Cricketers' collectibles fetch Rs 260,000

"For every thousand rupees I have spent here, I hope Rahul scores 50 runs for his country in the next series," said Raj Madnani, the owner of the popular Java City chain of bakeries and coffee shops in Bangalore.

"Here Amit, this bat is for you," he said, summoning his excited young grandson on stage to take the bat from a smiling Dravid.

Madhnani had just bought Rahul Dravid’s bat for Rs 18,500 at an auction of cricket collectibles organised by IT whiz kid Anand Adkoli and his nonprofit organisation India Childcare Foundation in Bangalore on Wednesday. The takings were all given to Sudatta, an organisation of adoptive parents in Bangalore.

"We collected about Rs 2.60 lakhs [Rs 260,000] overall, which is definitely more than we had hoped for," said a jubilant Adkoli to rediff.com. "Actually this whole event was an idea that Anil [Kumble] gave us. Originally, we just thought we would have a charity dinner, in which these five cricketers would mingle with guests. But Anil suggested that they would all donate some cricket collectibles that we would auction to raise money. He gave the first two items. If it had stopped with that, we might have just had the charity dinner and auctioned the stuff on the Net. But all the others gave so many more things, so the auction became viable."

Could they have raised more money, possibly even foreign exchange, if they had just put up the goods for auction on a web site?

"We wanted to keep an element of the personal touch in this," says Adkoli. "We wanted people to actually socialise with the cricketers and then buy their things."

Adkoli organised the entire event in less than week, after the cricketers confirmed their availability.

The air was electric as Bangalore’s rich and famous rubbed shoulders with four of the State’s best cricketers: Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid, Venkatesh Prasad and Sunil Joshi. The fifth, Javagal Srinath, who was supposed to be there, could not come as a close relative of his took ill. Prasad too left early as his wife Jayanthi's father was ill and in hospital. None of the cricketer's spouses came, nor did Prasad's young son Prithvi.

All the cricketers arrived punctually for cocktails at 20 hours at the open-air restaurant Opium, on Airport road. Restaurant managing director Sanjay Goel, who subsidized the hospitality for the auction, drew Rahul aside for a private collectible. He had his restaurant staff mix a fresh batch of cement, coated the surface of a tile on the floor of his restaurant with it and asked Rahul, who is known to be a good sport, to leave an imprint of his bare foot in it. Rahul willingly obliged.

"Rahul, put your foot in a tub of fresh water quickly as soon as you finish," warned Adkoli, who stood beside the stylish batsman while he made history for the restaurant.

The most expensive item sold was a signed set of ten photographs of Anil Kumble's famous ten-wicket feat on February 7, 1999, in the second Test against Pakistan in Delhi, where he took 10 wickets for 74 runs.

Nandan Nilekani, Managing Director of Infosys Technologies, bought the photographs, explaining that he "did not want any cricket memorabilia, but just wanted to contribute to a good cause." He never took it back home with him, as everyone else did with their purchases.

His wife, mystery novelist Rohini Nilekani, bought a pair of gloves worn by Dravid on March 15, 2001, when he scored 180 runs against Australia in Calcutta. This was only the second time in history that a team following on won a Test match, with V V S Laxman scoring 281 runs.

"If Rahul won once with those gloves, he can win again now, and I hope he will," said a smiling, saree-clad Rohini, as she took the gloves from the lanky cricketer, and chatted with him as they walked off the podium together.

Earlier in the evening, Dravid had confided in rediff.com his concern that auctions like this one might not do as well as one might expect as yet in India.

"There’s no real value for this kind of stuff in India," he said. "People have the money to buy such stuff for charitable causes, but the fad has not caught on as it has overseas. I have seen cricket collectibles displayed in sports bars and other such popular hangouts abroad, and the money raised goes for charity. It's time we started doing that here too."

Kumble was genuinely all fired up about this cause in particular, and charitable causes in general. He seized the opportunity to quickly lecture an executive from the Coffee Day cyber café chain of Bangalore, who was trying to draw him aside to give him a gift from her company, on the need for her wealthy corporation to give more for charity.

"We Indians tend to remember important events, but never want to keep things to keep them fresh in our memories," Kumble told rediff.com. "I had kept all these things for my own personal memories, but decided to part with them for a good cause. I wish I had more time to personally get involved in social service; unfortunately, all I can do is donate money, goods or share out a little of time."

All five cricketers mingled with the assembled crowd, struck up casual conversations with anyone who was interested, signed autographs by the dozen and posed for countless photographs. Dravid even walked up on stage and modelled his own stuff, like his cap and gloves, to try and up the ante in the bidding.

Actually, he presented five different items for auction, while the others parted with two or three each. Among the goods up for bidding was a bat used by Dravid in the Coca Cola tri-nations cup at Bulwayo this June, in which he won the Man of the Match award against Zimbabwe. Dravid ended up scoring 72 not out in the match and India won by four wickets. The bat was the bat bought by Madnani.

Then, there was an India cap, which he wore in many one-day internationals, which was picked up for something like Rs 10,000 by software engineer Dharmarajan, who said, "Rahul is a great bastman for all seasons!"

Cartoonist Nala Ponnapa and his son Niraj Chinnappa, who were acting as the auctioneers, began the show, putting up an India blue shirt that Dravid wore against New Zealand in the Pepsi Independence Cup match at Bangalore in 1997, in which he was 21 not out and Tendulkar scored a century. The asking price for the shirt was Rs 6,000 and there were no takers at all.

A white Test match shirt with which he played two great innings, without getting out, against Zimbabwe in Delhi, several months ago fared better later on.

The first sale of the day was a ball used by Sunil Joshi in a match against South Africa, in the South Africa-Kenya-India tri series of 1999-2000, in which he took five wickets in just ten overs, giving away only six runs. Radio jockey Suresh Venkat sportingly bought the ball for Rs 5,000.

Kumble donated a 1999 World Cup shirt. Joshi also gave a shirt he wore in a Test match against Bangladesh, in which he scored 92 runs and was declared Man of the Match.

Another interesting item was Srinath’s India blazer, which he wore in his second season tour of Sri Lanka way back in 1993. He also gave a warm-up shirt and an India cap, while Prasad gave an India cap and a shirt he wore at the Madras Test in 1999.

"We cricketers, especially us five from Karnataka, love to do things for good causes," said Sunil Joshi. "We often do these things together, like this. Here, we desperately want the to help children have food and shelter, so we are here."

Added Prasad: "We had just kept a few things for our own memories, but we are delighted if they can be made use of to help people."