Nilima Jogalekar goes down memory lane

A smile flashes across Nilima Jogalekar’s face as she recalls that cricket match from half-a-century ago. “I received my first prize for cricket in that game, you know,” she says. “A Glucose biscuit from the umpire; I got it for scoring a boundary, from the only shot I had at that time: the swing to the leg-side.”

She was just 12 then. She was so small, she was nearly dwarfed by her pads. It was no ordinary match, that one. It was the first match in India’s first National tournament. It was held at the Nehru Stadium here in the summer of 1973.

The Maharashtra team that played in India’s first National women’s cricket tournament at Pune in 1973 .
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Nilima cannot help but recall that tournament these days because women’s cricket is back in the city after a long gap in the form of the Women’s T20 Challenge, which is in progress at the MCA Stadium.

“When I played in that tournament, I never could have imagined that women’s cricket would go on to become so popular in the country,” says Nilima, who has played five Tests and 20 ODIs. “There was hardly any support for the game, from the families even.

“On a tour of New Zealand for the 1982 Women’s World Cup, I had seen Richard Hadlee dropping his wife Karen at the ground for a match against the Indian team. I wished female cricketers in India too got such encouragement.”

Neelima, who is a match referee now, is happy to note that the girls are getting all the support they need now.
“In our time women’s cricket survived because of a few people like Mahendra Kumar Sharma (who formed the Women’s Cricket Association of India) and Aloo Bamjee,” she says. “The girls from Aloo’s club in Mumbai, Albee, had come to play here.”Among them were the Edulji sisters, Diana and Behroze.

“One of the highlights of the tournament was the way Behroze entertained the crowd by imitating the late England captain Tony Greig,” recalls Nilima. “Diana was of course a dreaded bowler then. Albees had a lot of good players. Sunil Gavaskar’s sister Nutan also used to play for the club.”

Fine performances

Nilima says there were some fine performances in the first National tournament, which was contested by three teams, Maharashtra, Mumbai and Uttar Pradesh.

“I remember some good innings from Shobha Pandit, Ujjwala Nikam and Kalpana Paropkari,” she says. “Among the bowlers, Diana and Behroze stood out.”

Nilima had to play for Uttar Pradesh because the team was short of players. Five decades later, she wishes there were more than three teams at the T20 Challenge so that more uncapped Indians could play.