PC Prakash Bullet Ride TNCA League Match

The 60 year old Ranji batsman from the 1980s does two 60km rides on his Bullet on successive Sundays to motivate teenaged cricketers in the lower division league 

It was a tense match on Sunday (Sept 18) evening at the TI Murugappa ground in Avadi.  Ranji cricketer from the 1980s PC Prakash could not bear to watch it. He is managing two teams in the TNCA league with Mambalam Mosquitos being one. Only the previous Sunday he had a heart break when his team after being bowled out for just 99 on an unplayable pitch lost by 1wicket. This time, his club had bowled out the opposition for a paltry score but he told this writer during the lunch break on Sunday that the match was not done yet. He obviously knew his batsmen well from his experience of the previous Sunday and they struggled in the chase before finally scrapping through in the last over after losing 8 wickets.

This story is not about the tense TNCA league match. This section had featured in December 2020 a story on 65 year old leggie S Madhavan (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2020/12/tnca-league-cricket-returns-after-nine.html )continuing to play in the lower division and spinning a web around the young batsmen with his googlies and top spinners. He has now been playing over five decades of league cricket without a break. A leggie’s passion to bowl endlessly is understandable though the 65 year old’s seems to be almost unmatched.

PC Prakash is just a few years junior and does not play league cricket anymore but at 60 like Madhavan he is doing the unthinkable. For two Sundays in a row, at the start of this new TNCA league season he has left home at 7am on his favourite Bullet…Why? The matches of his league team that he is mentoring had been posted 30 kms away from his Indira Nagar home – on the previous weekend he rode to Red Hills and then yesterday to Avadi. 

After playing first division cricket till the end of the 20th Century, Prakash has been managing league clubs in Madras over the last two decades in addition to his varied roles as State Selector and coach and now the batting coach at the TNCA Academy.

This passion to spot young talent, give them opportunities to play in his team and then to be there an hour before the match to provide the motivation touch ahead of the match completely unmindful of the distance is quite unmatched. Prakash stays with the players through the length of every match offering his technical guidance and mentoring support to the teenagers for whom he is providing a great platform in the league to showcase their talent.

With the 8th wicket falling in the penultimate over, Prakash’s face wore a worried look and almost a feeling that his batsmen were throwing it away once again. Thankfully, he was all smiles a few minutes later when the boundary in the final over secured a tense win. The match last evening ended well past 5pm and after an enjoyable team meeting congratulating his players, he began his long ride back from Avadi after darkness had set in on this Sunday evening. He finally reached home past 7pm, a good 12 hours after he had left. 

He grew up as a school boy in the 1970s with the determination not to get out to any bowler in any match including during the local tennis ball friendlies in Adyar. That determination continued into the 80s when the opposition bowlers found it difficult to shackle his defense and knock him over. Usually cricketers move on from the passion after a certain stage in their lives but Engineer PC Prakash has known nothing else than cricket from the time he was a teenager. And with unbridled enthusiasm to watch the young boys from this new generation, he has taken a 60 kilometer ride on his two wheeler on two successive Sundays at the start of this new lower division league season.  Last weekend ended in a heart break after the opposition recovered from 50/7 to chase out 100 and it was a long ride back with thoughts on 'what might have been'. Last evening was a more joyful ride following the victory achieved in twilight. With lower division matches now posted in far off grounds, the thudding sound of the Bullet making its way into the cricket grounds on the outskirts of the city is likely to become a regular feature with this 1980s Ranji cricketer continuing to be passionately associated with TNCA league cricket.

Kudos to this Cricket Mad 60 year old…