The club house inside the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore takes one through the memory lane of the cricket history despite the buzz around the world with the electrifying Twenty20 cricket.
Bangalore is known to be one of the high-tech cities of India and with all the cars passing by at the flash of an eye outside the stadium give the luminous city the impression of an ultra-modern western metropolis.
The stadium had gone to some kind of renovation and with Indian Premier League happening here round the year it is not far from being an ultra-modern stadium.
But when someone enters the club house formed in 1979-80 adjacent with the venue it gives the person a nostalgic feeling as there are so many historical signatures are restored here.
The scorecard of the first Test in the venue is up in the wall for the visitors to have a look at while the autographs of several leading players of yesteryears give one the feeling of a journey to the past through a time-machine.
From Vivian Richards to Mansur Ali Khan Patuadi, Imran Khan to Gundappa Vishwanath, Kapil Dev to Tony Greig everybody put in a signature for the club, which treasures those cricketing gems with upmost respect and pride.
There are even signatures from players who did not play in Chinnaswamy with the likes of Don Bradman, Vijay Merchant and Sir Gary Sobers.
Edward Dawarkar, the assistant manager of Karnataka State Cricket Association, informed that Indian greats such as Anil Kumble and Rahul Dravid, who hailed from the state, used to visit the club house once a week when they lived there.
‘Now they are busy so they cannot come as often as they did earlier,’ said Edward.
‘A player of the Karnataka State can become a member of the club while it is mostly crowded by the sportsmen,’ he said.
The name of Raghavendro Rao was present below all the signatures and later it was known that he had taken the initiative to keep these beautiful masterpieces.
The signature of Richie Benaud team of 1959-60, New Zealand’s Glen Turners side of 1976, Hanif Mohammad’s team of 1961 and Caribbean team of Sobers of 1963 while the world cup winning Australian side of 1987 led by Allan Border are no less than masterpieces.
-With New Age input
