Nearly four decades ago, a padded-up 13-year-old had spent two long days watching from the sidelines as fellow teens Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli racked up a record 664-run stand for their Mumbai school.
On Sunday, now 50, Amol Muzumdar was in the same city, watching from the shadows again as history was made before his eyes. Except that this time he wasn’t a mere spectator, elbowed out of the limelight by more illustrious peers, but the architect of glory.
The wait had been long but Indian cricket’s perennial bridesmaid, the boy wonder who ended up never playing for the country, finally received as a coach the adulation he had been denied as a player.
True to style, he did not thrust himself forward. The presentation ceremony at the D.Y. Patil Stadium, after India’s women cricketers had lifted their first ever World Cup under his guidance, had long been over when the continuing pitch-side celebrations suddenly seemed to pause.
A graceful figure with salt-and-pepper hair, boyish looks and a pleasant smile had stepped onto the ground to savour his — and his wards’ — greatest moment.
He was quickly surrounded by India’s latest heroes in Blue, the groundsmen and even the families of a few players, all eager to be clicked with him.
A man of few words, Muzumdar said the triumph was something “surreal and unreal”.
“It cannot get bigger than this, can it? A World Cup victory, a home World Cup, and on my home soil in Mumbai!”
Muzumdar has now joined Rahul Dravid — one of those who had, with the likes of Sourav Ganguly and V.V.S. Laxman, locked him out of the Indian side — as the only Indian coaches to win an ICC world title.
He confessed that captain Harmanpreet Kaur’s catch to dismiss Nadine de Klerk, which sealed the victory over South Africa in the final, had left him in a daze.
“The next five minutes was a blur. I was here only (in the dugout). I was looking up in the dugout. I was looking up. I didn’t know what (had) happened,” he said.
“I’ve won eight titles with the Mumbai Ranji Trophy team,” said the domestic cricket titan with 11,167 first-class runs and 30 centuries, amassed at an average of 48.13. “But nothing can come even close (to Sunday’s achievement).”
W.V. Raman, a former head coach for the Indian Women who played with Muzumdar in the first-class circuit, spoke of the Mumbaikar’s calmness and clarity.
“As a person, he’s very calm, but he can also send a message right across if the performance of any player in his team is wanting,” Raman said.
“To get such a recognition in what’s the second innings of his career is truly phenomenal,” he added.
Harmanpreet said: “Amol Sir’s contribution in the last two-and-a-half years has
been amazing. A lot changed in our dressing room since his arrival.”
Harmanpreet added: “Before that, coaches were getting changed frequently, and we didn’t know how to take things forward. But after Sir came, everything became stableand smooth.
“He gets a lot of credit for building this team. He made us practise day and night, making us repeat the things we needed to improve. His contribution has been great for the entire team.”
Muzumdar said he had urged the team not to lose hope after the three straight defeats during the league stage.
“We were competitive in those matches,” he said.
“We just were not able to cross the line, but post that, what grit and determination the girls have shown.”
He believes that the win would be a “watershed moment in Indian cricket; notjust women’s cricket (but) Indian cricket”.
“Like 1983 (India’s maiden World Cup win)... it inspired a lot of cricketers in that generation. You never know. I just met a little girl, three or four years old, whose inspiration is Harman. She follows Harman wherever she goes, so there you go!”
Additional reporting by PTI