Roger Binny from BSAA to BCCI
When the cricketing world woke up to the news of appointment of Roger Binny (b. 1955) as the President of the BCCI, the world’s richest and most powerful cricketing body, everyone felt happy and satisfied. Soft spoken, never power hungry, a clean image and never confrontational, Binny rose from the humble portals of Bangalore school sports to the highest level of cricket and cricket management.
Roger’s accomplishments and records are well documented, and it is not intended to replay them here. My motivation in authoring this article is because when I heard the news, many mental images, and scenes, stored five and half decades back, started unwinding in my mind – from the theatre at St. Germain High School, on St. John’s Hill in Cleveland Town and besides the Coles Park, in Eastern Bangalore, from 1966. I can distinctly remember Roger Binny as a short, medium statured, fair, round-faced classmate. He was a shy, soft-spoken person, always smiling, with a warm and friendly disposition.
In the evening after school, students played sports like hockey, football, cricket all jumbled together in the foreground of the school. To an outsider, the criss-crossing of players of different sports in the labyrinth would have made quite a jigsaw puzzle. Binny had a natural talent in whichever sports he tried his hands on. Besides, physical strength, remarkable stamina, amazing patience, and indefinitely practicing propensity, were features I would say unusual for a boy of 10. There used to be a caretaker, John, residing in the school premises in a small shed whose wife ran a micro-business of lending hockey sticks at 5 paise per session to top-up the school sports equipment. Roger took to hockey as if it is a natural process. He was selected in the school team for sub-juniors.
The school encouraged all types of sports. On either wall of the School Auditorium, photographs of boxing matches of the yester years stood to remind of the memories of this sport. However, during our times boxing was discontinued owing to untoward accidents.
The annual sports were usually held in the month of August on two successive days. A massive exercise would be undertaken a few weeks before the sports events in recording the heights of students. The entire school strength would be re-organized into Sub-sub juniors’ ‘A’ and ‘B’, Sub-juniors’, Juniors’, Inters’, and Seniors’. After the categorization, heats would be held to select the final participants on the sports day. The number of events for the Sub-sub-juniors and sub-juniors were rather limited- running 50 m, long jump. There used to be a peculiar sport termed as the Sack fight wherein the person must get into a large jute sack, move around, and push one another out of a marked space. It required balancing, agility, and strength to navigate across without falling and rolling over. Binny was naturally proficient at it.
There was a remarkable sports teacher at St. Germans- L A Brown, a qualified teacher in physical education and himself a sportsman- boxing, hockey, cricket and designated as Physical Culture Director. He was a sharp observer on the finer aspects of almost all sports. I distinctly remember him describing how Don Bradman never raised his arms but just flicked the ball with his wrists for sixes, at the Central College Grounds where only first-class matches would be held those days. He would keenly watch the students in action in the field and could not resist the temptation of getting himself into it and join the boys. He was responsible for choosing the teams for the various sports and would personally go to the inter-school matches.
I did not see Binny around in 1967 probably because he had relocated. He appeared again around 1969 or so. Those days an acronym quite popular across the school was BSAA: BSAA Sports, BSAA Cricket, BSAA football, and BSAA Hockey. It took quite some time for me figure it out as Bangalore Schools Athletics’ Association- an organization of yore which rendered yeomen service to Bangalore school sports. Some names which come to my mind are sports philanthropists Shri. Jeenabhai Devidoss, in spotless white coat, white panche, black hat, with a bottu on the forehead, and Shri. Rakhra, who owned a sports shop. I have seen Shri. Jeenabhai Devidoss personally organizing sports events and ensuring the smooth running of the events by moving in and around from start to finish. BSAA sports used to be conducted in late August or September every year. These sports events gave great opportunities for students with a sports inclination to perform and excel. Roger Binny secured prizes in long jump, triple jump (then termed as hop, step, and jump), javelin throw, discuss throw, hammer throw, shot putt and many other athletic events, breaking many records enroute. Strength, elasticity, skill, deftness, endurance, and inspiration- all packaged into a composite unit- that is what he was. He excelled in several field athletics and ball sports like hockey. However, those days, his performance in cricket as an all-rounder was subtle and subdued. He was the captain of the cricket team of the Germain House, one of the four divisions of school students for sports. He took me into the team for want of anyone else because of my rubber ball experience with rectangular pieces of wood with rectangular handle. There was the first tree on the right side of the playground facing the school, just beside the wall, after the water drinking point, which was used as the stump. The personal protection equipment including the real cricket bat was so heavy, and balls zoomed so fast that I was out in no time. I was standing dazed, still in doubt when he came to me and kindly nodded his head to indicate I was out. There was no inkling of his evolution into a cricketer and later-on into a cricket administrator. What was remarkable was the multiplicity of skills to perform in such a wide-ranging assortment of field and ball sports.
There were several sports avenues at the school level such as the Cottonian Shield, Baldwinian Football Shield, CYC Cricket Shield, etc. Beyond school days, there was club cricket- the BUCC (Bangalore United Cricket Club) (founded in 1836) and the FUCC (Friends Union Cricket Club) (founded in 1936) being the oldest clubs participating in the League matches under the aegis of the KSCA (Karnataka State Cricket Association). There were several committed individuals who dedicated themselves for the cause of cricket- legendary cricket coach Keki Tarapore, M Chinnaswamy, Dr. K Thimappaiah, to cite a few. The path to National level cricket was quite a gruelling spiral- without getting through one level, one could not enter the next level- Bangalore league cricket from Sixth division to First division league, Ranji Juniors, Ranji Seniors, First Class zonal cricket involving South Zone with visiting foreign teams. Binny went through these arduous paths and was finally given the test cap.
After completing school, I quite forgot him but used to see him in the KSCA ground (Chinnaswamy stadium) from the Queen’s Road along with many other cricketers in white uniforms (the playground did not have a stadium or wall those days). In those days, many a time, the ground used to be waterlogged.
On the personal front, my memory of Roger Binny of the 1960s is an instantly likeable personality, always warm and smiling, never a bad word, never a loud-mouthed remark, never a taunt or hurting rebuke, a nature never aggressive, never pushy, never bulldozing. He has truly lived up to the School’s motto- Ad Augusta Per Angusta (Triumph through trials). I am sure that despite long years of weathering, he is always the same schoolboy at the core.