Rex Clementine in Calcutta

The streets of Calcutta are well decorated and a walk along Park Street in the night is quite a spectacle. Calcutta was India’s original capital under the British and Park Street is like the Cinnamon Gardens of Colombo.

Park Street is also known as the street that never sleeps as Calcutta’s night life is centered around here with several pubs and night clubs such as Peter Cat, Oly Pub and Blue Fox. The cities’ leading schools and colleges are also situated along this long stretch. All western posh restaurants and coffee shops can be seen along this street and as you walk further down the road, you see the other side of the city; abject poverty and disorderliness.

Traffic can be a nightmare in Calcutta so the safest mode of transport is the British built trams that are still running. Calcutta is known as City of Joy and it’s a shame that the team spent just two nights here.

For all its history and glory, Calcutta is not the most spectator friendly ground and the press box is below average. Yes, yes, SSC press box doesn’t cover itself with glory either, but late Michael de Zoysa did much to address the issue and thanks to him SSC has improved leaps and bounds in recent years.

So it was a bit of a surprise walking in to the Calcutta press box and finding that the place had got a complete facelift. The President of Cricket Association of Bengal is Snehasish Ganguly, the brother of former India captain Sourav and he is addressing several issues the ground is facing.

Eden Gardens had a capacity of 110,000 but that was at a time when people watched the game standing in certain stands. With several new stands coming up, the venue can now host only 65,000. But spectator comforts have improved. It was a full house yesterday. The cops had a tough job managing all the fans. Unlike in other Indian cities, Police in Calcutta wear white.

In Sri Lanka we had an IGP by the name of Mahinda Balasuriya and he had a bright idea to change the police uniform. Taking a leaf out of Calcutta he preferred white uniforms for his cops. The change of uniform was going to cost an arm and a leg for the treasury. So when the idea was taken to President Mahinda Rajapaksa who shot it down saying that as a youth he himself had jitters when seeing the khaki uniform and people would not fear the cops anymore when the colour is changed.

As Virat Kohli walked in to Eden Gardens to warm-up ahead of the game, he signalled to the team’s throw down specialist to come over to the nets. He is a Sri Lankan by the name of Nuwan Senevirathne popularly known as ‘bauwwa’.

Bauwwa

had played a bit of cricket and was a school van driver. After the morning drop to St. Bridget’s, he used to sit at NCC and watch Sri Lanka ‘A’ team train. Quietly, he started helping the fielding drills of the team as there was no fielding coach. Bauwwa was quite good at what he was doing and the ‘A’ team coach Roy Dias recommended him to Sri Lanka Cricket to be employed.

Bauwwa

joined the board and through sheer hard work made it to the national team assisting the fielding coach. Bauwwa is a gym freak. He does two sessions a day. He wakes up at 4:30 in the morning and does a two hour session starting at 5:00 and another in the evening. He has strong forearms and can do throwdowns at a terrific pace.

In 2017, India came to Sri Lanka and Kohli witnessed the pace that bauwwa was generating. He was quite impressive. Soon there was a call from the Indian board to Bauwwa. They were offering him ten times what SLC was giving. It was a deal Bauwwa could not turn down. He has been with India for six years. Ravi Shastri has come and gone, Sunil Joshi has come and gone, Bharat Arun has come and gone, but Bauwwa stays.

What’s so special about Bauwwa? Well, he is left-handed. In training Kohli wants someone who can generate the pace close to Mitchell Starc and our man is Mr. Kohli’s go to man.

One day at the India nets Kohli copped a nasty one from Bauwwa. It hit his rib-cage. Kohli was in pain but resumed training. Bauwwa reduced the intensity. Kohli found out after two balls. He called him and gave him a piece of mind asking to go at full speed. That’s Kohli. He doesn’t leave anything for chance. We have much to learn from the great man. We have much to learn from Bauwwa too. Keep doing what you are doing with the purest of heart giving your all and one day some big shot will come calling for you. Here’s hoping that Mukesh Ambani thinks of us for his latest business venture. A cricket website called Cricketnext.