The world of CG Joshi

In early 2000 I asked former BCCI president and Rajasthan state captain Raj Singh Dungarpur why he skipped a function involving past and present Mumbai Ranji Trophy and Test players at the Cricket Club of India where Dungarpur held sway as president of the clubHe offered no timerelated excuses but said ldquoAfter ending up on the losing side in seven Ranji Trophy finals against those players I didnrsquot want to open old wounds for myselfrdquoLast week 92yearold CG Joshi the legspinner who figured in six of those finals for Rajasthan had no such qualms in meeting his Mumbai opponents He undertook a road journey from Pune to attend a party organised by Sunil Gavaskar at Bandra Kurla Complex There were a few Mumbai players at the party whom he combated in those national championship finals mdash Gavaskar of course Milind Rege Abdul Ismail and Ajit PaiJoshirsquos arrival at the party venue was highly awaited by Suresh Shastri his Rajasthan teammate who went on to become an international umpire Later Joshi presented a bouquet to host Gavaskar and spent time with his early contemporaries in firstclass cricketmdashfellow ChandusmdashBorde and Patankar who sat alongside Nari Contractor When Contractor signalled his arrival on the firstclass scene with a hundred in both innings on debut for Gujarat Joshi was in the opposing Baroda team He scored a ton in adversity in only his second Ranji Trophy game for BarodaConnecting with Joshi a week before the function I could feel his rising anticipation over being in cricket company again His chats with me were just not about his cricket career which encompassed 96 firstclass games and 292 wickets He told me about his love for art and him being an awardwinning sculptor I grabbed a glimpse of him showing Gavaskar his work saved on his mobile phone He went on a scholarship to Italy before beginning his cricket career with Rajasthan after playing for Baroda in the Ranji Trophy from 195152 to 195556 The next 20 years were spent playing for the desert state even as he headed the Fine Arts department at Mayo College in AjmerDid he come close to playing for India Joshi doesnrsquot say so directly but revealed that he was summoned by chief selector Vijay Merchant as replacement for injured Test leggie VV Kumar for the Rest of India v Mumbai Irani Cup in 196869 Joshi thrived on the opportunity to claim five wickets in the Ranji Trophy championsrsquo first innings to help bowl them out for 224 giving the Hanumant Singhled team a 117run first innings lead It was a rare loss for Mumbai then led by Ajit Wadekar Joshirsquos victims were Sudhir Naik skipper Wadekar Vijay Bhosale Eknath Solkar and Milind Rege Rest beat Mumbai by 119 runsldquoDiminutive legspinner Chandu Joshi cut the Bombay innings down to size He was well supported by the offspin of Venkataraghavan After Sardesairsquos departure at 28 Naik and Wadekar took the score to 94 But Joshi effected the breakthrough just before tea On Day 2 by dismissing Wadekar and then having the prized wicket of Bhosle and of Solkar and Rege in quick successionrdquo prominent journalist Sharad Kotnis wrote in the 1969 edition of Indian Cricket annualThe same publication had Joshi as one of their five cricketers of the year in 1966 for his 30 firstclass wickets in the 196566 seasonRajasthan went all the way in their quest to win the Ranji Trophy in the 1950s and 1960s Roping in big names was one route the men who ran Rajasthan cricket took Vinoo Mankad Vijay Manjrekar Subhash Gupte Rusi Surti and Arvind Apte played for them in their later years Joshi reckoned that those decisions didnrsquot help as it ate into the importance of nurturing local talent Why did Rajasthan not win a Ranji title despite coming so close on seven occasions way back then I asked him while he prepared to leave for his May 16 visit to Mumbai ldquoWe dropped a lot of catches and the captaincy left a lot to be desiredrdquo he said His cricketing memories are vivid One of his most satisfying performances was a 10wicket match haul against Bishan Singh Bedirsquos Delhi in the 197475 Ranji Trophy season at Jaipur where the visitors managed to win by three wickets The cricketing lessons he learnt on his trips to Mumbai way back in the 1950s stood him in good stead till he ended his firstclass career in 197778 As a Baroda player two decades prior Joshi used to visit Mumbai to play games on turf wickets as Barodarsquos pitches were mostly matting He turned his focus from batting to legspin when he shifted to RajasthanApart from recalling his Thursday host Gavaskarrsquos hundred against Rajasthan in the 196970 Ranji Trophy final and the straight drive the young star played off him Joshi also remembered how he was part of a group which was trapped in a jungle of dacoits after a match in Gwalior Who played the prank on them he doesnrsquot know but GR Vishwanath revealed 15 years ago that it was all stage managed by MAK PataudiIn a talk show Vishwanath said that he was in a car with BS Chandrasekhar EAS Prasanna and Joshi when the dacoits surrounded them and they did not discover that it was a prank until almost two years laterJoshi told me that he like the others feared for his life and a weakhearted man could have ended up being a statistic that nightWidower Joshi his wife succumbed to COVID two years ago father of a Punebased son and a daughter who lives in America enjoyed his brief visit to Mumbai It has been exactly a week since Joshirsquos Mumbai trip and I can safely assume that the thrill of meeting and greeting cricketers across generations lingers still If only Raj Singh did a CG Joshi 24 years agomiddayrsquos 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