When Nathan Astle scored a hundred for his deceased grandpa

Itrsquos 25 years to the day for the start of cricketrsquos sixth World Cup The inaugural match pitted England against New Zealand at Motera near AhmedabadI arrived in Ahmedabad for my first World Cup game two days in advance On my way to the ground I noticed a hoarding on Ashram Road which read ldquoSixth World Cup or Third World Warrdquo The decision by Australia and the West Indies not to visit Sri Lanka for their games had obviously not gone down well with the hoarding writerOn reaching the Sardar Patel Stadium I ran into Rajdeep Sardesai who was then working for NDTV ldquoI have interviewed all the commentatorsrdquo Rajdeep exclaimed with glee One of those commentators was Tony Greig who had played with his father Dilip in the opening Test of the 197273 series in India Geoff Boycott and Sir Richard Hadlee were the other legends on commentary dutyThe following day was hectic press conferences hunting down interesting nuggets for the Tour Diary section and of course writing out the allimportant match preview It felt like the eyes of the editor and my colleagues on the sports desk were on me considering this was the opening game albeit not an India encounterMy colleague Suresh Karkera the lensman assigned to cover the game with me was in full josh too He managed to capture Jack Russell painting his wicketkeeping pads near the pickets at one end of the ground Atherton spoke to the media at the ground but only the Brit ones The official press conference was scheduled at the team hotel in the afternoon and that did not go down well with the Indian reporters The late English cricket writer Ted Corbett felt sorry for his Indian friends and was happy to read out all what Atherton had told the foreign journalistsDespite the magnitude of the tournament the media did not have an enclosed press box and the men with typewriters were always wary of something landing on them or their instruments courtesy the crowd not far away from where they satEngland won the toss and elected to field in the hope of extracting some early morning advantageNathan Astle was the star of the New Zealand innings with 101 out of the total of 2396 in 50 overs His driving was imperious and England probably shouldnrsquot have bowled so full to him He even smashed the short ones as he put on 96 for the second wicket with Stephen Fleming Astle who took an hundred off an Indian attack in the Nagpur ODI the previous year slammed eight fours and two sixes in AhmedabadNew Zealand ought to have got much more considering the poor English catching four dropped catches and fielding both openers dropped early on Chris Cairns was the next topscorer with 36Atherton couldnrsquot believe that he was cleaned up by Dion Nashrsquos yorker for one Onedrop Graeme Hick 85 off 102 balls was severe on bowlers who offered him even a little width and his fluency gave England hope However he was hampered by a hamstring injury which caused Atherton to be his runner The captain caused Hickrsquos dismissal as he failed to reach the creaseAlec Stewart often drove to a nicety but Chris Harris had him caught and bowled off an innocuouslooking delivery for 34Neil Fairbotherrsquos 36 went in vain as the New Zealand bowlers kept the pressure on to restrict England to 2289New Zealandrsquos coach Glenn Turner was happy with the win but felt they should have got far more than 239 ldquoI thought we could get 280 but we should have got at least 260rdquo Turner told reporters Germon was asked if Hickrsquos run out turned the game around and he disagreed ldquoI feel every wicket to fall was a turning pointrdquo he saidI went to meet Astle on the evening of the match only to discover that he was partying with his mates in a room on the ground floor of the Cama HotelCoach Turner who was otherwise great to the media couldnrsquot get Astle to speak to me and left for his room I hung around the lobby in the hope of Astle moving out of the party room He surfaced a few minutes later He politely refused the invitation to be interviewed and promised hersquod speak to me the following day before the team left for Baroda to take on The Netherlands I made my way out of the lobby and heard a voice that said ldquoMate we will do the interview right now Come uprdquo Outside his room he spoke about his man of the matchwinning innings and then revealed something that touched my heart He said ldquoTwo days before leaving for the World Cup I lost my grandfather He was very close to me and my grandmother told me to score a hundred for himrdquoI thanked Astle for his time and the emotional story that would make the front page of midday Twenty five years later I am still wondering what made Astle change his mind and decide to speak to me that night I havenrsquot got a chance to thank him but I will someday Hopefully