Hit hard

LIKE countless other Indians, I am an irregular reader of the columns of Khushwant Singh. The Sardar is always lucid and informative, occasionally self-indulgent or silly but never pompous. Over the years, I have read Khushwant's remarks on books good and bad, his tributes to Indians old and young. I have read his translations of Urdu and Punjabi verse and his re-telling of jokes sent to him by his admirers. And, I can now also say, I have read his views on our favourite sport.

Khushwant began his "Malice" column sometime in the mid-1970s, that is, well after the arrival on the international stage of that superbly skilled slow bowler, Bishan Bedi. He has continued writing long enough to take account of the next great spinner from his community. What (to my knowledge) is Khushwant's first column on cricket has been inspired by the recent work with the ball of Harbhajan Singh. Those 32 wickets in three Tests provoked the writer to recall his own days on the playing field. These, by his own admission, were brief and undistinguished. As Khushwant writes: "Having a mortal fear of the stone-hard ball, I refused to play cricket in my younger days. My mentor assured me that it was very simple: siddhi roke, dingee thoke - block the straight ball, slam the crooked one. But what about the one which comes like a bullet towards your nose or the genitals? No thank you. Even hockey was for me safer than cricket".

While first reading this recollection something stirred in my mind. Where had I heard an admonition vaguely similar to that handed down to the young Khushwant by his teacher in Lahore?

A book or two was consulted, and the mystery cleared itself. It was, of course, the instructions passed on to the young Cottari Kankaiya Nayudu by his uncle. This uncle had been a classmate of Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji at Cambridge. When he told his old friend of his nephew's interest in cricket, Ranji conveyed but eight words of advice: "Balla Seedha Rakho. Jore se Maro. Ghabrao Mat".

Hindi is our national language, but in deference to those readers of The Hindu who do not know the tongue - or for political reasons will not speak it - let me translate Ranji's words. "Keep your Bat Straight. Don't Funk. And Hit Hard". In three crisp phrases, one finds an entire philosophy of batsmanship.

C.K. Nayudu soaked in these words well. He batted straight and hit hard - and high. Some time else I might write of 13 sixes he hit against an MCC side in Bombay 75 years ago, of the ball hit out of Lord's "last seen sailing in an easterly direction", of the countless over-boundaries struck by him out of stadiums spread across India. Here let me focus instead on Nayudu's physical courage, his fearlessness, his complete and total absorption of that last clause: Ghabrao Mat.

Consider, to begin with, C.K.'s astonishing longevity. He made his first-class debute for the Hindus in the Bombay Quadrangular of 1916, aged 21. But he had to wait another 16 years before being allowed to appear in his first Test match. This Test was also India's first, and was played at Lord's in June 1932. Denied the chances on the international stage available to the likes of Gavaskar and Tendulkar, Nayudu compensated somewhat by extending his domestic career.

In 1945, aged 50, he scored an unbeaten double 100 in the final of the Ranji Trophy, against a side that included three Test bowlers. He was to play first-class cricket for a further 11 years, erect and upright to the last, fit enough to bat and bowl and field through three days in the sun. His last Ranji Trophy match was in the season of 1956-57, when he hit 84 for Uttar Pradesh against Rajasthan. Many of these runs were scored off the great Vinoo Mankad. In this farewell innings Nayudu was run out, after dropping his bat while going for a third run.

So much for his physical endurance. Let me speak now of his physical courage. In his last Test innings, played at the Oval in August 1936, C.K. was struck over the heart by a ball from England's fastest bowler, Gubby Allen. He sunk to the turf, and an eyewitness later claimed that his sigh was audible across the ground. But he rose stiffly to his feet, waved off help, and pulled the next ball - short against, naturally - over mid-wicket for four. He went on to make 81 in a brave, but in the end unavailing, bid to help India save the match.

A decade-and-a-half later, C.K. was playing for Holkar against Bombay in the final of the Ranji Trophy. This time too he was struck by a bouncer from a young and international class fast bowler, Dattu Phadkar. There was, however, one difference: this ball hit him full on the mouth rather than on his chest. C.K. now spat out three front teeth, swept them away impatiently with his bat, and prepared to face the next ball. Phadkar, out of respect for the Old Man, cut down his pace. "Dattu," said Nayudu sternly, "I am fine - do not help up." He went on to score 60 against a side that continued as many as six Test bowlers.

Some cricket illiterates, the American ones particularly, believe this to be a soft sport. Cricket is not boxing, but it is in truth as hard as any other ball game. Its apparent leisureliness conceals the dangers it contains, these encountered especially by batsmen on bouncy wickets and by close fielders everywhere. The fielders in baseball are protected by the mitt. Ours have to catch the ball with their bare hands. And they stand far closer to the striker, too.

Things were even more hazardous when batsmen did not have helmets to wear, and the shin-guard that short-leg and silly-point now use had not been invented. Men like C. K. Nayudu batted bare-head and fielded with the protection only of trousers half-an-inch thick. That they kept going as long and as bravely as they did is owed in good part to their unswerving dedication to that celebrated injunction: Ghabrao Mat.

RAMACHANDRA GUHA

The writer is the editor of the recently released Picador Book of Cricket.

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