The jewel of Dadar Union

In his club cricket days Vasoo Paranjape I suspect spent some part of his Monday afternoons in August either playing out the previous dayrsquos Kanga League game in his head or planning for Dadar Union Sporting Clubrsquos next opponents There were no assumptions to be made last Monday afternoon Paranjape had left usParanjape adorned many hats in his 82year innings of his life He played firstclass cricket for Baroda and Mumbai coached and mentored several youngsters but a large portion of Mumbairsquos cricketing fraternity would associate him with the impact he had on club cricketAt Dadar Union he played with some big names in Mumbai cricket even before he took over the clubrsquos captaincy I have a newspaper report of Shivaji Park Gymkhanarsquos 1963 Kanga League title triumph Dadar Union could have won the lsquoArsquo division pennant that year with their crushing win over Jolly Cricketers But Parsi Cyclists ended up losing to Shivaji Park Gymkhana and hence leaders went ahead in points Paranjape appears in the brief scoresmdashtop score of 49 in a total of 2388 declared with Test men Madhav Mantri 48 and Naren Tamhane 44 being the other scorers Jolly Cricketers were bowled out for 64Apart from being an effective middleorder batsman for Dadar Union he was an acrobatic fielder Vilas Godbole 79 recalled how Mantri used to organise preKanga League fielding sessions High catches were part of those sessions and Paranjape went for one despite Mantri indicating that it was a dangerous one to attempt The next thing Mantri and his fellow Dadar Union players saw was Paranjape jumping over a sleeping groundsmanrsquos cot and taking a onehanded catchAjit Puthran who opened the bowling for Dadar Union from 1986 to 1996 recalled a Kanga League match against Dadar Parsi Zoroastrian CC at Matunga where the host batsman Vinay Edekar was all set to take a single for his shot which went to the cover region But as soon as he saw Paranjape there he yelled out to his batting partner ldquonot yetrdquo According to Puthran Paranjape looked at Edekar and remarked ldquoneverrdquoParanjape took his fielding seriously I remember GK Menon the late sports journalist who played a good standard of club cricket himself recalling how Paranjape ran off the field because he had dropped more than one catch He had a presenceldquoWhen he was on the field you could say we were going to win Many a time we failed to make a playing XI because our regular players used to be busy playing for India or domestic cricket Vasoo Sir used to turn up and tell us to give our 100 per cent even though we were short of players Amidst that lively enjoyable atmosphere he ensured we fought hard on the field and nine of 10 times wersquod winrdquo Puthran told me on WednesdayFor Salil Shah the spinner who served Dadar Union in the 1980s and 1990s the name Vasoo Paranjape conjures up images of a white floppy hat scarf spotless creams and a livewire on the field ldquoWe were happy to imbibe his wealth of knowledge and his advice was always handed out in a nonreprehensible way He once captained me for Bombay Police in a Police Shield game and there was a batsman who was hitting me across the line He comes up to me and tells me that Irsquove set the field now think about how you will go about thingsrdquo said Shah the tall leftarm spinner providing an indication that Paranjape gave players the freedom to work out things for themselvesTalking of leftarm spin it was this brand of bowling which did Rajasthan SC in in a Purshottam Shield game despite reaching 250 for no loss in response to Dadar Unionrsquos 330 Mobin Shaikh who kept wicket for Rajasthan SC remembered Paranjape bringing himself on and taking four wickets which caused Rajasthan SCrsquos defeatSanjay Jaywant the fine middle order batsman who played only one Ranji Trophy game for Mumbai in 197576 told me how Paranjape asked him to join Dadar Union after being impressed by a knock he played for Parsi Cyclists his second club after Shivaji Park Youngsters ldquoI agreed and had to face some flak from the late Vijay Manjrekar who wanted me to continue playing for Youngsters I was already a member of Dadar Union but to play for them I had to pay the membership fees with retrospective effect Sensing I couldnrsquot afford to pay up Vasoo handed me a R100 note He also lent me his leg guards for my Ranji Trophy debutrdquo Jaywant told me struggling to hold back his emotionsThere were many who were overcome with emotion on Monday including me after seeing him all set to undertake his final journeyCOVID19 prevented me from visiting him like I used to But each prepandemic visit was memorable Amidst savouring the tea and snacks prepared by Mrs Lalita Paranjape I would listen as her husband spoke about Bradman Gavaskar McCabe and of course that great cricketerwriter FingletonFormer India fast bowler TA Sekar who Paranjape worked with at the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai recalled the time when Ian Chappell visited the Dennis Lilleeheaded Foundation in the early 1990s At least one evening ran into the wee hours of the morning when Chappell and Paranjape discussed Australian cricketI called Chappell on Monday afternoon to inform him of Paranjapersquos death ldquoGood man Vasoordquo he said as he recalled those evenings with him in Chennai and his Matunga home Before he hung up he repeated ldquoGood man VasoordquoVasudev Jagannath Paranjape indeed was onemiddayrsquos group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance He tweets ClaytonMurzelloSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper