Captain who shaped Indian cricketers no more

The first fitness coach of the Indian cricket team, Capt K B Dogra died in New Delhi on October 25.

A fitness freak, Capt Dogra or Dogra Sahab as he was popularly known, ironically succumbed to cardiac arrest at the age of 89.

He imparted fitness tips to the legendary Sunil Gavaskar, Mohinder Amarnath and the late Bishan Singh Bedi, among other noted players.

Dogra Sahab was an NIS athletics coach but his first love was cricket, having represented Aligarh Muslim University in the games.

He used to lay importance of physical fitness among the cricket players. He always had a lot of praise for Mohinder Amarnath for paying a lot of attention to his fitness level with hard work off the cricket ground.

But he never said a word against Gavaskar even though in a veiled manner he hinted at the little master’s 'laziness' about fitness routines.

"But he was a great player and could take this much liberty,"’ he would say in the defence of Gavaskar.

A messiah to youngsters

After completing Short Service Commission in the Army, Dogra Sahab joined Northern Railway and later the National Institute of Sports.

During his stint as Stadium Supervisor at National Stadium (Now Dhyan Chand Stadium) in New Delhi, he was a regular with Delhi’s middle and long distance runners.

There was hardly a day when he was not seen jogging on Rajpath after office hours in the evening. It was during these days when he turned Messiah to two budding youngsters.

Besides being a fitness guru to cricketers, Dogra Sahab was also in a way instrumental in Maninder Singh and Gursharan Singh becoming top notch players.

An orthodox left arm spinner, Maninder played 35 Tests and 59 one-day matches and was member of the Indian team that won the Asia Cup in 1988.

Similarly, Gursharan scored a century in his maiden first class match against an international attack for India in U-22 vs England in 1981-82.

Later, as a substitute during a Test match against West Indies at Ahmedabad, he took an unprecedented four catches at forward short leg.

During the days when he was living in Delhi’s Amar Colony in South Delhi, Dogra Sahab saw both Maninder and Gursharan as kids playing in the same locality. And he started bringing them to the National Stadium nets under the watchful eye of legendary cricket Guru Gurcharan Singh.

Every evening the two young cricketers would be seen riding Dogra Sahab's Lambretta scooter with one of them latching on to the stepney wheel.

The genial coach would take the duo back home in the same fashion.

A thorough gentleman

Between us there was an age difference of more than a decade but he always remained a buddy.

We would go for long road runs together and discuss new techniques or observations in global athletics. He was an avid reader of international magazines on athletics and would discuss them with me.

A thorough gentleman and a dedicated family man, Dogra Sahab paid total attention to his late school principal wife and kids.

His son, who initially began as a cricketer, is now Maj Gen Vivek Dogra with the Signals and daughter Ina is married to Lt Gen Yogesh Joshi (Retd), a Kargil War hero.

When I was going to Beijing for the 2008 Olympic Games, finding a hotel close to the main stadium was a tough call.

Due to the language barrier, I couldn’t explain to the hotel booking executives that my basic need was the distance to the stadium.

One day I requested Dogra Sahab to check from his daughter Ina, who was then in Beijing, with husband Yogesh posted as Indian Military Attaché there.

"Why look for the hotel. You stay with Vivek and Ina," he shot back.

And I did stay with them.

I still remember the `aaloo ka paranthas’ that Ina packed for me every morning before I set out to the Stadium. Besides me, many other Indian journalists savoured them.

A lover of humour

Dogra Sahab had the ability to take jokes on him in a friendly manner.

He himself narrated an incident that happened to him in Bucharest, Romania in 1977. He was accompanying Satish Kumar, a well-known deaf runner to the World Silent Games (Now known as Deaflympics) as coach.

At dinner time Dogra Sahab went to Satish’s room and began knocking on the door. Getting no answer he peeped through the window glass and saw Satish merrily reading a newspaper.

When all the knocking at the door didn’t work he called hotel security. They opened the door with a master key.

Before "I could scold Satish, Security people reminded me that Satish was deaf and dumb,’’ Dogra Sahab narrated it to all fellow athletes at National Stadium.

During the same Romania trip, Dogra Sahab spent first three days struggling to communicate with a local girl volunteer, attached with the India team, in sign language.

Not trained in the sign language, Dogra Sahab had great difficulty explain things to the volunteer. On the fourth and final day, when it was time to return home he saw the girl talking to her colleague and complaining that she had tough time dealing with the `deaf and dumb Indian coach’’!

Dogra Sahab then politely told her that he thought she was silent!

After retirement he and Mrs. Dogra had shifted to Pune where son Vivek was posted.

He would often call me specially on festivals and recall the old days.

"How is my bitya," he would always ask about my wife and then go on talking about Milkha Singh, Railways athletes like Gurdyal, Kishen Singh, Zile Singh and many others.

He had a special liking for Milkha, who he spent time with at the National Stadium.

He was among those who used to literally carry Milkha to the barracks after a hard day’s training session. And Milkha in turn always asked about his welfare whenever I met him in Delhi or Chandigarh.

I have yet to meet a person who ever said a bad word about Dogra Sahab.

Delhi’s athletics fraternity will miss the genial coach.

RIP Dogra Sahab.