The world famous Cricket Statistician, Bill Frindall, breathed his last exactly an year ago, on 29.01.09. HR Gopala Krishna, one of the Senior Cricket Statistician of the country had met him during the India-England test match at Chennai in December 2008. He recalls the moments he spent with Late Bill Frindall
The best thing that would have happened to me at the Commentary box, that Mr. Bill Frindall, the world renowned Cricket Statistician was sitting next to our Commentary booth, doing duty for BBC Radio Team. I met him on the second day’s morning and introduced myself with my visiting card, he exclaimed, oh!, at last we have met.
Though we are constant touch through letter in an era, where Information Technology was non existent, it was for the first time we met. We chatted for quite a while and I told him I am next to your booth assisting All India Radio Commentary Team. I gave him the copy of the statistical compilation on India-England Test series – 1932 to 2007 and also the approaching milestones ahead of the Chennai Test between India and England, he glanced at the compilation and complemented for the exhaustive work.
When he enquired as to how many matches I have been associated as a statistician, I told him that this is my 60th International – 28 Tests and 32 ODIs. He exclaimed “that’s quite a lot”. He spoke to me about Andrew Strauss’s hundred on the first day and told me that it was one of the best hundreds he has seen by an England opening batsman. He told me that it was his second visit to Chepauk. He vividly remembered the booth on the pavilion end, where he had worked during his previous visit. He was full of praise for the Commentary booths opposite the pavilion end and told me that these should rank as one of the best in the world. I told him that I was appointed as the Official Statistician for the newly launched BCCI’s website, he complimented me and told me “that means you have to work a lot”. He enquired me as to how old I am for which I replied I am 62. He told me that he would have given me a copy of his Autobiography, but forgot to put a copy of the same in his suit case and assured me that I would get a copy of the same next day.
During the next day morning meeting, he took a copy of his Autobiography, “Bill Frindall Bearders – My Life in Cricket” from his suit case along with my visiting card I had given him the previous day, and asked me how I was called. I told him that I was called as Gopal, he wrote on the first page of the book, To Gopal. With very best wishes, with his autograph Bill Frindall with place “Chepauk’ and date as “13 Dec 2008” and presented the book with a firm hand shake. I was so thrilled to get this book as a compliment from numero uno statistician of the world.
On the fourth day morning of the match, I presented my curriculum vitae which contained the four world records unearthed by me. He read each one of them, and was particularly impressed with the world record of double hundred stands for the first two wickets by Indian batsmen – Virender Sehwag and Wasim Jaffer for the first wicket and Virender Sehwag and Rahul Dravid for the second wicket at Chennai against South Africa in March 2008 and told me that it was really good one. I asked to keep the CV for himself; he gleefully accepted and said, “Oh! This is for me, Thanks”.
I presented him with Nagchampa Incense sticks which I had shopped for him on the previous evening. He smelt the fragrance and told me an anecdote pertaining to Fred Trueman. It appears that Late Freddie always used to have a smoke with the pipe prior to his entry into the commentary box. As a result of this, the box was agog with the tobacco smell. Bill, to overcome with this smell, once lighted a fragrant incense stick and kept it on the wall of the Commentary box. When some of the commentators noted a different smell in the Commentary box, Bill was to tell them it was from Freddie’s Pipe with a wink.
On the fifth day morning we met again, he perhaps, had an intuition that England would lose the match, and enquired with me whether I had a list of instances of a team has lost the test when one of its batsman has scored hundreds in each innings of a test. I said I have it and gave him the list within a few minutes later. He had received an email from one of his friends on the same topic and checked the same for correctness with the list of instances I gave him. The email list was one short of the instances and he checked the same and found that Gavaskar’s name was not listed in the email.
During the course of the final day’s play, Tendulkar completed 1000 runs in the calendar year 2008 and he had achieved this feat on five occasions. He emulated ML Hayden and BC Lara who have done this feat on five occasions. Tendulkar wrested this record from Gavaskar who had achieved this feat on four occasions.
I had passed on this note to the Programme Executive of BBC Commentary Team who in turn placed the note before Bill Frindall and came back to my booth. Bill Frindall read the entire note and turned towards me and showed his “Thumbs Up”
During the course of the Test match, I was passing the important statistical information to the BBC Commentary Team also, which were accepted by them.
At the conclusion of the test match, I went to Bill Frindall again and he shook hands with me with the parting words “Thanks for all the help”. I was dumb and could not speak for a few seconds and was taken aback at the humility and greatness of this great statistician Bill Frindall.
My mind wandered back to an incident at Bangalore, when ESPN was telecasting a Test match, when I was prevented physically giving the stats tit-bits to Commentators by the bald headed ESPN Programme Executive whose name I forget, at the instance of their scorer-cum-statistician Mohandas Menon.
This prompted me to remember a proverb in Kannada “Thumbida koda thulukuvudilla” meaning thereby – “Water will not spill out of a pot which is full”
During the first week of January 2009, I mailed him a summary of Test records in the calendar year 2009 and he promptly replied the mail with the following contents.
Dear Gopal, Many thanks indeed for your most comprehensive survey of the 2008 Test Match Year. All good wishes for 2009 – Bill Frindall
I happen to remember him this evening between 4.30 and 5.00 PM, when Kannada Vernacular Kasturi TV crew came to my home for an interview, I had his autobiography in my hand for a snap and also his autographed sheet was filmed.