Name of the game

Name of the game
Once upon a time, Malleswaram was the place to be to enjoy and train in any sport
VIVEK PHADNIS


Mumbai has its Shivaji Park, the ground famous for churning out the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, and Bangalore has Malleswaram. And to have lived in the locality in the 1950s, ‘60s or even ‘70s was an experience in itself.
Malleswaram prided on being the cultural hotspot, but if one was a sports lover, the deal got even better. Be it cricket, badminton, table tennis or basketball, the place has nurtured top-level sportspersons by the dozen.
Playing a game or two was something many people in the area did to spend evenings. Another reason why sport thrived here was because there were and still are two huge grounds for playing cricket, several basketball clubs, the Malleswaram Association and Canara Union, all of which brim with sporting activity.
HOTBED OF CRICKET
Talk of cricket and Malleswaram was where it all used to happen. M Chinnaswamy and S A Srinivasan were two great administrators who belong to the area. They were the ones mainly responsible for the cricket stadium on Queen’s Road. The stadium is named after Chinnaswamy, who was Karnataka State Cricket Association’s former president and secretary.
The heroes were those who played on the 5th Cross and 18th Cross grounds. V Subramaniam, V Ramdas, Krishnaprasad, N Vishwanath, K Vasudev Murthy, U Anantharam, V Srinivas, A Srinath and N B Lakshminarayan were some of the top players to emerge from Malleswaram and many have gone on to play for the State.
TRAINING GROUND
Two old cricket clubs - the Friends Union Cricket Club (FUCC) and the M a l l e s w a r a m Gymkhana still exist and they are the better clubs in the KSCA League. Malleswaram Gymkhana, whose activities are being overseen by former KSCA vice-president V Jagannath, was the place young cricketers were nurtured and they went on to play for First Division teams. FUCC too was a good training ground for future State cricketers.
Back then, tournaments like the Malleswaram Cup (from the 1950s) used to attract hundreds of people at the 18th Cross grounds, while in the 1950s and ‘60s school matches saw spectators of nearly 1,000 people. “What a time that used to be. The grounds used to be filled with people watching matches,” recalls Jagannath.
Legendary Indian cricketer G R Vishwanath, who used to play in Basavanagudi at the Fort High School grounds, says: “Both Malleswaram and Basavanagudi had good teams. There was a lot of tennis ball cricket. We enjoyed playing in those days.”
THE PADUKONE BROTHERS
It was not only cricket that was popular in Malleswaram. One of the most notable names to be associated with Malleswaram is Indian badminton great Prakash Padukone. The area was where he and his brothers grew up. It was here that his interest in badminton grew and he went on to make India proud.
Two famous landmarks where badminton is played are Malleswaram Association and Canara Union (Prakash Courts). Not only Padukone but Pradeep, P G Chengappa, Kiran Kaushik, Narendra Ubhayakar and Narayan Swamy were the top players who played on the courts of these two prominent institutions.
“The area was not much in terms of facilities. But we enjoyed playing and did not play for rewards. There was no pressure on us then. We did what we were capable of,” says Padukone.
AND MORE SPORTS
Malleswaram Association was also the place where legendary table tennis players, like four-time women’s National champion Usha Sunderraj, B Saikumar and Kabad Jayant honed their skills. K Nagaraj was also from Malleswaram and he had made it to the quarterfinals of the World Championships.
Cue sports has its representative with former National snooker champion Arvind Savur being a long-time resident in the locality.
Basketball was unbelievably popular. Young Men’s Mandyam Association, Young Pioneers Sports Club and Bharat Sports Union were the three famous clubs founded in the ‘50s, while Beagles Basketball Club came up in the ‘60s.
The number of people playing basketball was surprising. This was at a time when there were mud courts and many played barefoot. But no one ever bothered about the lack of facilities. The intention was just one play and have a good time. Due to that interest, many good players emerged out of the clubs. “The interest in basketball in those times was unbelievable,” says SR Bharat of BSU.
Several players went on to play for the State, while the likes of M A Parthasarathy (YMMA), R Jairaj (BSU), S R Aravind (junior India), G Dilip, M C Selvakumar, Ravi Raju, B S Gautham (all Beagles) and others went on to play for India, with some even becoming the captain of the National team. BSU’s Anand Alwar was the first player in Mysore to use the ‘jump shot’.
THE PLACE TO BE
Things were not restricted to Statelevel and local tournaments. In the early ‘60s, YMMA hosted all-India floodlit tournaments for the first time in Mysore State. Even in basketball, administrators like M K Narasimha Iyengar, who along with T S Nagesha Rao, M C Krishnaswamy and M K Thirumalachar and M J Ramanujam, founded Bharat Sports Union. All put in great effort to promote sport.
The list of those who worked for the cause of sport and made Malleswaram what it was is endless. But it is difficult to part with sepiatinted legacies of times that were active, agile, young and full of energy. Though, in modern times, the interest sustains, it can in no way be compared to the good old days. Back then, Malleswaram was the place to be.



The Malleswaram Association ground


The Canara Union