Dear Editor,
I learnt of the death of Lall Munilall as a result of a phone call in the evening earlier this week from Avinash Bhagwandin, a text message from Bish Panday, and from a letter by Mr Christopher Persaud which was published in the April 27th issue of the Stabroek News. I am grateful to Mr Persaud for filling in the gaps in my knowledge of Munilall’s cricket career after the Schoolboys’ tournament in 1966.
I rarely saw him after we played that competition. I only read occasional pieces about his exploits as a national player and his playing days as a cricketer in the United States. There is one exception when we did meet but under circumstances which still make me blush and feel ashamed even though they are recalled from a considerable distance in time.
I believe this was 1979 when I had just returned from Africa and I was asked to deputise for an errant umpire in a Case Cup game. I was the officiating umpire when a loud appeal for LBW went up against “Muni”. Quickly, he raised his bat to indicate that he had played the ball. To this day I cannot explain why I raised my finger and gave him out. “Muni” departed, not hurling imprecations against me for an unfair decision, but with an audible chuckle.
At of the end of the playing day he brought his bat with a visible red mark on it to show me that he had played the ball and that I had wrongfully ruled him out, a broad smile on his face.
We repaired to the bar and all was forgotten and forgiven. But that was the measure of the man.
Munilall’s death only reminded that the grim reaper continues to cut a wide swath through my generation. Death has undone many. Yet Munilall’s death came as a shock and it forced me to think about this lovable human being who was a talented and enterprising cricketer. I first met him as a schoolboy playing for Berbice in an intercounty game (I believe nowadays it is called Under 15) at the Mental Hospital ground in the early sixties. “Muni” made a stylish and impressive half century, his effortless timing and supple wrists very much on display.
I was standing at slip when all of this was going on and I marveled at the fact that there was no schoolboy player back in Georgetown who was remotely as good as this. And then we met again during the first regional Schoolboys tournament in 1966. I got to know him better.
He was affable, kind and unbuttoned in humour. In our first game in Barbados, Munilall did not score many but the manner in which he got them had the tongues of the experts wagging.
A straight drive off of the nephew of Peter Lashley, bowling a lively medium pace, will stay with me as long as I live, and, I suspect, with the Bajans who saw it. In fact, “Muni” did not make any outstanding scores in this tournament but many of his innings were brilliant but regrettably brief. Yet you could give him the ball and he would diddle out a stubborn or fast batsman out. And certainly he was a good team player.
In my mind I always couple the career of Lall Munilall with that of Alvin Kallicharran as schoolboys. “Muni” was all wrists and stroke play while Alvin was the epitome of lightning reflexes and placement. But for me the difference between the two of them was that Alvin never gave his wicket away.
It had to be earned. It is teasing thought as to what would have happened to his career if Munilall had given the bowlers less of a chance of taking his wicket? But he did things his way and I suspect that he had no regrets. “Muni” loved playing the game of cricket and that was all that mattered to him.
It might be true also that, even as a schoolboy, “Kalli” was a more complete batsman, playing pace as well as he played spin and that, in my judgement, made him the best schoolboy cricketer Guyana has produced. I know that “Muni” would not have disagreed with this judgement.
May his soul Rest in Peace.
Yours faithfully,
R M Austin
