Guests, Who Are Really Welcome!

Press boxes are like players’ dressing rooms, outsiders are discouraged from entering. Yet when some of them do enter, they raise the tone of the place.

- Suresh Menon

I came on the scene too late to share a press box with Neville Cardus, but I suspect I might not have enjoyed the experience. I would have loved to get a coffee or something stronger for C. L. R. James had we reported together, but that wasn’t to be either.

Over the years, one did rub shoulders with the finest cricket writers and top players, but (in hindsight), on at least two occasions, I regret that the camera phone hadn’t yet been invented or the selfie become a part of daily life. The first was in the build­up to the Asian Games in 1982, when I first heard the song of the Games being played, and turned to see its composer, Pandit Ravi Shankar, sitting behind me. He wore a beatific smile and appeared thoroughly relaxed.