Contractor nominated for CK Nayudu award
Nari Contractor, the former India captain, has been chosen for the CK Nayudu lifetime achievement award
Cricinfo staff
27-Sep-2007
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The CK Nayudu award comes with a trophy, a citation and a revised cash prize of Rs. 15 lakh (approx. US$ 38,000). Till the last year the award came with a prize of Rs 5 lakh (approx. US$ 12,658).
"I am very grateful to the board and Sharad Pawar and the committee for choosing me for the award," Contractor told Cricinfo.
He said he never played the game for the money. "We never played cricket to receive anything. We were shelling out money to play cricket. We used to get Rs 250 as remuneration and I remember when we won the series against MCC in 1961-62 in Chennai [Contractor's last game in India] we got Rs 300 as remuneration for winning the series."
Contractor, who played 31 Tests and scored over 1600 runs between 1955 and 1962, is best known for having his career abruptly curtailed when he was hit, almost fatally, by a Charlie Griffith bouncer, in a tour match against Barbados. His life was in danger for a time and it took several complicated and time-consuming emergency surgeries to save his life.
Contractor came into the limelight by scoring 92 against West Indies at Delhi in 1958-59 and then attracted notice on the 1959 tour of England. In the second Test at Lord's, he suffered a broken rib but carried on manfully to get top score of 81 in a total of 168. Against the Australians in 1959-60 he scored 438 runs, notching up his first - and as events proved his only - Test century, at Bombay.
He was chosen as India's captain against Pakistan in 1960-61, at 26 the youngest person to be appointed to the post. The next season, he led India to a historic series victory over England. He was at his peak both as captain and batsman when he was struck by Griffith. Almost two years after that blow to his head, he returned to play first-class cricket. But despite a brave attempt to stage a comeback to Test cricket, he never could quite make it.
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Contractor, who began his first-class career by scoring a century in each innings for Gujarat against Baroda, made more than 8000 runs at an average of nearly 40 at that level of the game.
A committee comprising Sharad Pawar, the BCCI president, Inderjit Singh Bindra, president of the Punjab Cricket Association and a former BCCI president, Niranjan Shah, the secretary, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, the former Indian captain and Prabhash Joshi, a veteran Hindi journalist, met in Mumbai on Thursday and unanimously agreed to give the award to Contractor.
"He was a great captain and a great role model," Pataudi said soon after the committee made its decision. "I played under him for the first time when we beat Ted Dexter's side 2-0 in 1961-62. I learnt a lot from him."
Contractor said he played cricket for the challenge and was never over-awed by any occasion. "When I went in to bat against Baroda in my debut first-class match on a matting wicket in 1952, I went No. 6 and hit a century." Gujarat were tottering at 81 for 5 when Contractor stitched together a 241-run partnership with Jyotindra Shodhan to lift them out of trouble. Again in the second innings, batting at No. 5, he made 102.
"When I opened for India against New Zealand [his debut game] I had never opened in my past, but I took it up as a challenge. I always enjoyed the challenge in cricket and that's why I came back to the game after being injured."