Well Caught with Giri and Raghu — Cricket in sun and shadow
Rekindle the excitement of being in the stands watching cricket history being made with S Giridhar and V J Raghunath, Giri and Raghu to friends. Colleagues at Azim Premji Foundation, they are forged by a common love for cricket. Their friendship of four decades’ vintage has yielded, among other things, two books. This cricket show for Radio Azim Premji University looks back at the story of Indian cricket through the decades.
Before cricket became a semi-nocturnal gladiator sport with a round-the-year schedule, it was a gentleman’s game for summer afternoons in both hemispheres, played by men in flannel whites who always made time for tea. The smack of wily leather against seasoned willow roused cheering crowds to their feet. This was a game designed to cement the British Commonwealth but in post-colonial times it took on a life of its own and engendered a new world order.
S Giridhar and V J Raghunath, Giri and Raghu to friends, are colleagues at Azim Premji Foundation. Forged by a common love for cricket, their friendship of four decades’ vintage began when they started playing city tournaments together. The duo are authors of Mid-Wicket Tales — From Trumper to Tendulkar (Sage India, 2014) and From Mumbai to Durban: India’s Greatest Tests (Juggernaut, 2016).
Rekindle the excitement of being in the stands watching cricket history being made.
Credits:
Akshay Ramuhalli, Bijoy Venugopal, Bruce Lee Mani, Narayan Krishnaswamy, Prashant Vasudevan, Sananda Dasgupta, Seema Seth, Shraddha Gautam, Supriya Joshi and Velu Shankar
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Well Caught with Giri and Raghu — cricket in sun and shadow
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Separate Gates, Separate Dressing Rooms
In the first episode of Well Caught with Giri and Raghu, we travel in time to an age when caste and class divide the pavilion. On and off the field, cricket reflects the discrimination that prevails in colonial societies.
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Captains And Musical Chairs
Discover exciting vignettes about the history of Indian cricket in the second episode of Well Caught with Giri and Raghu
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Spinning Through The Seventies
For a game that favoured white in more ways than one, the Seventies brought a burst of colour. Team India’s answer to the belligerent and martial pace of the times came in the form of the legendary Indian spin quartet of Bishen Bedi, Erapalli Prasanna, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, and S Venkataraghavan, who responded with their gentle and non-violent bowling. Listen to Episode 3 to know more.
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World Cup Whirlwind
The Eighties saw India on the ascent, aided by a lineup of fluent stroke-makers in Dilip Vengsarkar and Mohammad Azharuddin, and tenacious all-rounders in Kapil Dev and Ravi Shastri. The decade would end with a 16-year-old boy who would walk out into the middle to boldly take a searing Pakistani seam attack on the chin. His name? Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. Listen to Episode 4 of Well Caught with Giri and Raghu for the full story.
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Late Cut
From the colourful radio commentaries that brought the game alive in the early days of Test Cricket to the elaborate theatrics of T20 in modern television broadcasting, cricket has travelled the distance. Reliving the defining moments of the beautiful game, Giri and Raghu hang up their gloves in this series finale of Well Caught.
