How did I start. I must have been around ten.
Well to start with, everyone played cricket and so did I. Every single day, a few hours were spent playing in the neighborhood park. I wasn't very good at it then but I owned the bat
Our childhood heroes were all cricketers. So you kind of got involved with what was happening in the game through the news and the radio commentary. You played different forms of indoor cricket, the most popular being opening the a book at random and scoring runs based on the number of the page.
Then someone suggested me to go to the national Stadium and join the Madras Cricket Club. It changed my life.
The coach was a great guy. Trust me one of the finest coaches I have ever come across in the last forty years - if not the very best. Not only did he give me a solid grounding in the techniques but his love for the game and its history, rubbed off on me. He introduced me to Cardus and lent me his books to read. I suppose thats when I truly fell in love with the game.
It was Cardus and the late TP Bharathan (the coach) who are responsible for my infatuation with this game.