February 25 will mark 25 years since the cricketing world lost Sir Donald Bradman. News of his death filtered in during the wee hours of the morning in the mid-day newsroom. The first edition was a few hours away from being put to bed. I grabbed the opportunity to sleep a bit in the editor’s cabin only to be woken up by a friend. The sad awakening I soon discovered was about Bradman passing away in Adelaide. The Australian wire services at that time had only a news alert. This was page one stuff. This was clearly the edition’s lead story and we didn’t need the then editor Aakar Patel to tell us that. Patel was informed about the news at a more decent hour. He gave me the go-ahead to plan the front page. Mario Rodrigues, the newsdesk head on duty, did justice to the news.

Two editions

A two-hour gap between the first and second editions had to be used wisely and we needed reactions. I headed to The Taj, Colaba, where the Indian and Australian cricketers were put up for the following day’s Mumbai Test. I had chief photographer MM Shirodkar for company. We arrived at around 7 am to a lobby that was bare. The Indian cricketers were expected to be down two hours later to head to the Wankhede Stadium. It was their final training session before the start of a Test series that would go down as one of, if the not the most exciting one held on Indian shores.