Cricket turned out to be one of the unlikely highlights on the opening day of the seventh Kerala Literature Festival. A lively discussion on various aspects of cricket featured a former India opener, an administrator and team manager who has worked with some of the biggest names including Sachin Tendulkar and Kapil Dev, and a former international umpire.
The session proved much more than about the book Pitchside, authored by former India team manager Amrit Mathur, who accompanied the cricketers on several tours including the historic one to South Africa in 1992-93. He raised some interesting points.
As did Arun Lal, who played 16 Tests and 13 ODIs for India in the 1980s and faced the bowling of the likes of Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, Malcolm Marshall, Courtney Walsh and Ian Bishop. Moderator K.N. Raghavan, a civil servant and author besides being a retired umpire, ensured the discussion was interesting enough.
