NAYUDU_THOUGHTS_SEP1995

Nayudu: "A Born Cricketer" (from Berry Sarbadhikary`s "My world of cricket") ---------- ---------- --------------------------------------------------------

Sixty years ago - on October 31, 1895 - the Nayudu family domiciled then in Nagpur, India, had an addition to it. That child was destined to create history in the cricket world.

"You have only to see him pick up a ball to know he is a born cricketer", commented Sir Jack Hobbs on his first sight of Nayudu, Cottari Kankaiya Nayudu, that tall and lissom figure of ebony who in an unbroken sequence held the Indian cricket public in a spell for over three decades as no other cricketer in the history of the game in this country has ever done. Or, perhaps, ever will.

I had learnt the truth of Hobbs`s statement the bitter way. Those were the days of All-India cricket tournaments, the most famous and important being that run by the Roshanara Club of Delhi which saw the cream of cricket talent from all over the country besides a few reputed English professionals collected by the Princes such as Patiala, Bhopal and Vizianagram.

It was a warm October day in 1929 in the picturesque environs of the Roshanara Gardens and despite a matting wicket I had settled down very comfortably against the Vizianagram bowlers including Azim Khan, P.Yoganathan (Madras), Prof. S. S. Joshi, Sahabuddin and, last but not least, C.K. Nayudu himself. So much so indeed that The Statesman next day commented I had "mastered" the Vizianagram bowling.

But both The Statesman and I had counted without the amazing C.K. Prof S. S. Joshi was a top-flight left-arm slow bowler of the orthodox school and sent them down with the precision of a machine and the Roshanara coir matting wicket afforded him plenty of "bite". Nevertheless I was on top of the Professor - or so I thought - as I played back to him meticulously to keep the ball down.

I must have relaxed for just a split-second in my dead-bat technique, and the ball travelled about 4 inches from the bat as it was dropping to the ground. Imagine my surprise when I saw a pair of dark brown hands appear from nowhere and make a great catch an inch or two from the ground ! I was out.

That I relate this incident at such great length is because it sums up the qualities that made C.K., "one of the greatest living cricketers", as the G.O.M. of English cricket, C. B. Fry, described him. An extraordinary cricketing brain that leads to such remarkable anticipation back up, of course, by an amazing reflex.

Praises such as Sir Jack Hobbs and C. B. Fry paid to C. K. were heaped on him by English critics when he made his *debut* in official Test cricket in 1932 at the age of 1937 which is very high in the history of international cricket. What endeared him to the knowledgable English critics and the crowd were not his six centuries including an unbeaten 118 on his first appearance at Lord`s; his 1618 runs in first-class matches with the average of over 40 : his 65 wickets at 25 runs apiece : his many brilliant catches close to the wicket which bordered on the miraculous : his extremely intelligent and courageous leadership. It was the sum total of all these and how he did them that appealed to the imagination of the critics and marked him out as one of the greatest allrounders of that - or any other - age.

With his great height, his silken but steely wrists, his amazing eye and reflex, C.K., like all geniuses in the game, sighted the ball a fraction of a second earlier than the average great batsmen. Like them he played his strokes late and he was one of the most stylish front-of-the-wicket players the game has ever seen. His rare gift permitted him to combine the orthodox with the unorthodox and indulge in what has been called the "hittingagainst-the-break" mania. But C.K. turned it into almost an exact science. The orthodox English mind at once spotted in this "mania" a weak link in C.K.`s armoury, and leg-break bowlers deliberately "fed" him. The result was 36 sixes in the 1932 English season and particular hit at Lord`s was described by an English critic as : "the ball was sailing in an Easterly direction".

In 1933, Wisden selected C.K. as one of the "Five Cricketers of the Year" - a rare distinction. But it was left to friend J.M. Kilburn of the Yorkshire {pst to pay C.K. perhaps the greatest tribute when on a rain-damaged wicket he scored 41 out of India`s paltry total of 86 against the redoubtable Yorkshire. Said Kilburn :

"Only when Nayudu was batting did the wizardry of Bowes`s swing disappear, only when Nayudu was batting did the Demons of Verity`s spin vanish from our consciousness".

But, no. There is still Douglas Jardine, a critic very hard to please, who commented :

"Nayudu at the wicket is comparable to a right-handed Woolley. Both remain masters of execution of every shot the game knows".

With the ball Nayudu always "bowled with his head", as the late Sir Stanley Jackson did. At medium-slow he bowled his outswinger mixed up with the off-breaks : at slower still he varied his off-breaks a good deal and not unoften bowled what would be termed a leg-cutter today.

As a fieldsman C.K. was in the Constantine class and I shall never forget the manner in which he ran Andy Sandham out on the historic Eden Gardens way back in 1926. Sandham played a ball late past the slips, left the crease by a yard as he watched the ball travel rather slowly : C.K. pounced on the ball like a panther and before anybody realised what happened, he had thrown the wickets down as a bewildered and hypnotised Sandham saw everything but was unable to move. The whole episode seemed fantastic.

As a captain, C.K. was always attacking, and his boldness in not employing a third man nor a fine-leg with the fast Mahomed Nissar bowling to batsmen like Walter Hammond and Patsy Hendren is quoted even today whenever the modern "Carmody field" often used by the Aussies is talked about.

Yes, C.K. was one of the greatest, judged by any standards of any age. This is far from a biographical sketch - it would take volumes to write it - and it is no use going back to his amazing prowess as a boy on the playing fields of sunbaked and dry Nagpur, nor how at the age of over 50 he hit up a double century in a Ranji Trophy final for Holkar against Hyderabad.

But one can hardly resist the temptation of mentioning, however briefly, his spectacular entry into the Bombay Quadrangular which he dominated long and so convincingly : or his 153 against Arthur Gilligan`s M.C.C. team in hardly 100 minutes including 11 sixes and 13 fours against bowlers of the type of Maurice Tate and George Geary - an innings which "terrified the fieldsmen, dazzled everybody`s eye, broke all rules of batting, science and logic, and stirred the crowd to wonder and delight" : his patient and dogged innings of 39 in over three hours in the Calcutta Test against England of the 1933-34 series - rather an anticlimax - which nevertheless saved India from a certain defeat : his intelligent bowling and his superb handling of bowlers and rare gift of leadership which gave India possibly one of her few great captains.

That was C.K. Nayudu, the cricketer, as I knew him. But the most outstanding feature of his career was the care he took to maintain his physical fitness. He believed in practice in sunshine or in rain which helped him hold amazing catches even at the age of 55, hit up hundreds and bowl`em out as much with his arm as with his brains.

Later I have known C.K. as a cricket administrator, a selector, a writer and a broadcaster. We have had some very interesting hours in the press box and the radio commentator`s booth and I wish he could devote more time to these as his unparalleled experience would be such a great asset.

But give me once again C.K. as he walks down to the wicket bat in hand which in itself would electrify thousands and thousands of spectators with pleasurable anticipation. Give me C.K. as he pulls that wide off-ball against the gbreak which is "last seen sailing in an Easterly direction". Let me have a sight of C.K. once again bowling that magnificent off-break which uproots, say, C. F. Walter`s leg-stump. Let us see C.K. waving to his fieldsmen ever so slightly. And, above all, give us C.K. once again as he holds that miraculous catch even if I were to be the bewildered batsman wending my way pavilion-wards, and I shall be happy and content.*

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* An abridged and revised version of "An Appreciation" of Lt.- Col. C. K. Nayudu is written by the author and published in the 1956 Indian Cricketer Annual. Since then Nayudu has been awarded the title of Padma Bhusan bu the President of the Republic of India, generally speaking, for Nayudu`s services to the cause of cricket in India. Born on OCtober 31, 1895, although not the elected captain, Nayudu led India in her maiden Test match against England at Lord`s on June 25, 27 and 28, 1932 - the only Test allotted to India on that tour. In 1933-34, however, he was appointed captain of India for all three Test matches at home against England under D. R. Jardine.