Victor Trumper's grave states that he died at the age of 36, one year before he actually did © ESPNcricinfo

Rest In Peace. That’s what we say when people die. It is a wish usually meant for the soul, and whether a soul exists or not is beyond this space to discuss. When it comes to dead bodies, though, you will have done really well to find a more picturesque or peaceful resting place than the Waverley Cemetery in the Bronte suburb in Sydney.

On a clear day like today, in the background of the white marble of tombstones, two stunning hues of azure meet each other, the lighter one of the sky, and the darker one of the Pacific Ocean. The slope of the hill on which the graveyard is built adds to the beauty of it all. What brings me here is no morbid fascination with death or the dead, but a visit – on a slow day – to the grave of the great Victor Trumper, who died of Bright’s disease at the age of 37.

There are various kinds of graves. Some grand ones, some poorly kept. Some tombstones have depictions of an angel, some of father time, some a mere cross. Trumper’s, the third-most enquired-about grave at Waverley, after Henry Lawson and the Irish Monument, is as modest as we have read him to be, devoid of any pretence. It does have a small error, though, in that it says he died aged 36.

On staying longer at the cemetery, mainly because of the peaceful surroundings and the lazy afternoon hour, this brief visit turned into a bit of a discovery. Who’s Who – Sporting Lives, an excellently researched publication of the Waverley Cemetery that can be found in the office, claims there are enough cricketers buried there to form “their own graveyard XI”. What a concept, even for those who don’t believe in life after death but love the game.

The tar road at the corner of which Trumper’s dead body rests will soon be named Trumper Avenue. Keep walking along it, then make a right into a small street, and near the end of it is buried the legendary opener, and cricket-writer, Jack Fingleton. You’ll struggle to find his grave because his plaque that reads John Henry Webb Fingleton, is hidden by the weed.

Walk back towards the Trumper Avenue, cross it, and somewhere in the middle of this block is the grave of the eccentric wicketkeeper Hanson Carter. Carter was one of the first, if not the first, to fully squat in his keeping stance. According to The Encyclopaedia Of Australian Cricket , he believed doing so put less stress on the legs, and other keepers followed suit. Carter was an undertaker himself. Australian Cricket says he often used to come straight from work to cricket, in a hearse. Carter’s is an elegant grave. It is about the neatest when it comes to graves. There is a lot of space around the tombstone, which looks like a trophy. His whole family is buried here.

More difficult to find is Henry “Monty” Faithfull. At the age of 18, Faithfull, “a deplorably good hand at pigeon-slaying”, according to The Bulletin, and his father and three brothers, were involved in a gunfight with Ben Hall’s bushrangers. They were attacked when travelling to Goulburn, and retaliated with fire of their own. When they ran out of ammunition, they retreated home, and came back to fight with replenishments. Six feet tall, Faithfull troubled New South Wales’ opposition with his bounce.

There are quite a few other sportspersons buried here. Apart from the other cricketers who can form an XI, there is an unusually high number of jockeys buried here, which would be only a coincidence if not for the young age of many of them. Perhaps they didn’t wear helmets back then? Perhaps, like many other sports, jockeying has become safer with time?

You will have done really well to find a more picturesque or peaceful resting place than the Waverley Cemetery © ESPNcricinfo

Anyway, what of the Waverley Cemetery XI then? Trumper and Fingleton have to be the openers. Three other, lesser-acclaimed opening batsmen might have to drop down the order. Alick Bannerman was stodgy, “wearisome to the spectators”, according to Australian Dictionary of Biography. He might suit the demands of No. 3. The hard-hitting Hugh Massie looks good for No. 4. Charles Gregory, who fought poor health all his life but once scored 383 against Queensland, comes in at No. 5. His father, Ned Gregory, is one of the allrounders. Arthur Callaway, a first-grade allrounder for Marrickville, happens to be at the right place and at the right time. Carter is the unanimous choice behind the stumps. Faithfull will be the experienced fast bowler, but this XI will also allow Victor Trumper junior, just one when his father died, to play along with his old man. Trumper will share the new ball with Faithfull.

One of the two administrators – Philip Sheridan, called the father of the SCG in his Sydney Morning Herald obituary, and William Jones – will have to be the 11th player, and the other will umpire alongside the respected Richard Callaway, grandfather of allrounder Arthur Callaway. If this motley crew is not allowed entry in cricket grounds, Ned Gregory, who was also a curator at SCG, can surely help them build one of their own. If it is a field of dreams, if you build it, they will come.

Neil Dansie: "They appealed, all the crowd booed the umpire, clapped him [Don Bradman] off and went off to the local hotel, and they didn’t come back." © ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Neil Dansie was one of the last men to see Don Bradman get out from 22 yards away. He is also one of the few alive who had played with both Bradman and Clarie Grimmett. Dansie, also known as Nodda for his habit of repeatedly nodding during conversations, was a 21-year-old when Bradman played his last game for his beloved club Kensington in January 1949, after which he played only two first-class games.

Dansie had cut his left index finger in a window accident when he was nine, which led to partial amputation, and later broke his right one while attempting a return catch, which he dropped. But it didn’t affect his batting too much, because he loved the pull and cut more than the top-hand shots, unlike his hero Bradman, who didn’t dissuade him from pulling or cutting. “Whatever you do don’t stop playing that shot because you might get out sometimes, but you will score lots of runs,” Bradman told Dansie, who scored 7543 runs in first-class cricket, but missed out on playing for Australia.

There are some lovely stories Dansie recounts about Bradman. The first one comes from that match he played with Bradman, his last for Kensington. “I was only a young boy then,” Dansie recollects. “When I first played with him, I sat in a corner, I didn’t say anything. Just sat there and listened to him.

“When I came in, he was batting, he met me a few yards away, and he said – he called me sonny – ‘Sonny I’ll let you have a look at him [the bowler] for a while’. I never faced a ball for the first six overs. He would just pick a single off the last ball. Then, he’d take a single in the middle of the over, and I’d get two-three balls.”

At that point, the new ball was shortly due and the Port Adelaide fast bowler was stationed at mid-on. “He hit the ball twice past him – not too powerfully – so that it stopped a yard inside the boundary. We ran two fours, and he said to me, ‘Sonny that will take a yard or two off his pace’.”

The end of Bradman’s innings was swift. Dansie says: “He played a spin bowler – first ball after drinks, he played for the spin and it just went off the faintest edge. They appealed, all the crowd booed the umpire, clapped him off and went off to the local hotel, and they didn’t come back.”

Dansie’s association with Bradman continued later too, when the former became a South Australia selector. “Sir Don said to me, ‘Never tell anybody they are going to be picked for the team – that they are the next person to be picked – because if someone has an injury or something happens you will have to pick an entirely different person to whom you have told. It is disappointing for the person. It could happen, couldn’t it? If a batsman gets injured…’”

One of the funnier stories he remembers about Bradman involves a letter he got from India. “He replied to every letter he got,” Dansie says. “He tells a very funny story. He got a letter from a boy in India who said: ‘My brother and I are having an argument. We want you to decide who is right. I say you are alive, my brother says you are dead. Please write back and tell us who is right.’

“He [Bradman] replied, ‘I think I am alive.’”

Michael Clarke with chef Gogo © ESPNcricinfo Ltd.

It is the high point of India’s ugly tour of Australia four years ago. The teams have landed in Perth. Before the Test, they go for their respective group dinners. Turns out they are both looking to eat at Gogo’s Madras Curry. They won’t have it any other way.

So Gogo – Govardhan Govindaraj, a chef of Indian origin who now is the official team chef during Test matches in Australia – creates a temporary partition in his restaurant, which is actually an old house on Beaufort Road in Mt Lawley. One living room has one team, and the courtyard the other. The blinds are brought down, and the restaurant is shut to the public. Word spreads, news channels and reporters get a whiff, and want to know if the teams are kissing and making up at Gogo’s Madras Curry.

Inside, Gogo is worried by the awkwardness of the situation. The staff continue to serve the teams, and Gogo calls up his Western Australian friend, Justin Langer, who comes and sits alternately with both teams to ease some of the awkwardness. It’s a time when the two teams can’t come together on any issue, but Gogo’s food has brought them under one roof, even if there is not much camaraderie. Anil Kumble, India’s captain, later left behind for Gogo the ball with which he took his 600th wicket, during India's win in Perth.

You can understand the Indian team wanting to eat Indian food, but it’s the Aussies who love Gogo more. Walk into the restaurant and you feel you have entered a cricket museum. Steve Waugh has left his book here with a signature saying, “Thanks Gogo for the best lamb shanks.” John Buchanan has left a long message. Glenn McGrath’s boots with a message, “Ooh aah Glenn McGrath.” Wasim Akram played his last Test here in Perth; his captain’s cap is here. Akram swears by Gogo’s food.

During the 1999-2000 tour, Pakistan were in Australia and they were fasting. They needed proper food in the evenings. Gogo had just catered for a swimming championship in Perth. WACA called him up. He has cooked for the Australian team at every home Test since then. There is a bond between Gogo and the Australian team now. The tired exhausted players come back to the change room, and shout, “Gogo, feed me.” His lamb shanks are the celebration dish after major wins. After the match Gogo can be found in the changing rooms. His closeness with the Australian players, he feels, left the touring Sri Lankans not too enamoured.

Gogo’s career as a chef began when he – unlike other Chennai kids back then – dropped out of engineering against his father’s wishes and studied hotel management. He joined Maurya Sheraton in India, and then landed up in Japan. An earthquake there sent Gogo to Perth, where he worked as a chef at Orchid Hotel for three-and-a-half years.

In between came Gogo’s first experience of cooking for sports teams, when AC Milan landed in September 1995. He saw how particular the coaches and fitness coaches were about what the players ate. “They also flew the chef here,” Gogo says. “And they brought all their stuff from Italy. Pasta, beans, coffee … I told the chef he didn’t have to worry about anything.

“Their guidelines are completely different. It’s not like cricket. Very controlled diet. There is a dietician and a coach standing next to you. They know each and every payer, and how much he can eat. If he tries one extra scoop they take away the spoon. The only thing extra they are allowed is coffee shots.” Gogo is now a qualified dietician himself.

Catering for the Indian team is a challenge. There are various kind of vegetarians. One of Gogo’s colleagues remembers the Indian team coming back from the Bradman Oration shouting, “Gogo, dal-chawal; Gogo, sambhar …”

You would think Shane Warne was similarly challenged when he took baked beans to India, but Gogo feels it is all a bit of media baloney. “Even in 1980s they used to get – because I come from a hotel background – the best continental food in five-star hotels,” Gogo says. “The chefs in 1970s or '80s from hotel-management schools were not trained for Indian food. When you graduate from hotel management school, the chef’s speciality is French-based cuisine. How can you falter in continental food? Only in the 1990s did the Indian food concept start in five-star hotels in India.”

How does an Indian manage to be the beloved chef of the Australian team, though? “If you know how to cook real Indian food, you can cook any food,” Gogo says. “I have had this argument with Italian, French, great chefs. The reason is our cooking covers all aspects of cooking. If you know pan India, from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, they even have cuisine that you dig a hole in the ground, put mud there, have a bonfire, and eat in the morning. Tandoor. Mohenjo-Daro. Harappa style of cooking. You are talking of BC. When a guy is thorough in Indian cuisine, he can cook anything in the world.”

Gogo has souvenirs from many cricketers – Australian of course, Indians, South Africans, West Indians, Pakistanis – but he has found Matthew Hayden the most fun. Hayden would go inside the kitchen and cook with Gogo, who has contributed a chapter to Hayden’s cookbook. Gogo’s most prized souvenir is Sachin Tendulkar’s gloves. His best moment with cricket is when Australia regained the Ashes in Perth, in 2006-07. “That was the best. The best team. So proud of catering for that team.”