Glory Days of a Running Commentary

As I went out on another six mile run on a dull but warm evening my mind ran backwards to my youth and cricket. I loved playing cricket and enjoyed watching it. I had gone to quite a few matches at Lal Bahadur Stadium in Hyderabad- I saw the famous West Indies team of 1974 with Vivian Richards, Clive Lloyd, Andy Roberts, Van Holder and Bernard Julien, I saw Gary Sobers play in his farewell benefit game, I watched the famous English team with Old and Arnold, and many Ranji trophy stars like Padmakar Shivalkar and Rajinder Goel. My fond memories include watching Pataudi get out quickly and return to the Pavilion when he spotted his wife there, and Prasanna getting me an autograph of Pataudi who was notorious for not signing.
I also fondly remember listening to cricket commentary on the radio. Called the running commentary (as opposed to recorded commentary) it featured stalwarts like Suresh Saraiah who were our eyes and ears. A classic statement was "The bowler appealed to (the umpire) Shivaramakrishnan but neither Shiva nor Rama nor Krishna heard it."