On a cool Wednesday morning in the bylanes of Pune, the ODI World Cup fever in the city is still slowly finding its feet. Thronged by rapid real-estate activity, there is hardly a spirit of a World Cup fixture involving India, which is due to take on Bangladesh here the next day.
It has been a week of upsets in the marquee event, with Afghanistan and the Netherlands shaking up heavyweights England and South Africa respectively. A visit to the venue of a famous Kenyan triumph over the West Indies in the 1996 World Cup did seem like a fine stop.
The Nehru Stadium in the city, however, lies shrouded in a woeful reflection of the old days and gives no impression of a former World Cup venue when one peers through the bolted metal gates.
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A rickshaw to Swadanand Lane seemed like the next best bet for soaking in some cricketing folklore before the first World Cup fixture in the city in 27 years. Stopping at a T before a swanky apartment on a quiet suburban lane, the signboard to the Blades of Glory museum may seem slightly out of place.
But Phill Daniels’ reassuring words will transform any speck of lingering incertitude into curiosity in a trice. It takes a moment to realise that the world’s largest cricket museum is belied by its surroundings but stands with some charm on a third-floor apartment. Phil, a Trinidadian pitch curator, walked into this adventure with Rohan Pate, the founder of the museum, almost 11 years ago.
“Brace yourself,” Phil says as he offers a glimpse of the main hall of a monumental collection of cricket memorabilia.
A room full of achievers - signed bats from players in the 10,000-run international club - is followed up by signed willows with every member of every World Cup-winning squad since 1975.
10k club: The first hall inside the Blades of Glory museum hosts bats from all cricketers to have amassed 10,000 international runs, each of them used by the player during a particular milestone in their career. | Photo Credit: Lalith Kalidas
From Don Bradman and Gary Sobers to Virat Kohli and Shubman Gill, the museum offers a rare rundown of history for the cricket nut. A full-sized bat used by Sachin Tendulkar is placed in a corner, purely offering every visitor the slice of a tangible romance with that 1.45-kilogram blade that stupefied bowling attacks.
It all began with another Tendulkar bat in 2010, Pate reminisces. “I happened to receive his bat back then. The immediate thought was, ‘If I can get the gear of the God of cricket, I can get anybody’, says Pate, a former U-19 Maharashtra cricketer.
Juggling between his real-estate establishments and an undying love for the sport, Pate launched the museum in 2012 with a personal touch from Tendulkar. With a decade of rare additions, the museum has overflown into a neighbouring building where another storeroom hosts a jaw-dropping collection of jerseys, shoes, stumps and signed cricket balls.
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Pate’s vision will now help him expand his gigantic personal collection into cricketing museums hosted by state cricket associations across India and overseas.
“I cannot wrap my head around the fact that India does not have another cricket museum. I aim to build as many of them as possible. I have signed up to build two museums with two big state cricket associations. Hopefully, they will be coming up early next year.
“My collection of items has soared past 75,000 and now I am in the works of building eight to 10 such facilities across India and abroad. Two big countries, not in terms of cricket but tourism, have approached me to collaborate with them,” Pate says.
The bats representing Sachin Tendulkar’s 100 hundreds signed by the legendary batter himself. | Photo Credit: Lalith Kalidas
Pate elaborates his proposal: “Most grounds in India are active for a limited period and remain inactive for nearly 330 days in a year. These museums will bring in walk-ins, and we can offer tours like those at the Lord’s in London. We will have a memorabilia shop, a museum, a cafe, etc. Two associations have already signed up for it and the talks are positive with the others.”
He is elated to have nine teams featuring across World Cup games in his town and hopes to continue his work for posterity. “The Bangladesh team was here a couple of days ago and I hope to host a few more over the coming week,” he says as he points at a collection of bats ready to step out for squad autographs.
After all, Pate and his young team would not need to scramble as they did during the T20 World Cup in Australia last year, where it took them 47 flights in 11 days to complete a set of signed bats from all 16 teams
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