Indian Cricket: Then and Now

PROLOGUE

Venkat Sundaram

It was a pipe dream born amongst a group of old friends. We had all played cricket at levels of certain distinction and now liked nothing better than to relive the days in the sun. We had the desire to give something special back to the great game that had given us so much joy, despair, pleasure, heartbreak, honour … and above all made all our lives worth living. Our group of friends wanted to produce something to celebrate the story of cricket in India, remembering the various twists and turns as our own paths intersected with that magnificent highway of dreams. It was a story waiting to be told.

But, as I mentioned, we were old friends—emphasis on the word ‘old’. We had aged. Did we still have it in us to give that dream some shape and—more importantly—substance? The spirits, set on fire, were willing. The challenge lay in the actual act of producing something tangible.

Indian cricket has come a long way from when the patronage of maharajas and enthusiastic businessmen was required for the locals to emulate the British. Thanks to the vast following for the sport in India, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is now the envy of the cricket boards of other nations. Today, the Indian Premier League (IPL)—a BCCI creation—is the second-most valuable sports league in the world and is poised to scale even further heights.

As Indian cricket goes from strength to strength and virtually rules the cricketing world through financial power, skill and success, the paths and alleys traversed in the formative days to the years of coming of age—and the struggle to lay the platform on which the current success was built—are in danger of being deemed archaic and obsolete or simply forgotten. Not too long ago, a great Indian opening batsman was nearing the world record for the first-wicket partnership in Tests. When informed that he was within touching distance of a record held by the great Indian all-rounder Vinoo Mankad, he asked who Mankad was. Very few names in Indian cricket have been bigger than Mankad—yet this incident illustrates that even he is liable to be forgotten. We had to do something so that these names live on.

Thus, we picked up our pens and dipped them into our memories. We scanned the archives for forgotten accounts penned by names from the past. We reached out to formidable names in the world of cricket, and its chroniclers. People responded from around the world, bringing to life history both well-known and obscure with the aim of documenting it for posterity. Cricketers, writers and commentators contributed new articles while older ones were resurrected from long-lost journals.

You are holding in your hands the compiled volume that was a result of these efforts. In the following pages you will find varied voices on the game, from superstar international players and domestic heroes to veteran umpires and respected journalists. Nostalgia has thus been channelled into a reservoir of information that will always be available for every devotee of the game. Our dream thus found form, shape and substance, and emerged as this splendid book.

This is our tribute to the king of sports, which touched our lives in a special way—the passion of a country of over a billion. It serves as a wonderful window into the past, through which one can look back at the fascinating journey of Indian cricket.

THE EARLY YEARS

1

THE ORIGINALS

Raju Mukherji

This is a clarion call to all Indian cricket lovers to respect the heritage, traditions and spirit of our nation’s cricket by expressing our gratitude to its pioneers for laying the foundation of the sport in our country. Here I pay tribute to three exemplary figures from India’s cricketing past in the hope that their deeds will be long remembered.

Mehallasha Pavri

Mehallasha Edulji Pavri was born into the Parsi community in Navsari in 1866. He was a doctor by profession but was drawn into the cricket circles in Bombay at a time when the mercantile Parsis were more than eager to befriend the colonial British administrators. They saw cricket as an opportunity to socialize with the Britons, and learned the rudiments of the game from watching the latter play at the Bombay maidans. The Parsis eventually wanted to have their own teams to play against the white men on equal terms.

It was easier said than done. The Britons in India did play against the Parsis but were sarcastic, condescending and downright insulting towards their Indian opponents. The affronts made the Parsis more determined than ever. They resolved to get better at the game and become competitive as quickly as possible. It was 1886 when the first Parsis travelled to England to test themselves in the English conditions on their pitches. Only the senior cricketers of the community could afford to pay for the voyage and it was they who travelled. Unsurprisingly, the Parsis fared disastrously against the English, who were by far the best in the business in that era.

Pavri was not in that first Parsi team that travelled to England. But by 1888, when the team for the next tour of England was selected, he was an automatic choice by virtue of his stupendous performances against the British in the Presidency matches. On English wickets, Pavri was a man inspired. A natural athlete, he unleashed thunderbolts with nagging accuracy and regularly sent stumps cartwheeling. Pavri picked up skills from the masters of seam and swing, in particular Bill Lockwood. He added the break-back to his repertoire and felt equally at ease with the old ball as with the new.

In a match against the Gentlemen of England at Eastbourne, the Parsis set the Englishmen a target of 120 after being forced to follow on. However, Pavri came into his own and claimed 6 wickets with his whiplash action, bundling the Gentlemen out for 56. For Pavri, England was a revelation. In India, the colonials had scoffed at the Parsis’ efforts, but in England the locals were genuinely generous with praise and guidance. Pavri’s extraordinary haul of 170 wickets at only 11.66 earned respect and plaudits. By dint of his outstanding personal success, his team’s profile improved by leaps and bounds. In 1886, the Parsis had won just one match, losing nineteen out of twenty-eight; two years later, they had eight victories and eleven losses from thirty-one matches.

Pavri’s domination over G.F. Vernon’s team that toured India in 1890 and Lord Hawke’s 1892 touring side led to an invitation to play for Middlesex in the county championship in 1895. Thus, Pavri became the first Indian cricketer to have played county cricket in England. Ranji too first played county cricket for Sussex in the same year as Pavri, but the royal had learnt his cricket in England and had already represented Cambridge University by then.

Pavri played cricket seriously till 1912 before concentrating on the medical profession. He authored an excellent book on cricket in India at the time. Meticulous and methodical as befits a man of medicine, he was a rare deity in the pantheon of Indian cricket. His deeds proved that Indians could be as good as any cricketer in the world.

Palwankar Baloo

Among the first Indian cricketers of international eminence was a Dalit, an ‘untouchable’ from the lowest caste. His name was Palwankar Baloo and he was born in 1875 in Dharwad in present-day Karnataka. After his poverty-stricken family migrated to Poona, the young Baloo had to quit school to augment the family income. His first job was with a Parsi cricket club, where he rolled the pitch and swept the ground.

In 1892, he began working in the exclusive environment of Poona Gymkhana, where he was required to assist the chief groundsman. In his spare time, he bowled to the European players at the nets. A European priest known as ‘Jungly’ Greig was the first to discover his exceptional talent at left-arm spin. Word soon spread that the young Dalit groundsman possessed outstanding cricketing ability. But the high-caste conservative Hindus of Poona would not even contemplate giving him a trial. In the caste-ridden culture of the city at the time, a ‘low-born’ Dalit could get little sympathy and even less opportunity.

Eventually, Baloo’s family moved to Bombay, where the cosmopolitan clime afforded him comparatively easier social mobility. Even in the big city, the more orthodox members of the Hindu Gymkhana were initially not in favour of playing with a Dalit. But regular defeats at the hands of British and Parsi teams compelled them to include Baloo in their side.

He was an immediate success in the local matches, which made him an automatic choice in the combined Hindu team for the triangular tournament in which the Hindus competed against the Parsis and the British. The Hindus began to win matches and titles almost immediately through the fantastic exploits of Baloo, the social pariah. From 1907 to 1920 he was the best bowler in the land, demonstrating phenomenal performances and remarkable consistency. However, even though he was winning them trophies, the upper-caste Hindus did not allow him to sit beside them at lunch.

Despite opposition to his leadership from his own community, Baloo had the satisfaction of captaining the Hindus to victory in the Quadrangular tournament of 1920. For a low-caste Hindu to be given leadership over the supposedly ‘higher’ castes was a major rip in the social fabric of the Hindu community at the time. The upper-caste Hindus accepted him more out of self-interest and convenience rather than any sense of camaraderie.

When the Maharaja of Patiala decided to take an all-India cricket team to England in 1911, Baloo was an automatic choice. In England, Baloo did not worry about the cold weather, nor was he bothered by the ever-changing conditions and the varying pitches on which he had no experience. He teased and tormented the English batters and created havoc, exhibiting to the world what a social outcast from an obscure village in India was capable of if given the right opportunities.

On Baloo’s triumphant return from England, prominent social activists hailed his greatness in public addresses. B.R. Ambedkar, then a young student, became a self-confessed fan of his. Baloo was joined in the Hindu team by his brothers Shivram, Vithal and Ganpat. These four brothers made the Hindu team the best in the country. But whatever they achieved in cricket ended up being for the benefit of the upper-caste Hindus. The Dalit brothers were merely pawns to be exploited and forgotten.

Ambedkar called on Baloo to change his religion to Buddhism as he was convinced that the ‘untouchables’ had no future within the Hindu community. But Baloo did not heed the call as he felt that with Mahatma Gandhi’s emergence and influence, the status of his community would improve and that they would become an important part of the mainstream. The contradiction in approach between the two friends drew them apart. In 1937, Baloo was coerced to fight an election against the formidable Ambedkar and lost.

Palwankar Baloo died in penury in 1955, forgotten by the men he had helped prosper. Every Indian cricketer owes him an eternal debt. He is the man who opened the doors for Indian cricketers to earn respect abroad. No national award or recognition nor any financial support was ever granted to this dignified genius. Indian cricket is guilty of having forsaken him.

D.B. Deodhar

Dinkar Balwant Deodhar was born in Poona in 1892. If Pavri and Baloo had fired the imagination of the youth of the time through tales of their exploits in England, it was Deodhar who allowed Indians to savour the taste of success first-hand at home. If any Indian player can claim to have lifted the country to Test status, it was most certainly the erudite Sanskrit scholar from Poona.

Deodhar’s mission was to prove to the ruling Britons that the locals could surpass the best English players at their own game. On a winter morning in 1926, a representative India side faced the daunting task of taking on Arthur Gilligan’s England (then MCC) team. This was the occasion for which Deodhar, then thirty-four, had been waiting for. The grassy Bombay Gymkhana pitch laden with fresh dew beckoned the great fast-medium bowler Maurice Tate to exhibit his mastery, but combining doggedness with exemplary strokes, Deodhar relentlessly kept piling up runs.

Only once the imposing MCC total of 362 was passed did Deodhar allow his stupendous concentration to flag. He had contributed a masterly 148 out of the team’s total of 437, a lead of 75 runs over an England team comprising prominent Test cricketers. For the first time ever, a representative team of the colonial masters was subjugated by an Indian team on home soil in full view of their countrymen. No longer would the Englishmen in India make fun of Indian cricketers or dare to take them lightly. That day Deodhar was not only batting for his team but was also building self-respect among a people regularly subjugated to indignities.

Gilligan was enchanted by Deodhar’s character and skill. Once back in England, he proposed to the MCC that India deserved to be among the nations playing official Test matches. This eventually led to India joining the Imperial Cricket Conference. Their first Test was played in 1932 against England at Lord’s. But the irony is that the man whose innings was primarily responsible for elevating India to Test match status never got an opportunity to play Test cricket himself.

On India’s inaugural tour of England in 1932, Deodhar’s name was missing from the travelling party as by then the cricket crusaders had given way to cricket conspirators. The new breed of administrators declared that at forty, Deodhar was too old to play for the country. This might be true by conventional standards. But Deodhar did not confirm to such stereotypes and was physically fitter than most of the cricketers chosen—not only in 1932 but also for the second tour of England in 1936.

Even during the latter tour, he was a regular player for the Hindus in the Quadrangular and Pentangular communal cricket tournaments as well as for Maharashtra in the Ranji Trophy. His performance in first-class cricket in the 1930s was far superior to most of those chosen to play for India at the time. Even at the age of forty-eight, he scored 246 against Bombay and led his team to victory over Madras in the Ranji Trophy final. At fifty-two, he scored a century in each innings against Nawanagar.

Deodhar was a victim of selection politics. He was an educated, free-thinking and liberal man whose individualistic streak and love for his own province meant that he never played on the teams of the influential maharajas. His upright character became a noose around his international career’s neck. However, it is to his credit that he took these rejections in his stride and kept playing for Maharashtra till the age of fifty-four. Even at that age his batting was prolific.

After retiring from playing, Deodhar became a national selector. Here too he left his imprint by not allowing Anthony de Mello, the BCCI president at the time, to meddle in the selection of the national team. Deodhar suffered for this courageous approach but he could not be enticed to compromise on his principles. He can be considered responsible for the rise of some of the legends of Indian cricket, including world-class players such as Vinoo Mankad and Vijay Hazare.

I met Prof. Deodhar just once. It was 1973 and Bengal had just been beaten by Maharashtra in a Ranji Trophy quarter-final tie at Poona. Bengal’s captain at the time was Chuni Goswami—who had also captained the Indian football team to a gold medal at the Asian Games. It was his farewell match for Bengal and the last match of my debut season.

Inside the pavilion sat an elderly man with eyes glued to the match. Chunida—as we all addressed our captain—said to me, ‘You always keep blabbering about cricket. Can you identify the gentleman sitting there?’

I took a good look and said, ‘Isn’t that Prof. Deodhar?’

‘Good. Then come, I will introduce you to him.’

‘But does he know you?’ I asked.

Chunida gave me a sidelong glance. ‘Everybody in India knows me.’ A typical Chunida response.

As we approached him, the elderly gentleman looked up and recognized Chunida. He said, ‘Chuni, happy to see that you are still playing.’ Chunida nodded and shook hands with him.

As soon as I was introduced, Prof. Deodhar said, ‘Good technique and temperament, but poor physique. Will never play for India.’

I was stunned by his assessment. I thought I had had a very successful debut season. In fact, I had played a responsible innings, albeit in a losing cause, in this match too. Yet, the professor was so downbeat about my prospects. However, if I was honest with myself, he was absolutely correct. My physique was never strong enough. I lacked stamina and suffered from a congenital heart ailment.

I said quickly, ‘Sir, I do not crave to be a Test player. I want to be like you.’

‘What do you mean? Like me in which way?’

‘Sir, I want to be an academic first and only then a cricketer.’

The elderly gentleman smiled and grasped my hand. ‘That’s the spirit I like.’

That grasp was not the limp handshake of an eighty-year-old man. It was the steely Maratha grip that finished Afzal Khan.

The conversation with the living legend was enlightening. I did not want to let him go. He also seemed to enjoy my company. When I asked him about his cricket career, he merely said, ‘It is for others to judge. I enjoyed my cricket as much as my academics. I was happy to have kept my backbone straight throughout.’

I responded, ‘Sir, your protégés have answered the nation on your behalf.’ He furrowed his eyebrows and nodded.

‘Sir, please consider me to be your disciple, like Ekalavya was to Drona.’ I touched his feet in pranam and he was visibly moved by the reference to the Mahabharata.

Prof. Deodhar was every inch a philosopher-warrior. The irony of destiny is that a man who was so successful and talented was denied his due because of the intrigues of his own countrymen.

Every Indian cricketer owes an eternal gratitude to these pioneers, who can be considered to be their ‘cricketing grandfathers’. They laid the path and paved the way so that others could have a smooth journey. Let us not forget these immortal souls.

2

PRINCES AND MERCHANTS : THE EARLY YEARS OF INDIAN CRICKET

Arunabha Sengupta

We know how it went. On the morning of 25 June 1932, India entered international cricket with a resounding leap. However, the ensuing steps turned tentative, uncertain, faint. They played four series before Independence, all of them against England. One series was played at home and the others away. India lost six of the ten Test matches across the four series, and did not win even one. At first glance, the record looks dismal—and this does not change even if we look closer. We find a fightback here, a century there, a great bowling performance somewhere. We romanticize about them, as cricket fans are wont to do. However, success eludes the storyline, and the coffers are barren.

Yet, if we flip through the pages of history and scrutinize them in detail, further stories emerge and develop. These are stories of journeys made and not made, alliances forged and not forged, records jotted down on the front page and the back. We are left wondering what might have been if only some things had turned out differently. There are so many alternative stories that could have etched themselves in the annals of time. What if the Indian challenge did not fritter away after the great first day? What if they had been able to field the strongest team? Did the win column necessarily have to remain empty until 1952?

If the Merchants and the Princes …

The team that reached the shores of old Blighty in the summer of 1932 was called ‘All-India’. The concept of ‘India’ as a country did not exist for the British overlords. A year earlier, Winston Churchill had declared in his speech to the Constitutional Club that ‘India is a geographical term’ and that it is ‘no more a united nation than the Equator’. The known entities were British India and the Princely States, and they combined to form the All-India team.

The day before the only Test All-India would play on that tour, the English cricketers finished their county engagements and travelled across the country to London, many reaching the team hotel late at night. The idea was to roll out of bed, turn up and knock over a greenhorn side from an exotic faraway corner of the Empire. However, such thoughts were scattered by a flurry of wickets in the first twenty minutes. The excellent new-ball duo of Mohammed Nissar and Amar Singh, in combination with some electrifying fielding by the Malaya-born Lall Singh, reduced England to 19 for 3. The England captain, Douglas Jardine, and the wicketkeeper, Les Ames, led the recovery and they eventually scored 259. In response, All-India ended the day at 30 without loss. They were off to a rather good start in Test cricket.

The following day, however, they ran out of steam. From an excellent position of 110 for 2, the debutants collapsed to 189 all out. The rest of the Test was a saga of surrender. Only Amar Singh’s half century from No. 9 in the second innings provided a bright spot. The batting lacked depth and class and was further hampered by C.K. Nayudu nursing an injured hand. But the bowlers matched their experienced English counterparts in potency and effectiveness.

It was the oft-heard story of a spirited but limited side. But did it really need to turn out that way? That very summer, two of the best batters in England were Indian. Only, they were not playing for India. At the same time, a classy young batter in India—who would go on to achieve greatness—had not travelled to England for political reasons.

The Nawab of Pataudi, Iftikhar Ali Khan, was named Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1932 due to his exploits in the 1931 season, in which he had amassed 1,454 runs at 69.23 with six hundreds. That same summer had seen K.S. Duleepsinhji plunder 2,684 runs at 54.77 with twelve hundreds, including 109 at the Oval in the Test against New Zealand. He had already played twelve Tests for England, scoring 995 runs at 58.52.

In the 1928–29 season, Duleep—who was wintering in India after a successful summer for Sussex—had been approached by the newly formed Indian cricket board. He was requested to play a role in the development of Indian cricket. This included an offer to captain the side on the tour to England in 1932. Duleep had been undecided. He had turned to his uncle, the great K.S. Ranjitsinhji, for advice. Ranji had told him, perhaps rightly, that playing for England would allow him much better opportunities. Duleep made his debut for England the following summer.

In the winter of 1931–32, Duleep travelled to India to spend time with an ailing Ranji. Drafted into the Indian selection committee, Duleep discovered the talented Amar Singh that season. Duleep also played for the Viceroy’s XII against Roshanara Club, hitting 173 in the second innings. In the same innings, Pataudi scored 91 and the two shared a 189-run partnership.

Meanwhile, in India, a twenty-year-old Vijay Merchant was demonstrating his impeccable class with a serene 157 in the final of the Moin-ud-Dowlah Gold Cup. The match was played in December 1931, just before the Congress Working Committee took the decision to start the second phase of the Civil Disobedience Movement. On 4 January 1932, Mahatma Gandhi was arrested in Bombay and taken to the Yervada Jail. The Viceroy, Lord Willingdon, outlawed the Congress party. Protesting the arrest of Gandhi, the Hindu Gymkhana boycotted the 1932 cricket tour of England. That meant Merchant could not go, nor could other stalwarts such as L.P. Jai.

When All-India visited in 1932, it was Duleep who led Sussex against his countrymen in the opening first-class match of the tour. When the visitors beat Worcestershire by three wickets, Pataudi batted at No. 3 for the county, scoring 83 in the first innings. The following month, the all-important Gentlemen vs Players fixture was contested at Lord’s. Duleep batted at No. 3 and Pataudi at No. 4 for the Gentlemen. The former scored 132 and the latter hit 165, with the two sharing a 161-run partnership. Nearly 2,400 runs were scored between the two that season, but not one of those runs was for India.

What if all three—Pataudi, Duleep and Merchant—had been playing for India on that tour? What if, upon the dismissal of Wazir Ali to make it 110 for 3, it had been Duleep walking out to join Nayudu at the wicket? What if Pataudi had been slotted to come in after that and Merchant, who had not yet started opening the innings, was to follow at No. 6? We can only speculate.

If Some Codger Had …

In any case, in 1932 India did become a Test-playing nation—or a Test-playing ‘geographical entity’, if Churchill was to be taken seriously. England, Australia, New Zealand and white South Africa had already entered the Test fold. West Indies too had started playing Test cricket, always with a white man at the helm. India thus became the first Test-playing side to be led by a non-white cricketer. But that is also a story of what might have been, with a happy ending for a change.

Test status used to be granted with arbitrary randomness, characteristic of a game that was run for all intents and purposes as an exclusive private club. That was what cricket used to be, with the Imperial Cricket Conference continuing under that revealing name until 1963. It did change its name to ‘International Cricket Conference’ and eventually ‘International Cricket Council’, but until 1993 England