by Mayukh Ghosh
The telephone downstairs was ringing constantly since dawn. Finally someone gets up to take it.
" Keith Miller here, Greg. Don't worry, son- they'll talk to you now. If they don't, just say I'm on my way down there to sort them all out. And that's no idle threat."
The 28 year old journalist was trying to write a book on 'Chuck' Fleetwood-Smith.
No one cooperated. Most of the ex-cricketers he approached didn't bother to respond.
Then Miller came to his rescue. And Bill O'Reilly.
Things changed. Everyone began to help him. The book was out in three years' time.
He went on to write more cricket books. One of them on O'Reilly's close friend Jack Fingleton.
Kevin Growden was a well-known football player for Port Adelaide AFL team at a time when they won a succession of premierships. His little son took no time to immerse himself in football and cricket.
Then, aged 11, there was the first taste of Test cricket.
February 1, 1971.
Adelaide.
The eleven year old went to watch the sixth Test between Australia and England, accompanied by his mother and cricket-obsessed uncle.
"I remember being enchanted with the colours, the atmosphere, the excitement of the moment. Of what I saw I remember little, not surprising as it was a day where Boycott spent most of the afternoon at the crease. From then on, I would often get the bus from Port Adelaide after school to watch the last session of Shield matches at the Adelaide Oval, because you were able to get into the ground for free after the tea break.
Also Christmas holidays at the beach often revolved around listening to McGilvray and co calling the Tests on ABC radio."
Worshipping Ian Chappell followed and a new world opened up in front of him when he managed to read a copy of Ray Robinson's 'Between Wickets'.
Two years later, the family moved to Riverina, about 400 miles west of Sydney.
"Due to the isolation, sport was crucial. While I was a more talented footballer, cricket was my favoured sport- playing at a representative level in the bush, primarily as an off spin bowler and unreliable opening batsman. I would spend hours bowling and batting up against one of the farm's walls, with a dog Spot acting as fielder. I also built my own pitch in one of the paddocks."
He joined The Sydney Morning Herald straight from school in 1978- the last year the SMH took school-leavers who did not have university degrees- primarily to work in the Sports Department.
And there he found O'Reilly who went on to become his 'second father'.
It was Tiger and Miller who helped him during those early days. Without them the biographies of Fleetwood-Smith and Fingleton would not have happened.
But the writer himself had it in him.
He once drove for two days to find the police constable who caught 'Chuck' in the late 60s.
The passion he had for the game and its characters was well evident.
While visiting the Sportspages in London, he, by chance, found out that Frank Keating had listed his book on 'Chuck' as the 66th best sports book of all time.
"I rushed out of the bookshop with Frank's volume in right hand, looked up at the sky to thank Bill O'Reilly and Keith Miller for their inspiration and guidance, headed to the nearest red telephone box, rang home- and blubbered."
When I approached him for an email interview, he was apprehensive in the beginning. Then, perhaps, he thought how it began for him.
And then the long emails detailing out his early years were delivered to my inbox with great regularity.
He was only 60.
On the brighter side, he must be delighted at the prospect of meeting Miller and O'Reilly again...