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Music - the word sends chills every side and part of the body. Music has been a soul soother for every organism living in this world. When we, the common people, feel stressed out and want to take that stress away, we put on our headphones/ earpods/ airpods and listen to our favourite playlists. Now, think how would the idols / heroes we look upto / admire in our life, the cricketers, calm themselves out when they are stressed. Does music play a major part? If so, how? Let us look at the culture of music and its influence on the cricketers of various generations.
MUSIC AND LEGENDS OF CRICKET:
Sir Don Bradman, one of the legends of cricket and an inspiration to every cricket player globally, loved playing the piano. He even wrote a song named Every Day is a Rainbow Day for Me. It was composed by Bradman himself to words by Jack Lumsdaine and sung by Elsie Hosking. Bradman never believed in visiting pubs after a match but there was an episode in 1930 wherein after a day’s play against England, he was found missing. The whole hotel along with Bradman’s team mates searched for him shouting his names at the top of their voices later to find him in a calm room playing the piano of a tune he had heard two nights earlier! Scoring is important right, be it on the field or off the field!!
Music was in Bradman’s family. As he grew up in Bowral in New South Wales, he had heard his father George play the violin and his mother Emily the piano and the accordion by ear. Don’s sister, Lilian, who later became a professional music teacher, taught him to play the piano and discovered that he had a natural ear. Don’s uncle Dick and cousin Hector were violinists.
Don’s granddaughter Greta Bradman, now 38, is a famous opera singer. She has sung at the finest concert halls in the world. The internationally acclaimed soprano has also performed at the home of cricket, Lord’s in London.
The word Howzatttttt has a funny side to it. The celebrated tenor Luciano Pavaroti was both a football and a cricket fan and actually played cricket in 1960s. A story circulates that when bowling in a match, the umpire gave a batsman not out. Pavaroti was so outraged that he appealed opera style “Howzattttttt” so loud and long that the umpire had to change his decision!!!
Whenever 'Curtly Ambrose' name comes, image of one of the most fearsome fast bowlers emerges in the mind. He was one of the finest fast bowler who graced the game of cricket. With over 400 test wickets, Ambrose did something different from his profession post retirement. Not many people were aware about his passion for music.
Post retirement, Ambrose formed a band with former teammate and captain Richie Richardson and few others. The band was known as THE BIG BAD DREAD & THE BALD HEAD. Ambrose used to play rhythm guitar in the band. Later he was involved with the band ‘Spirited’ as the bassist.
One of the excerpts from the fast bowler in his website curtlyambrose.com quotes as below:
Music has always been one of my passions. I am involved in the band Spirited as the bassist, we have been playing as a professional band since 2011. Previously I played with the band "The Big Bad Dread and the Bald Head", though I always used to fool around with the guitar even during my playing days.
Some of my favourite reggae artistes are: Peter Tosh, Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, Beres Hammond, Lucky Dube and Culture, a reggae band that was a part of the vibrant, Jamaican reggae scene in the late '70s. So it's not surprising that the flavour of our music is reggae first and foremost.
When we play live we try to make it a type of road-show, and everyone - fans and the members of the band really enjoy it. Actually enjoying is not really the word, I'm absolutely loving the music business. It has always been one of my passions and I see myself now as a musician.
I was a fast bowler, I'm now a musician
When English cricketer Ben Hollioake passed away aged 24 after a car accident in 2002, his Surrey teammate Mark Butcher sang You’re Never Gone at his funeral. This song was written by Butcher himself, who plays the guitar to back his singing skills. Butcher now has a Mark Butcher Band, with four others. They released an album Songs of the Sun Horse.
Former England Test captain Alaistair Cook had some musical ambitions as a child before he took to cricket at a young age. At the age of eight, his parents gifted him a clarinet. It was his music that took him to Bedford, where his love-affair with cricket began. In fact, as a young boy, Cook had recorded a song with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, a well-known opera singer.
Jeremy Coney
Listen to him speak on the microphone and you’d know that Jeremy Coney has something to do with music. The former New Zealand captain could play the double bass, guitar and the piano. Coney also went on to say that music had been a part of his life since childhood. Speaking to All Out Cricket, Coney had said, “Music was pivotal to my family. Of an evening, we’d roll back the carpets, Mum’d be singing, Dad whistling or playing the violin and we kids’d dance around. It was a genuinely wonderful childhood. Dad’d come home, put on his Paisley dressing gown, and when we’d finished singing, he’d throw to me in the garden, always throwing, never bowling — he’d talk about the trajectory of the ball, he’d appeal all the time. It was wonderful, a great time to grow up — it was the family that generated my interest in other things, and nurtured me.” He even did a bit of fun vocal with Sivamani while working as TV media person during the IPL.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of the article which would be about some more of the favourite cricketers who have had their taste of music and their involvement in that. Until then, wishing everyone a HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR 2023!!!!
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