PAST & PRESENT
Batting for India
RAMACHANDRA GUHA
V.V. KRISHNAN
Rahul Dravid ... defying stereotype
WHO was the first great Indian batsman? The obvious answer is K.S. Ranjitsinhji. But the obvious answer is wrong, for although Ranji was Indian by birth, he was English by culture and cricketing education. A more likely candidate is Palwankar Vithal, who made his name playing for the Hindus in the Bombay Quadrangular. Another is C.K. Nayudu, the lithe, handsome six-hitter from Nagpur who was the first real crowd-puller in Indian cricket.
Vithal's career ended in 1929, three years before India played its first Test match. By that time Nayudu was 37, and well past his best. He did play seven Test matches, but his record in them was modest. Thus neither Vithal nor Nayudu were properly "Tested" in the highest form of cricket.
Luckier in this respect were Vijay Madhavi Merchant and Vijay Samuel Hazare. Both had a stupendous record in the Bombay Quadrangular — which had become a Pentangular by the time they played in it — as well as in the Ranji Trophy. But both also played Test cricket while still young and keen and on the top of their form. It is their deeds in this version of the game that more reliably establishes their place in the annals of Indian cricket.
Recently, while going through a pile of papers, I came across some faded clippings that bore testimony to the genius of the two Vijays. The first was a tribute to Merchant published in July 1954 in the Bangalore-based weekly MysIndia. It was written by "new Ebor", the nom de plume used by the respected cricket writer N.S. Ramaswami. Here, Ramaswami shared his memories of the first Test ever played in Madras — which was also the first Test ever played by Vijay Merchant. The contest was somewhat one-sided, with the visiting Englishmen winning without much difficulty. Merchant, recalled Ramaswami, was "the one Indian batsman who opposed acquirement to the annihilating speed of Clark, the insinuating danger of Verity and the bull-like rush of Nichols". What marked out the young man was his composure. Thus, wrote Ramaswami, "as wickets rolled and blood flowed (metaphorically as well as literally, as poor Naoomal was badly injured on the temple while attempting a hook off Clark), my frightened youthful imagination found refuge and solace in the calm, immovable figure of Merchant. I do not recall how many runs he made, but I have a fancy that he stayed at the crease throughout the match. This was the effect of the almost incredible composure with which he faced the England bowlers while most of his colleagues could make little of them".
Aside from a cool temperament, Merchant also had that "indefinable quality of style". As N.S. Ramaswami described it, "there was a certain heartening quality of crispness about his cuts. Here was no tentative approach to the ball, but an assured certainty of execution. His hooks were positively electrifying. It almost seemed a reversal of nature that there should be a reply to the thunderbolts of Clark. India badly lost that Test, but Indian cricket was much the richer for that innings".
This was an innings remembered fully 20 years after it was played. The other clipping I found was in the nature of a contemporary account. It was written just after the Adelaide Test of 1948. As in Madras in 1934, India lost heavily, but one Indian splendidly distinguished himself. This was Vijay Hazare, who scored a century in each innings. His batsmanship was the subject of an evocation written for the Illustrated Weekly of India by Arthur Mailey. Now Mailey could play cricket — he was the first of the great Australian googly bowlers — but he could also write (his 10 for 66 and All That are the most charming of cricketing autobiographies).
In his piece for the Illustrated Weekly, Mailey spoke of how "all the Australian critics have been tremendously impressed with Hazare's footwork, poise and general technique. And as far as grace and freedom of strokes are concerned, several put him in the same class as the immortal Trumper, Australia's idol." "I personally appreciated Hazare's innings," continued Mailey, particularly because of the manner in which he drove various deliveries through the covers by making half-volleys of the balls which might have proved fatal if he had played back. Such a glorious innings certainly lessens the bitterness of a defeat... ."
Mailey was struck by Hazare's skill on the off-side, but another Australian was impressed rather by his leg-side play. This was Keith Miller, who was one of the bowlers so comprehensively dominated by the Indian in that Test match. In his memoirs, Miller complained that his captain, Don Bradman, refused to give him an extra fielder behind square leg, although Hazare repeatedly hit him in that direction. One should not be surprised by this discrepancy — for, like most great batsmen, Hazare was a master of the off-side as well as the on.
No Indian has batted as well in Australia than Vijay Hazare: till Rahul Dravid, that is. I wonder if there were men at the Adelaide Oval this past December who were there in 1948. From what I have read and heard, Dravid does seem to have more than a little in common with Hazare. Generally, Bombay batsmen tend to be classical and orthodox, whereas batsmen from other parts of the subcontinent tend to be wristy and innovative. But both Hazare and Dravid defy the stereotype. They are the only Indians from outside of Bombay whom one could trust to save a Test match as well as win it.
In 2003-04 Dravid had the company Down Under of the peerless Sachin Tendulkar. Also at hand were Laxman and Ganguly. But when Hazare toured Australia he was not so fortunate. True, both Vinoo Mankad and Dattu Phadkar batted bravely on occasion, but how much happier India would have been had Vijay Merchant come along too! His absence through illness was a loss for the team, as well as for the spectators. The Australians, who are the most discerning of cricket lovers, have seen Dravid and Tendulkar bat together. Would they have also seen Merchant and Hazare.
Conventional wisdom, and the evidence of the Test record, holds that the two Vijays were the first of the great Indian batsmen. At least one of the Vijays thought otherwise. As a schoolboy, growing up in Bombay, Vijay Merchant's own hero was Palwankar Vithal. Years later, Merchant wrote of how he embodied "all the grace and charm of Indian batsmanship... . With supple wrists, keen vision, perfect judgment of flight and agile footwork, Vithal had mastered the art of (batting). He used to play his strokes with ease whether in front of the wicket or behind it ... But one superb stroke of his that I cannot forget is the cover drive. Nowadays a lot of effort and power goes into this stroke because of the off-side cordon. But due to his timing, Vithal used to score more runs on this side of the wicket, effortlessly, through perfect coordination of wrist and leg movements... . He used to score fast because of his art in placing the ball in the gaps."
Let us add to this printed evidence the strength of historical anecdote. Thus that cricket-mad Indian, Raj Singh Dungarpur, once told me that his father told him that "Vithal was as good as Hazare". And Raj Singh himself tells me that Hazare was as good as Sunil Gavaskar. And I will tell you that Gavaskar was as good as Dravid. So, by applying the transitive logic of modern mathematics, we arrive at the conclusion: Palwankar Vithal was as good a batsman as Rahul Dravid.
RAMACHANDRA GUHA, is a historian and a writer based in Bangalore. E-mail: ramguha@vsnl.com
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