\n \u201cAs we look out here, I can picture myself running in from the river end and bowling,\u201d says Binny, who was a professional for Carlisle in the summer of 1982. \u201cWhen I saw the kids out there yesterday, running around, fielding and bowling, I thought I\u2019d put on my tracksuit or my whites. I still feel like my mind is willing, but the body isn\u2019t\u2026\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n This is a trip rich in memories for Binny, one of the most senior figures in world cricket. This week, at the conclusion of the First Test between England and India at Headingley, he journeyed from Yorkshire to Cumbria. On Wednesday and Thursday, he met old team-mates, the families of friends no longer with us, ladies who made the teas and others connected to his long-ago but still precious Carlisle summer.\n<\/p>\n
\n Binny played for Carlisle in an era when top professionals bestrode the club scene. Teams in Lancashire benefited from household names but Cumbrian sides also had their share. In the early 1980s, for instance, the Australian all-rounder Greg Matthews turned out for Whitehaven. Binny, an all-rounder who had made his Test debut for India in 1979, headed further north.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe Indian team were touring England that year, and I was dropped out of the team,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s why I picked Carlisle, to come and play with them. I picked it, basically, to come and learn.\n<\/p>\n
\n Binny returned to Carlisle this week to relive memories of the 1982 summer he spent at the club (Image: Jon Colman)\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cEverybody spoke about English conditions, how difficult it was to bat. I remember seeing Chris Old, Geoff Arnold and Mike Hendrick bowling\u2026it wasn\u2019t easy to play. I wanted to come and see what it was like.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe conditions were tough. It made me tighten up my batting. When I bowled, I found that the lengths I had been bowling in India were wrong here. I found the ball to swing and also seam a little more. It really helped me to enhance my game at that point in time.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Binny was a stellar signing for Carlisle in the North Lancashire League. \u201cWe\u2019ve had some good pros in the league, and some good ones at Carlisle, but he\u2019s the best we\u2019ve ever had,\u201d says Dave Musgrave, who played in the same XI as Binny and is here at Edenside to chat with his old team-mate.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cHe used to walk around the ground and say, \u2018Hundred wicket today, Muzzy\u2019. And he was usually as good as his word. He was a team man, and he knew the wickets. He was brilliant to have. And his knowledge was unbelievable.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Binny was keen to adjust to English conditions and perform well enough to earn an India recall. The following summer, the 1983 World Cup would be played in England, but he says he was not focused on that whilst in Carlisle. \u201cIt was just part of my learning experience,\u201d he says.\n<\/p>\n
\n Binny had played Test cricket before joining Carlisle as a professional in 1982 (Image: News & Star)\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI was made to feel at home straight away. Everybody was keen, everybody was cricket-oriented. They were like a bunch of professional cricketers, which surprised me, considering it was just a league.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI spent a lot of time at the club, to practice and coach the young cricketers. The club members were always looking out for me, making sure I was comfortable.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Binny lived on Wigton Road and was joined by his wife and two young daughters for the second half of the summer. By then he had produced inspirational performances to help Carlisle top the league.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThere were some good pros around, but we always seemed to be on top,\u201d he says. \u201cWe fought well and won a lot of games. I was told that that [quality] wasn\u2019t there in the team in the past, that we gave in easily to the opposition. But everybody gave their heart to it.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI remember one game when we played Vickerstown. They had a Pakistani Test player and we were not given much of a chance. I managed to get a hundred and that spinner\u2026we nullified him. He was never in the game. That was one of the better games we played. It was towards the end, when we were winning most of the games.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Binny’s displays helped Carlisle win the North Lancashire League in 1982 (Image: News & Star)\n<\/p>\n
\n Binny is appreciative of the embrace he received from his team-mates, while colleagues also respected the Indian star. \u201cThe first Saturday he was here, after a game, he took us all up to Ali\u2019s Tandoori, which had just opened in Stanwix,\u201d says Dave Musgrave.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThey were terrific guys,\u201d Binny responds. \u201cIt\u2019s not only that we enjoyed our cricket \u2013 we enjoyed ourselves off the field.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cEverybody was keen to see me happy. I was far away from home and coming into different conditions. It was really nice. I have so much respect for them. It\u2019s why I always want to come and look them up \u2013 come to Carlisle just to relive that atmosphere again.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Binny performed well enough, over the season, to earn an India recall. This meant he missed the final game of the Cumbrian summer \u2013 but Carlisle, captained by Mike Battersby, had done enough to win the North Lancashire League.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI went back home and had a fantastic season,\u201d he says. \u201cI owe it to this experience in Carlisle, because I learned about different situations to bat in, about where to bowl. As a club pro, your job is to be much more than a player. You are taking the role of a sub-leader, which I enjoyed as well.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Binny was a champion with Carlisle, and was then propelled to stunning achievement with his country. In 1983, he was in India\u2019s one-day squad for the World Cup. He proceeded to enjoy a terrific summer in England, becoming the leading wicket-taker in the tournament with 18. At Lord\u2019s, he helped Kapil Dev\u2019s India upend a glittering West Indies team \u2013 Viv Richards, Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall et al \u2013 to win the trophy for the first time. Binny\u2019s fast-medium bowling accounted for Clive Lloyd\u2019s wicket in the final.\n<\/p>\n
\n Binny, front left, with the India team that won the World Cup in England in 1983 (Image: PA)\n<\/p>\n
\n Again, he credits some of his cup-winning progress to Carlisle. \u201cIn India, we [fast\/medium pacers] were known as the shine removers. That was the joke. Our spinners did all the hard work. What I learned from [1982] was to get the ball at the right length, pitch it in the right place to swing and seam at the same time. A short ball in England doesn\u2019t make any sense.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI learned that very quickly. Batting-wise, I wasn\u2019t going to play too many shots. That\u2019s also what I learned. When I went back from Carlisle, I became one of the top three performers in the country, and that\u2019s why I went to the World Cup. So coming here helped a lot.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n All this occurred in a career which flourished to the tune of 27 Tests and 72 ODIs \u2013 yet Binny never lost his connections to Carlisle. Another former Carlisle player who became a close friend, Chris Packham, recalls how, during the World Cup, several of the Carlisle team went to Old Trafford to watch India play, then Binny invited them to dine with many of the Indian team afterwards. \u201cHe was a brilliant cricketer, but also a brilliant person, and he\u2019s the same now,\u201d Chris says.\n<\/p>\n
\n Binny played 27 Tests for India and is now the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (Image: PA)\n<\/p>\n
\n In subsequent years Binny came back to Edenside, whether to open the Jimmy Little Pavilion in 1984, to be part of another India tour in 1986 or, in 1988, to bring a number of Indian under-17 and under-19 players to play at Carlisle. Among them were future Test stars Rahul Dravid and Venkatesh Prasad. When time has allowed in later years, as Binny progressed from the playing side of cricket to its administrative positions, he has made a beeline for the Great Border City again during Indian tours.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI\u2019d always dash to Carlisle, spend a day or two here,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was such a lovely memory that I had here, that I wanted to relive it. Many of the players I played with have moved on, and some have passed away. So it is always a good opportunity to come and see who\u2019s still here, and spend some time here.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cEverything has changed since I first came to England \u2013 all the grounds look different, whether the Test grounds or even here at Carlisle. It seems bigger now. But the atmosphere is still the same. People are still the same.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n At Headingley last week, Binny spotted some of his Carlisle pals, such as Musgrave, and beckoned them over. Some of them were duly treated to an afternoon in the company of other greats, such as Sir Geoffrey Boycott and Sir Ian Botham. The friendship being so strong, these were only gentle insights into the powerful position Binny now holds.\n<\/p>\n
\n His tenure as BCCI president ends later this summer, and he will return to India before the Test series finishes. His Carlisle trip, then, was timely \u2013 likewise the opportunity to ask him about England\u2019s dramatic victory at Headingley under the stirring captaincy of Ben Stokes, who grew up in Cockermouth.\n<\/p>\n
\n Binny this week caught up with players, families and tea ladies from his time at Carlisle some 43 years ago (Image: Jon Colman)\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cOver three-and-a-half days, I think we were ahead,\u201d Binny says. \u201cWe got runs on the board and had England in trouble. But we didn\u2019t really bowl well in the second innings. We were probably short of one spinner. Yet England did well to come back and play such positive cricket.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe have a lot of work to do, I think, to get back our bowling interaction. [Jasprit] Bumrah is still not fully recovered from his injury, but he is still one of the best bowlers. I think another spinner back in the side, and a little bit of shuffling in the bowling, and we should be okay.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Binny evidently respects Stokes. \u201cIn the first innings, he was the best bowler, the only one who was getting batsmen in trouble with his movement off the pitch. Injuries have held him back a little bit, but he\u2019s a very shrewd captain, leads from the front, and is a fantastic cricketer who has the right approach to the game.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Stokes is another who graced the Cumbrian club scene before hitting the heights. \u201cExactly \u2013 that\u2019s the learning experience he will have picked up,\u201d Binny says. \u201cGrowing up as a cricketer, that\u2019s where you learn your skills. That\u2019s where it comes from.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n After Binny\u2019s last day in Carlisle, he prepares to travel to Birmingham for the Second Test, which starts next Wednesday. On a quiet afternoon at Edenside, then, the meaning of this trip is profoundly expressed.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThis morning,\u201d he says, \u201cI met up with a few of the wives of the cricketers who have passed away. It was very touching. The families, from my memory, were always very fond of each other. It\u2019s nice to spend time here, reminiscing about cricket, talking about the old days.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cHopefully we\u2019ll be back again. All of us are getting old \u2013 we\u2019re well past the twilight of our lives. But we can still talk about what happened 43 years ago. It\u2019s so clear in our minds.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAs we look out here, I can picture myself running in from the river end and bowling,\u201d says…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4101],"tags":[1406,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-222528","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114763585516298134","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}