When Ramakant Achrekar turned up at Shivaji Park to coach kids hours after his son's death: Excerpt from legendary coach's biography

Bombay, mid-1960s. It is 7.20 am and Shivaji Park in Dadar is buzzing with life. The boys, dressed in whites, have finished their customary round of the maidan. It is a part of the daily routine prescribed by their coach. Once the round and the related drills are over, the boys break free for nets. That’s their routine for every day. There is nothing unusual about it, except one thing: Coach Ramakant Achrekar has not arrived yet.

This has never happened before. It is unusual that the boys have to wait for him. ‘Achrekar Sir’, as the boys call him, is always the first to reach. He pays attention to the minutest of details before practice starts. He has the key to the silver trunk which holds the cricket kit.

A few minutes later, the boys see Achrekar Sir hurrying towards them, taking brisk steps. He enjoys walking fast. But today, he seems to be in a real hurry. Wasting no time, he opens the trunk, instructs some boys to pad up, and orders a few others to join catching practice.

Everything seems normal now – the boy batting in the nets is meeting the ball crisply with the middle of his bat, the bowler is devising a plan to get him out and outside the practice area, Achrekar Sir, wearing his trademark tweed cap, is busy with another youngster.

His students, however, are oblivious to the fact that their Sir, who is going through the daily rigours of an early morning practice session as routine, has lost his son just a few hours ago. He has come to the ground immediately after performing the last rites. The personal tragedy failed to deter him and his unflinching dedication. He goes about training his students meticulously, as if nothing had changed.

Suresh Shastri, who is Achrekar’s first ‘official’ student, is at the ground, looking at him from a distance. He is the only person who knows about the tragedy. Before Achrekar reached the ground, Shastri had walked to his residence at Kabootarkhana (a locality in Dadar) to find out why he had not come for the practice session.

It was there that Achrekar’s brother told him about the demise of the baby boy. The baby had died immediately after birth (a little past midnight). Sir was at the cremation ground to complete the last rites, recalls Shastri.

A morose Shastri then returned to the ground and looked at his mentor with awe and a bit of disbelief. With moist eyes, he walked up to him and said: ‘Sir, why… why are you here? I know what has happened. It would have been okay had you not come. We would have managed the nets.’

Achrekar does not bat an eyelid and answers: ‘I lost one son, but my other sons are here. How could I leave them?’ His answer is a reflection of his inner being. As coach, he has devoted his life to cricket. For Achrekar, his students are his sons. He has five daughters (two of them are no more) and therefore, his bond with his students has always been like that of a father and his sons. What he has done for most of his ‘sons’ – looking after their educational expenses, sponsoring their cricketing equipment, waiving off their fees, giving them food, building careers by ensuring jobs for them, and more importantly, showering them with love and affection – makes him nothing less than an angel in their eyes.

No other coach has produced as many Test and first-class cricketers. To many, his biggest contribution to Indian and world cricket is Sachin Tendulkar, arguably the greatest cricketer to have played the game and someone who defines an era. In the coming years, the period from the late 1980s to the early 2010s, in which Tendulkar mesmerised cricket lovers with his glorious batting, will be known as the ‘Tendulkar era’.

Achrekar’s contribution, however, is not restricted to Tendulkar. His story goes beyond the domestic and international cricketers he has produced. As his students open their hearts and tell fascinating tales about their revered guru, Achrekar’s greatness as coach and human being comes to the fore. If he had been PR savvy and made a noise about his work, he would have been in the limelight today, not living in anonymity in a modest one bedroom-hall-kitchen (1 BHK) house in Dadar – a stone’s throw away from Shivaji Park, where he devoted many hours of his life teaching cricket.

Success for him was synonymous with his students’ success. It is not surprising therefore, to see Achrekar getting unconditional love and respect from his students even today, almost 20-30 years after they stepped out of his humble academy.

The excerpt above has been reproduced from Kunal Purandare’s book Ramakant Achrekar: Master Blaster’s Master published by Roli Books. The text has not been edited by Firstpost.