In the early1990s, following cricket was a passion. I used to watch cricket on TV and buy issues of the Sportstar, published by The Hindu, which used to have many photographs from cricket matches. During 1992 and 1993, at the age of 9-11 years, I sketched many of these photos using crayons and scale drawing. A typical sketch would start with squares drawn on a photo in the magazine and on a blank piece of paper to get the scale right. Then using measurements on the magazine photo, I would trace points on the paper and draw free hand curves and later fill in using crayons. Players outline first, pitch and ground later, followed by the crowds and hoardings. I was always bad at doing faces, so the faces would come last. This is how an initial sketch would look like (the below shows South African fielders Jonty Rhodes and Richard Snell from a match in Hero Cup, 1993). This sketch was actually never completed.

The next sketch is a caught and bowled dismissal, which I think is from the opening match of the 1992 Benson and Hedges Cricket World Cup. The match was held on February 22, 1992, at Auckland and the scorecard can be seen here. I have labelled the bowler incorrectly in the sketch and both the batsman and bowler incorrectly in the label. Or the photo was from another match. In this match, it was Steve Waugh who was caught and bowled by Gavin Larsen, and not Willie Watson. Steve Waugh scored 38 and was the sixth out at 199 when Australia were chasing. Australia lost by 37 runs.

Occasionally, I would sketch without colours, using only pencils. The below sketch shows the dismissal of Inzamam-ul-Haq, caught by wicketkeeper Alec Stewart off the bowling of Phil Defreitas. Inzamam was out for a first ball duck. The match was on March 1, 1992 at Adelaide, where Pakistan were dismissed for a low score of 74 in 40 overs. There was no result as the match was abandoned due to rain when England were batting at 24 for one. The scorecard for the game can be seen here.  The caption in my handwriting reads "Pakistan vs England, Adelaide, Mat 1: Alec Stewart takes a superb catch to send back Inzamam-ul Haq off Phil Defreitas as [Ian] Botham and [Dermott] Reeve watch."

Sometimes to make the sketch more realistic, I would draw shadows as well. The sketch below is from the Hero Cup match between India and South Africa on November 22, 1993 at Mohali. The scorecard can be seen here. The snap shows Fanie de Villiers, the bowler with an awkward bowling action, bowling to Vinod Kambli with Ajay Jadeja at the non-striker end standing next to umpire Ian Robinson. I would write the score in top right corner the way it was shown on the TV live telecast, but since Sportstar only published photos without the score at the time of the photo, I would make the score up sometimes, as in this frame. As the scorecard from ESPN Cricinfo shows, Jadeja opened the innings and Kambli came one-down, so the correct score should be 1/59 and not 2/59. The caption on the right reads "Vinod G. kambli hooks de Villiers as Jadeja Watches. 22 Nov 93 Ind vs SA HERO CUP."

Another sketch from the Hero Cup 1993 (there were many since India won this tournament). Javagal Srinath appeals to the umpire as Guy Whittal is run-out, and Rajesh Chauhan watches. This is from the tied one-day between India and Zimbabwe. I had painted the drawn the crowd between Chauhan and Whittal, but since it did not come out well, I used white paint to cover it up and write names of countries with The HERO CUP later. The match was held on November 18, 1993 at Indore and the scorecard can be seen here. Strictly speaking the score became 6/207 after Whittal was declared out, so maybe when I wrote the score imagining it to be a TV screen grab, I must be thinking of the action replay when the score is updated. :)

The next sketch is one of my favourites. Javed Miandad jumped up and down thrice imitating Kiran More to mock at the latter's [over]enthusiastic appealing in the match between India and Pakistan on March 4, 1992 at the Sydney cricket ground. Apart from the usual tension which is always a part of an India-Pakistan encounter, this match also saw slogans and flags rooting for Khalistan. Pakistan were building on their innings with the score being 2/85 in the 25th over chasing 216 scored by India. Miandad even objected to excessive appealing and shouting by the Indian wicketkeeper. Tension in the air, and at the end of an over, Miandad jumps thrice and leaves everybody laughing. Pakistan lost the match by 43 runs and the scorecard can be seen here. The video clip of the incident can be seen here on YouTube. The heading, "Proving Darwin's theory right", was from the caption published in Indian Express on the next day. This sketch is also dated on top left, and was completed on May 1, 1992. My mother helped with sketching Miandad's face.

The next one is also a date sketch (drawn on May 5, 1992) from the 1992 Benson and Hedges World Cup. Geoff Marsh was bowled by Kapil Dev in the match between Australia and India on March 1, 1992 at Brisbane. The scorecard for this match can be seen here. This was the first world cup with coloured jerseys and the blue, green, red and white stripes on top made a good contrast with the team colours. The score is wrong - as the Sportstar only published the match summaries and not the full scorecard, I used to make up scores. When this dismissal happened, the score was 31 and not 17.
 

The Lara sketch below is from a poster in Sportstar. This was a young Brian Lara who had just arrived on the international cricket scene, and was much thinner than in his later career. This is one of the few face-only sketches I drew. Mother helped with shading the face, while my elder sister wrote the heading BRIAN LARA in pencil. Back in those days I used to have my initials NM in pencil marked on drawings. That was my copyright protections or watermark, if you will. Not very secure though. :)

The next sketch is again from an unknown match in the 1992 Benson and Hedges World Cup, where England played really well. The English captain Graham Gooch and wicketkeeper Alec Stewart are strategizing, with Gooch looking at Stewart and Stewart looking somewhere else. :)

Since I preferred coloured clothing to white jerseys, I drew very few sketches from Test matches. The below is one which shows the Australian captain Allan Border playing a hook shot. This is probably from the match in which he surpassed Sunil Gavaskar as the highest run scorer in Test cricket (which he did on February 23, 1993), but I am not sure. Anyway the scorecard for that test can be seen here.

Back to the 1992 World Cup. Arjuna Ranatunga playing a shot from an unknown match.

Next up is a close-up of Navjot Singh Sidhu from a match in Asia Cup 1990 between India and Bangladesh. Siddhu scored a century in this game and was declared the Man of the Match. The match was held on December 25, 1990 in Chandigarh and the scorecard can be seen here.

Another test cricket sketch. Peter Kirsten is bowled by Courtney Walsh on the final day of the only test between South Africa and West Indies when South Africa toured the Carribean in 1992. The match was held between April 18 and April 23, 1992 at Bridgetown, Barbados. The scorecard for the game can be seen here. Kirsten was the sixth batsman dismissed after scoring 52 runs when the score was 142 for five. South Africa lost the match by 52 runs, exactly equal to Kirsten's score.

This one is from an unknown match. Chris Lewis of England is caught by Kepler Wessels of Australia. Wessels played for Australia before captaining South Africa from 1991 to 1994.

Sometimes I would draw cricket sketches on one side and some other cartoons on the back side of the same sheet. The below sheet shows cartoon characters from the monthly magazine, TINKLE.

Back to the cricket and the 1992 Benson and Hedges World Cup. Arjuna Ranatunga edges a ball to a boundary as Zimbabwean wicketkeeper Andy Flower and Sri Lanka captain Aravinda de Silva watch in the match between Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe at New Plymouth on February 23, 1992. Ranatunga scored 88 not out in this match and Sri Lanka chased 313 successfully which was then a world record chase in ODIs. The scorecard for the match can be seen here.

Finally a sketch with the crowd drawn as well. Manoj Prabhakar of India send the off stump of Zimbabwean Grant Flower flying with an inswinger in the Hero Cup match on November 18, 1993 at Indore. The score is correctly displayed as 10/0, so this is not a replay, unlike the Whittal runout above :). The match, as mentioned earlier, was a tie and the scorecard can be seen here. This is probably the only sketch where I drew the crowds - since they were not in focus in the photo, I drew them indistinct as well. One of the persons in the crows towards the lower right holds a banner with both arms raised. The caption reads "G. Flower plays down the wrong line and loses his wicket to M. Prabhakar."