiarsquos second inningsI just couldnrsquot get my hands on a newspaper which carried a closeup image of Murray Finally deep into the series a classmate happened to have a scorecard distributed during the Wankhede Test that had closeups of all the West Indian players see inset picMurray 72 passed away on Saturday reportedly found dead outside his Barbados home His upheavals were well documented In a way he paid a heavy price for going on the rebel tours to South Africa in the early 1980s There was no question of a comeback or even other cricketrelated opportunities on his return Of course he had himself to blame as well because his drug consumption became an addictionBack to 197879 Caught Murray b Clarke Sylvester became a familiar mode of dismissal across the six Tests in India and while I rejoiced when India won the Chennai Test by three wickets I wondered why my team didnrsquot win the series more convincinglyMurray in 1978 right Murray in 2006It was a second string outfit that took on Gavaskarrsquos men The big stars were serving Kerry Packer at World Series Cricket WSC The return of the regulars was inevitable but quite a few from Kallicharranrsquos team played with the big boys after WSC endedmdashthe captain himself Larry Gomes Malcolm Marshall and Faoud Bacchus Derek Parry and Clarke to a lesser extentMurray was brilliant behind the stumps on the India tour and earned Gavaskarrsquos praise ldquoDavid Murray kept wickets excellently and if his colleagues in the slips had taken their catches as well as Murray did the story would have been differentrdquo the India captain told journalist Sharad Kotnis in Sportsweek Murray also hit a double century against East Zone at JamshedpurMurray went on to displace his namesake Deryck Murray in the team after the 1980 tour of England When Trinidadrsquos Deryck was not included in the Test XI for the opening Test against the 198081 English tourists there was more than just a protest at Port of Spain Murray playing only his fourth Test at home was booed when he came out to bat Six Tests later he was replaced by Jeff Dujon on the 198182 tour to Australia where Murray suffered a broken fingerMichael Holding that great pace bowler reckoned Murray was the finest wicketkeeper he played with It was Murray who caught Greg Chappell off Holdingrsquos first ball to the Australian captain in the first innings of the 198182 Melbourne Test where Chappell bagged his fourth consecutive duck for AustraliaIn his book Whispering Death Holding felt ldquohighclassrdquo Murray should have replaced Deryck on the 1980 England tour itself because ldquohe David was the better keeper at that timerdquoMurray became a forgotten figure for me until I read Mudar Patheryarsquos interview of him in the May 31June 6 1989 issue of Sportsworld magazine Murrayrsquos addiction came to light in this interview lsquoGanja Helped Me Be A Better Wicketkeeperrsquo screamed the Sportsworld headline Murray told Patherya that he had spent 500000 Barbados dollars R45 lakh on his addiction He had given up cocaine by then but marijuana still ldquocheeredrdquo him upThe photograph of a barechested Murray sitting in his shorts on a red sofa added to the shock element of it all Patherya who tracked Murray down to a ldquoseedy bylane in Barbadosrdquo told his readers that he paid Murray 15 Barbados dollars R135 for the 45minute chatIn June 2006 this newspaperrsquos then cricket correspondent Sanjjeev K Samyal landed up at Murrayrsquos home with fellow journalist Siddhartha Vaidyanathan Murray wanted 20 Barbados dollars to talk When Samyal emailed me the photograph of Murray to go with his story I was more shocked than I was in 1989 The onepage interview included bits about how drugs were available for him at a market near Mumbairsquos Gateway of India where he got ldquogood African marijuanardquo Murray who also toured India in 197475 with Clive Lloydrsquos team added ldquoMumbai is free you can take a walk and have a smoke on the road I rarely smoked in the room You take a couple of towels and plug the door and the smoke stays within but not when the room partner is around You can also stand in the balcony and smokerdquoI forgot all about Murray until I read about his death on Saturday And unlike in 1978 I donrsquot wish to see an image of how he looked before his passingmiddayrsquos group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stanceHe tweets ClaytonMurzello Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper