Warrior of the old school turns 81

Col. Hemu Adhikari, India's oldest living Test player after MJ Gopalan, Lala Amarnath, CS Nayudu, Mushtaq Ali, Vijay Hazare and KC Ibrahim, turns 81 today. Legend has it that when Adhikari was in England as manager with the 1971 team, the abrasive Fred Trueman greeted him with the words, "Glad to see, Colonel, that you've got your colour back." This was a legacy of his unhappy 1952 campaign when he suffered the mortification of making three ducks in five Test innings. The tale may well be apocryphal but it does an injustice to the Colonel's pluck on sundry other occasions.

A veteran of 21 Tests in the 1940s and 50s, Adhikari was a lower middle order bat who made it his preoccupation to launch relief operations whenever his colleagues up the order exposed their frailties. This was best illustrated when he compiled his only Test century, against the Caribbean tourists in 1948-49. Replying to a massive score of 631 at the Kotla, the Indians had slipped to 249/5 when Adhikari wended his way to the crease and proceeded to camp there for the next four hours. Shielding the tail judiciously, he marshalled the total to within 28 runs of avoiding the follow on before running out of partners on 114.

A brilliant cover point, Adhikari's fleet footwork was matched by unerring accuracy in his returns that left many a man short of his ground. Not a naturally gifted fielder, he practiced meticulously to finetune his catching and throwing skills and lift his speed and endurance levels. Indeed the players on the 1971 tour to England testify that he was a maniac for fielding practice.

Making his first class debut as a seventeen-year-old for Gujarat against Western India in the Ranji Trophy of 1936-37, Adhikari top scored in both innings. Five years on, he had matured enough to command a steady place for Hindus in the Pentangular. The War delayed Adhikari's arrival onto the international scene but in the 1945-46 Ranji season he signalled with a flourish that he was ready for the eventuality. A personal haul of 555 runs at 69.37 saw Baroda through to the Ranji Trophy final which they lost to Holkar.

Passed up for the trip to England in the summer of '46, Adhikari was among the touring party to Australia in 1947-48 where he was tossed up and down the order like a yo-yo. He did however display flashes of the temperament that was to earn him a later reputation for thriving under adversity. Adhikari's Test career lasted eleven years before he bid adieu in curious but compelling circumstances in 1958-59 against the same opponents and at the same scene of his heroics ten years earlier.

Although visiting England in 1952 as Hazare's deputy, Adhikari had since been overlooked for other contenders, his only brush with the India captaincy until then being in a solitary match against the touring SJOC team in 1953-54. Now he was recalled at the age of 39 to captain the final Test, the fourth Indian captain in that bizarre series. Not only did he halt a three match losing streak but also scored 63 & 40 in the two innings and for good measure picked up 3/68 with his ingenuous leg breaks.

When the 1959 touring party to England was announced, Adhikari's name was not among them. A youthful rival, Dattajirao Gaekwad, had beaten him to the captaincy stakes. The Colonel's international career was over. The disappointment was palpable but not everlasting, for twelve years down the line came that glorious summer of '71.