As far as wicketkeepers go, the world has seen a few better than Syed Mujtaba Hussein Kirmani. For a good part of his career, he stood to the Indian spin quartet – the legendary Indian spinners in their prime. Later on he formed a fine keeper-bowler combination with Kapil Dev, not least in the historic 1983 World Cup triumph.
He served Team India for a decade, playing 88 Test matches and 49 ODIs, with 198 and 36 dismissals in both formats respectively. With 2759 Test runs including two centuries and 12 fifties, Kirmani was a gritty batsman, wide considered as India’s crisis man.
To acknowledge and appreciate Kirmani’s vast contribution to Indian Cricket, the BCCI conferred him with the Col. CK Nayudu Lifetime Achievement Award for the year 2014-15.
The occasion brought back a flood of memories for the legendary wicketkeeper-batsman, and he shared some of the most memorable stories from his illustrious career in a freewheeling chat with BCCI.TV.
Excerpts...
You have achieved so much in your cricketing career, won so many laurels. Where does this award stand among them?
Winning the World Cup for my country was the pinnacle of my career and my biggest achievement. Personally, I was named the world’s best wicketkeeper for that World Cup and received a silver glove and silver ball with ‘The best wicketkeeper in the world’ inscribed underneath, from the great English wicketkeeper, Godfrey Evans. I was conferred the Arjuna Award and the Padmashree Award from the government of India and now this lifetime achievement award from the BCCI. The BCCI also gave me a benefit match after I retired from international cricket.
These are all accolades I cannot quite put on the same pedestal but they are all the best achievements of my life and they are all special. Cricket was my life and it gave me a great education in the way of life.
Take us back to the beginning of your international career. From 1971 to 1975 you were among the reserves. How was that experience?
It was a great phase for me. I was the baby of the Indian team led by Ajit Wadekar. Farokh Engineer was the world’s leading opening batsman and a wicketkeeper of repute during those years. I got a lot of experience as his deputy in the team, playing the side games and county games. I was pretty consistent in those games, which led them to retain me in the squad for the New Zealand tour of 1976. Those four years of being an understudy gave me a lot of confidence, knowledge and maturity to withstand the pressures of international cricket. Farokh was not available for that series in New Zealand and I made my debut in the first Test, in Auckland. Many people then felt that I should have played much earlier than 1976. But I believe it was the right time for me. I was ready.
Can you recall your Test debut – the nerves you felt and the excitement?
Oh, yes. In my first Test I did not get a single victim behind the wickets. And in the first innings of the second Test, in Christchurch, I managed six dismissals to equal the world record of most number of victims in a Test innings. With one Kiwi wicket left, I was told I was one scalp away from the record jointly held by Dennis Lindsey (South Africa), John Murray (England) and Wally Grout (Australia) – the three great names I was hearing of when I started my career. To my luck, the catch came into my gloves very easily and I joined that august company.
You replaced a very flamboyant Farokh Engineer behind the stumps. And you were much quieter and unassuming. Did your captain, at any point tell you to be more vocal and chirpy?
Every individual has his own style and methods. I was never vocal behind the stumps unnecessarily. I was only vocal while appealing, and that too, when I was 99 per cent sure that we had a wicket. I was raised to play the game like a gentleman and I can very proudly say that all the cricketers of my era played like gentlemen.
In the earlier part of your career you kept wickets to the spin quartet. Could you describe the challenges that came with that?
Right from my school days my talent was recognised by my late coach from Bangalore, Mr. Keki Tarapore. He was a very old-school, hardcore coach. He would pick me up from home and take me unofficially to practise wicketkeeping to the geniuses like EAS Prasanna and BS Chandrasekhar. That was a massive education for me from a very early age. In the Indian team we also had Bishen Bedi, who was my very first captain. For those who don’t know what wicketkeeping is, a keeper is judged on the basis of how he stands up to the spinners. I had to rise to their standards. They gave me the high standards of wicketkeeping that people talk about.
There’s another incident that highlights this. During the 1983 World Cup, we had a party given by the ICC for all players and I was sitting with a group of wicketkeepers – the likes of Allan Knott, Rodney March, Jeffery Dujon, Wasim Bari and Bob Taylor. I addressed these four and told them that they were the four best wicketkeepers in the world. Knott interrupted me right there and said, ‘Kiri, it is easy to stand to the fastest bowlers of the world. But you keep to the world’s best spinners and we consider...’ and he just pointed his finger at me. That was a moment of elation for me – someone I who I considered the best opining that I was the best.
And then Kapil Dev came along. Did you have to make many adjustments in your keeping technique?
It was a wonderful feeling standing behind to Kapil. It is easy to keep to the fast bowlers because the distance gives you much more time to see the ball from the bowler’s hand, observe the swing, move, anticipate and gather. I enjoyed those banana out-swingers from Kapil and we had a wonderful combination of ‘c Kirmani, b Kapil’. Another thing was that the captains – Bishen Bedi and Sunil Gavaskar – never had first slip when I kept to Kapil and other medium pacers. They had faith in my agility and mobility.
There were no video analysts during your times. Where there any keepers you admired or tried to pick up from during your playing days?
Indeed. There were no coaches and technology or even television in my time. We learned by watching the opposition players and the greats of the game. I watched the likes of Marsh, Knott and Bari in terms of what they did with their skills and fitness. They all had their own individual techniques, postures and styles.
The best in terms of collecting the ball was Bob Taylor, although he did not play for long for England, as Knott had more all-round ability as a batsman. Bob’s collection was as smooth as the finest silk. When a wicketkeeper collects the ball in his gloves, there should not be any sound of the thud. That is the class of a keeper, and I tried to emulate that from Bob.
I admired Knott’s physical fitness and his technique. He was so technically sound. He would keep his feet together and get right behind the line of the ball to collect it. From Wasim Bari I tried to learn how to put the batsman under pressure. He said, the best time to put a batsman under pressure is immediately after a break, when he is into his shell. When the batsman is in a defensive mode, that’s when you tell your captain and the bowlers to attack him. I implemented it very successfully throughout my career.
One of the most memorable moments of your career was the 1983 World Cup. Tell us a story from that tournament that we don’t know of.
We were one of the weakest teams in the tournament. As we left the Indian shores, I thought, if we could qualify for the knockouts, it would be a great achievement. Our very first game of the tournament was against the then reigning world champions, West Indies. And we beat them comprehensively, by 34 runs. That was a shot in our arms. Our confidence levels went sky-high. As we were changing in the dressing room after the match, one of our team-mates screamed from the washroom, ‘Hey! We have beaten the World Champions!’ And the entire team broke into a chorus... ‘Hey... We have beaten the World Champions, man!’ That was the first turning point.
Our captain, Kapil Dev, was a big reason we could achieve what we did in 1983. He was a man of few words; he was a man of actions. There was something he said to the team that showed his greatness. He said, ‘Gentlemen, you are my seniors. You know what your responsibilities are. I want you to guide me’. We never had a coach to guide us, so we had to help each other out. We all chipped in with whatever we knew about each opposition player, and formulated plans based on that.
The final turning point of the tournament for us was the match against Zimbabwe at Tunbridge Wells. The BBC went on a strike, probably because both India and Zimbabwe were the minnows and they were not interested in televising that game. But this game was so crucial for us to qualify in the knockouts. We were batting first, and I didn’t get too much of batting in the limited overs cricket. So, I was relaxing in the dressing room, preparing for a nice shower and breakfast. Suddenly I heard someone scream from the outside, ‘Hey, Kiri, pad up quickly!’ I stuffed my toast in my mouth and peeked through the window to see the scoreboard. 17 for 5! The next thing I remember was walking in to bat at 140 for 8 in 30-odd overs. Kapil said to me, ‘Kiri bhai, we have to bat 60 overs’. I replied, ‘Kaps, don’t worry, we will play 60 overs. But humko yahaan maar ke marna hai (if we are to die, we will hit and die). I will give you maximum of the strike and you have to hit every ball. You are a better hitter than anyone in the team’. We did play the full number of overs; Kapil was unbeaten on 175 and I was on 24. From there on, it was history.
Your first Test century came in 1979 against Australia in Mumbai. Could you talk about it?
I was dropped for the 1979 England tour earlier in that year, and was staging a comeback in that home series against Australia. When our top four batsmen were out, I remember, the then Chairman of Selectors, Late. Mr. Raj Singh Dungarpur, came up to me and said, ‘Kiri, this is a do-or-die match for you. Pad up, go in as a nightwatchman, stay there and not lose your wicket’. I was already under so much pressure, trying to make a comeback, and the chief selector tells me this! I went in and scored a hundred, and retained my place in the team. My second Test hundred also came at the Wankhede Stadium, against England, in 1984. We won that match as well.
