My book is only about what I have first-hand information about Indian cricket: Amrit Mathur

Amrit Mathur, former manager of the Indian cricket team, shares his first-hand experiences and insights in his book Pitchside.

Amrit Mathur has had a three-decade-long association with cricket. Significantly, some of it was spent touring with the Indian team as a manager.

So, he was in a privileged position. He could see from the closest of quarters, how the team prepared, played and partied and what happens in team meetings. He used to make notes of what happened on tours, including some historic ones like India’s trips to South Africa in 1992-93 and to Pakistan in 2004.

Those notes came in handy when he decided to write a book, Pitchside, after thinking about it for a long time. “I wrote the book after a lot of doubt,” Mathur, who was a speaker at the Kerala Literature Festival, told The Hindu. “I doubted if anybody would be interested to know about what I have to say. I have no breaking news, no scandal, no controversy and nothing sensational. But then I realised that I have been fortunate to have had access to the BCCI, the Indian team, the IPL for more than 30 years. I felt I had first-hand information about so many things that would interest the reader, with cricket being India’s most popular sport.”

He said Pitchside was not his story, or not even that of Indian cricket. “It is only about what I saw and what I participated in,” said Mathur. “I think it is the first time that a reader gets to know what happens on an Indian team’s tour.”

He has some fond memories about several tours and matches. “The South African tour is, of course, unforgettable as it was the first by any team to that country after the end of apartheid,” he said. “Among my most vivid memories from that tour was Kapil Dev’s 129 in the Port Elizabeth Test, after coming in when India was 27 for five.”