The Hindu : Everything has changed, yet the spirit remains

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Sep 13, 2003

Sports

Sports

Everything has changed, yet the spirit remains

From rickety old typewriters to laptops, sports reporting in The Hindu has travelled some distance, writes K. Sundar Rajan.

By the time Kapil Dev's team won the World Cup in 1983, deadlines could be met in a hurry by sportswriters.

WHEN I was asked to contribute an article on sports coverage in The Hindu in the last six decades for this supplement, I was both delighted and overcome by a sense of fear. Yet I didn't want to lose this great opportunity. No doubt I have served this great paper to the best of my ability and was more than honoured and rewarded.

What changes do I perceive in the make-up and production of The Hindu? It has been a long way from TT journalism to LT journalism. By TT I mean telegram and telephone and LT represents laptop. In my early days I had to depend upon the good offices of the postal department, particularly the telegraph section if my reports had to reach in time.

It is not so now — the reporter carries a laptop, types the report as the match is in progress, connects the wire and instantly the copy is relayed to the desk for editing. Even wrong language usage the laptop would warn against! So I am told. The Hindu has kept pace with technology.

At the outset I must mention the luck The Hindu has had in having an unbroken line of Editors with interest in sports, right from the days of Kasturi Ranga Iyengar. After listening to a report of the Cabinet Mission from B. Shiva Rao, Special Correspondent in New Delhi, Kasturi Srinivasan would phone to my desk at about 11 p.m. (yes, I would be there to hand over copies of table tennis, football and billiards).

Incidentally, my beat would start at 6 a.m. to go to the SIAA courts to watch the ball badminton matches for the Trades Gold Cup (featuring such giants as Sivaswamy, Rajagopalan, Dakshina, Kareem and others).

I would go to the office canteen for a cup of coffee and some snacks and then get ready to go to some cricket ground assigned by my chief, S. K. Gurunathan, watch the match till lunch, return to the office, give scores and a few highlights till lunch and then proceed to the football ground to watch (either a league match or some tournament), go to either Memorial Hall or Gokhale Hall to see table tennis players in action, and billiards leisurely played by the elite.

I took a delight in cycling to these places — I earned the title, "Zatopek on wheels," only emulating the example of Murugesa Mudaliar, a pioneer in our profession.

I was on the subject of Periyavar's (Kasturi Srinivasan) phone. "Did Hutton complete the record? What won the Epsom Derby?" Kasturi Gopalan once pulled me up for contradictory Jackpot figures in the body of the report and the PTI results. The sporting tradition has happily continued.

Jesse Owens, on a visit to The Hindu office in October 1955, seen with G. Kasturi (middle), Editor, and S. Parthasarathy, Publisher.

Racing occupied a prominent place. Since Madras had become an important centre for racing, handicaps, acceptances and track notes got a prominent place and it was a common saying among the racegoers: "See what The Hindu says about the prospects of this horse." Kasturi Srinivasan was a great lover of horses and he occupied a top position in the Turf administration.

The formation of the South India Turf Club began after World War II and so did the introduction of Jackpot, the race card. I guess that when betting was banned by the government, reports had to be written skilfully to guide the punters. I don't think this lasted long and full scale reporting was resumed.

In cricket, the greatest local hero was undoubtedly M. J. Gopalan. To use the hackneyed expression he has become a legend in his lifetime. Dhyan Chand remarked: "He made the wrong choice in opting for the cricket tour instead of joining the Indian team for the Berlin Olympics."

While there was some criticism that The Hindu was concentrating more on foreign sports, the old files would show that the local cricket league (involving mainly TCC, MRC and Minerva which had giants) worked up great excitement at the Marina. The Young Turks, C. D. Gopinath and Kripal Singh, who figured in inter-collegiate matches for the Pennyquick Shield got a good exposure.

T. B. Balagopal, was undoubtedly the most elegant tennis player in the pre-War years, as also Mrs. Sastry.

Several foreign writers of repute were contributors to the sports pages. Of course, Jack Fingleton heads the list. Besides this great Australian there were others such as Jack Kramer, Brian Glanville (football) Norman Yardley (earlier the contributors to The Hindu were Jack Hobbs, Governor-General Macartney). The Hindu became a forerunner for employing these famed players and other papers followed suit.

As a reporter, a memorable occasion for me was the visit of the great Jesse Owens to Madras and to The Hindu office. I also distinctly remember an occasion when a dispute in a Santosh Trophy football match between Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra was settled courtesy a timely photograph by K. N. Chari.

That The Hindu has been a role model is not a profound statement. The paper was the first to send its cricket correspondent, S. K. Gurunathan, to cover the Indian tour in 1952.

Again, The Hindu was the first paper to send its sports correspondent, T. D. Parthasarathy, to the Rome Olympics followed by Tokyo. For the latter Olympics I had a shared experience.

I will not forget the traumatic experience I had in Munich which saw a commando raid. Only a day earlier when a Jewish youth had been arguing with me through a translator as to why Indira's government was not availing itself of the facilities Israel offered, I told him: "I am only a sports scribe. I have nothing to do with politics." His response was: "All right, as soon as you reach India go to Indira and ask her." Imagine my plight when I saw that one of the Jewish athletes killed in the shootings was this young boy. The boy's face still haunts me.

Today, coverage of international events, including Davis Cup tennis, by our own correspondents is a big leap forward.

A sports sub-editor told me the other day: "Even as we are watching the winner walking to the net to shake hands with the opponent, Nirmal Shekar's Wimbledon reports come through for editing." Laptop does the trick.

Watching Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar on the Lord's balcony in June 1983 on TV, I was sure that the report must have arrived by then, celebrating India's World Cup victory.

The proprietors of this great paper have certainly given far more freedom to comment (of course done expertly) — an absolute necessity as all the descriptions are got through TV. That the sports page of The Hindu is acknowledged to be among the world's ten best makes me proud and grateful for my being a small cog in the great wheel.

(The author was associated with The Hindu for over four decades as a sportswriter.)

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sports