World Class spinner Indian Cricket Team and Karnataka State Cricket colleague.
I will be the first to admit that I was a difficult bowler to keep wickets to. I was fast, the ball spun, and sometimes I was erratic too. It needed a top class wicketkeeper to convert the half chances and affect the stumpings especially when the batter overbalanced. And that was what Kirmani (Kiri to all of us) was – a top class wicketkeeper.
I remember an occasion when Ramesh Saxena, a fine player of spin, missed a ball outside the leg stump on a helpful (to me, that is) wicket at the Central College ground in Bengaluru. Saxena tried to defend, missed and raised his foot for a split second. That was enough for Kirmani. He had the bails off in a flash. It was a great exhibition of reflexes and awareness, and Kiri made it look so easy.
I always joked that when I was bowling well, I needed just a slip and a short leg, and if I were bowling badly, then 22 fielders would not be enough. But between those two fielders stood the man who was often taken for granted – till he made a mistake, and then everybody forgot the brilliant catches and stumpings and remembered only the let offs. Great wicket keepers are not those who take great catches alone, they are the ones who make the least number of mistakes.
It is useful to remember that wicket keepers were not as well protected in those days as they are now with high quality pads and gloves. No wicketkeeper, in fact no one wore a helmet.
Kiri announced himself early. He was in his teens when I first saw him – our coach Mr Keki Tarapore would bring him around on his scooter to where some of us Test cricketers were practicing with the Ranji team. He toured England soon with the Indian Schoolboys team and was good enough to make his debut for Karnataka in the same season as Vishy (Gundappa Viswanath). In fact, Kiri’s batting had progressed too, and he didn’t keep wickets on his debut, with Budhi Kunderan, my India colleague donning the gloves. He kept in the following match made famous by Vishy’s double century on debut.
Soon he was good enough to be in the Indian squad. It was a well-deserved elevation following some five years as understudy to Farokh Engineer. This came in New Zealand, where, in only his second Test he equalled the then world record of six dismissals in an innings. The two keepers were a study in contrast. Engineer, an extrovert, was a flamboyant keeper and batter. Kiri was introvert and understated. Yet both were effective when India relied on spin, while Kiri made the adjustment when Kapil Dev and other medium pacers came along.
Kiri was always a hard-working, fun-loving person who was an important presence in the dressing room to lighten the atmosphere as well as to give the spinners – Erapally Prasanna, Bishan Bedi, Srinivas Venkatraghavan and myself – the benefit of his advice from his vantage point behind the stumps. He refused any system of signaling the type of delivery we would bowl, saying, “What’s the challenge in that?”
After our playing days, we did some unusual television programmes together – a favourite being one where we made teams and sang Bollywood songs. He did a Mukesh song very well, and if nothing else that alone would have endeared him to me since Mukesh was a dear friend and a singing hero of mine.
Kiri has been at the center of some of the most important events in Indian cricket, and his book is an important addition to the history of world cricket.
Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
Bengaluru
