‘Whichever era or format, key is to be consent and be better player’: Former Indian cricket Syed Kirmani

Dressed up in a Pathani suit and a wa coat, 72-year-old former Indian cricketer Syed Kirmani looked dashing as he attended a function in Chandigarh on Friday. The former Indian wicket-keeper, who played in 88 Test matches and 49 One Day International (ODI) matches for India, remained India’s premier wicket-keeper in the late 1970’s and 80’s before he retired in 1986 with 2759 runs and 198 dismissals in Test matches and 373 runs and 36 dismissals in ODIs.
Kirmani, who was the member of the 1983 World Cup winning Indian team, led Kapil Dev, talked to Nitin Sharma about his playing days, memories of the horic 126-run ninth wicket partnership with Kapil Dev against Zimbabwe in 1983 Cricket World Cup, his advice for youngsters aspiring to be wicket-keeper and his views of the current lot of Indian wicket-keepers. Excerpts:
What changes have come in cricket since your time?
Well, every era comes to an end and it happened with the West Indies cricket team, followed the rise of the Indian team in the 1980’s — including the 1983 Cricket World Cup. Then we saw the dominance of theAustralian team and players like Ricky Ponting showed their mettle.
Then came cricketers like MS Dhoni, who became perhaps the best wicket-keeper batsman and captain for India. Whichever era or format comes, the key for any cricketer is to show consency and to be a better player.
Thoughts on the horic partnership with Kapil Dev against Zimbabwe at Tunbridge Wells in 1983 World Cup?
It was a horic match for both of us. We need to win the match to qualify for the knockout stage and the Indian team were 17 for 5 at one stage. When I joined Kapil, the score board read 140 for 8. As the recently released movie 83 shows, my first words to my captain, Kapil Dev, were “Aise nahi marne ka. Maar ke marne ka agar marna hai toh.”
We built a wonderful partnership and it was the most devastating knock of Kapil that i have ever seen. Such knocks happen once in a century or even a lifetime. My target was to feed the strike to Kapil and the rest is hory. We won the World Cup, but if that knock Kapil or the partnership did not happen, we would have returned home.
What are your views on the current lot of Indian wicketkeepers?
In our times, there was only special wicketkeepers. But all of that changed when the likes of Farokh Engineer, under whom I spent time as an understudy for more than five years, came along. One suddenly understood the need to be a good batsman as well as a good keeper, for allround abilities. Apart from batting, I would also spend a lot of time bowling in the nets (laughs). I remember bowling offspin to Geoffrey Boycott and he telling me that I can be a good offspinner too. In the current crop of wicketkeepers, the likes of Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul, Sanju Samson and Ishan Kishan are extremely talented and it’s nice to see so much of competition for the wicketkeeper’s slot. They can take the game away from the Opposition at any moment and that makes them special.
What do youngsters need to do become a successful wicketkeeper?
Well, my advice to youngsters is to practice and spend time on the basics of wicketkeeping first. I remember that I wore a batting glove as my thigh pad in my debut Test series against New Zealand in 1976. We would also tie hand towels for protection. But the main focus was to be a better judge of the swinging and the spinning balls. Keeping wickets against the likes of the famous spin quartet of Erapalli Prasanna, S Venkataraghavan, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar and Bishen
Singh Bedi was the toughest test for me.
Against pacers, one stands at a dance and has time to judge the movement or speed of the ball. Among the four spinners, Bedi was special in his own way but it was always Chandrasekhar, who made my task the most difficult. The ball would come above my knee and till my shoulder and I used to have bruises all over my body while making the legside collections. That’s what made me strong technically.
What if you had to keep against the likes of IPL sensation speedster Umran Malik?
Well, nothing disrespectful to Umran, but I have seen bowlers who bowled in excess of 160 kmph. There were bowlers like Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner, Dennis Lille and Len Pascoe and plenty more whom I saw bowling. And we learnt a lot watching them bowl or how the ball behaved when they bowled. The pitches were too fast during those times.