Pankaj Roy was every bit Sourav's match

THE PUNCH that Pankaj Roy packed in his `right' matched the zing that Sourav Ganguly brings to his `left'. Commentators today exult about the wallop that Sourav imparts to his cover-drive, deriving his `balance of power' at the wicket from sheer timing. Telecasters who so acclaim Sourav never really saw Pankaj Roy strike out a path of his own - for Bengal, East Zone and India. The man was every centimetre Sourav's match in the precision and decision with which he played an array of shots. I was with Pankaj right through his maiden overseas tour (England 1952). There was, to his cherubic countenance, a soulful warmth that saw Pankaj make friends. And keep them by never seeking to influence people. Pankaj Roy went to England as the finest young striker of a cricket ball in India. He knew (during that 1952 English summer) a scale of unforeseen failure that would have broken a less determined performer. In the land of Rudyard Kipling, Pankaj comprehended, early, the meaning of: ``If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, And treat those two impostors just the same. Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!''

Man enough I beheld Pankaj Roy to be on tour, as he went through the trauma of registering no fewer than 5 ducks in 7 Test innings. The same Pankaj Roy was a different batsman altogether on India's maiden tour of the West Indies (in the first quarter of 1953), enjoying the best overseas series of his decade-long Test career (in the brighter conditions of the Caribbean) with a scoreline of 1 and 22; 49 and 0; 28 and 48; 85 and 150. With 383 runs (ave 47.87) from 8 innings in 4 Tests, Pankaj Roy's match- saving 150 in the fifth and final Sabina Park Test came as the tour de force, forcing Jeff Stollmeyer's West Indies to settle for a 1-0 series win. True, the quality of pace in the Caribbean then was not forbidding. But, if it is thus we plot the points on Pankaj Roy's careergraph, his best Test knock, I say, was against the thunderbolts of Roy Gilchrist and Wesley Hall. My reference is to the Vijay Merchant-hailed 90 that Pankaj Roy hit (on December 2 1958) to rescue Polly Umrigar's India from almost certain defeat (at the Brabourne Stadium) in the first Test of what turned out to be a genuinely fearsome series for our men.

A series in which Hall and Gilchrist peppered Pankaj Roy black and blue. No helmet, no thigh-pad, no nothing, yet Pankaj Roy stood exemplarily firm, for over 7 hours, in the Brabourne middle. And Pankaj Roy lived to be 72 without ever changing his attitude or approach to the game. His fearlessness as an opener, I saw, had been the same when he squared up to Cuan McCarthy, Freddie Trueman and Frank Tyson (the latter two as freshers) on the 1952 tour of England. There are those who view Pankaj Roy's 99, in the first Test vs Australia at Ferozeshah Kotla in December 1959, as his best India-opening effort. Only because radio listeners graphically remember the AIR commentator describing how Pankaj Roy (on 99) was psyched by Aussie skipper Richie Benaud into tapping that dolly catch into his short-leg hands (off Lindsay Kline)! Gritty as that 99 at Delhi vs Australia was, Pankaj Roy's one-year-earlier 90, at Bombay vs the West Indies, remains the bravest innings of his career. Chandu Borde has a point when he observes that today's batsmen (given all that protective equipment) never did have to face the calibre of pace that Gilchrist and Hall generated on our own pitches. And Pankaj Roy, do not forget, stood up to that awesome twosome right through the nerve-shattering 1958-59 series, at home, with resolution and resilience.

Moving beyond that 90 and 99, which of Pankaj Roy's 5 Test centuries for India do we flesh out as his best? The actuaries of the game would inevitably point to the 173 that this sturdy opener hit while partnering Vinoo Mankad (231) in that world- record opening stand of 413 during the fifth Test at Madras, against Harry Cave's New Zealand, in the first week of January 1956. But spectators rewinding to that 413-run stand, at the Corporation Stadium, would testify that those were runs struck against the weakest attack, at that point, in international cricket. And Roy was a Royal Bengal Tiger against anything short of peak pace! The chinks in his armour came to the fore only when confronted by genuine quicks on faster wickets abroad. That is why I pick out Pankaj Roy's Sabina Park 150 (hit against the pace of Frank King) as his best century knock for India.

Pankaj Roy was not one to yield his wicket cheaply - as a solid striker of the ball with a range of shots that generally saw him weather the new-ball threat to reserve his best stroke production for spin. Off the back-foot, Pankaj Roy (with that super square- cut) could be positively murderous.

Chepauk was captive witness to Pankaj's power-play as he hit that 1952 tour place-clinching 111 in the February 1952 fifth Test vs Donald Carr's England. That Chepauking-size hundred, coming as a follow-up to his stroke-laden 140 in the second Test at the Brabourne Stadium during the same 1951-52 series, prompted Leslie Smith (covering the tour for Reuters) to pronounce Pankaj Roy to be India's finest prospect for the tour of England on the anvil.

Was Pankaj Roy then overrated? Not at all, if only because it was a seasoned writer spotting the spark in a thoroughbred. That spark had to be sustained, of course. Only assessed by this yardstick did Pankaj Roy, at times, fall short. Otherwise, his 2442 runs (ave 32.56) from 79 innings in 43 Tests for India (with 5 hundreds and 9 fifties) are not figures to dismiss lightly, always remembering that this Bengal Trojan opened in times when the new ball posed a chronic problem for this nation still nascent in international cricket. The number of Test ducks (14) against Pankaj Roy's name could certainly have been fewer, but then this is where his mental block began. Once the `zero hour' was past, Pankaj Roy generally took root to captivate viewers with his shot-making pedigree. The 11,868 runs (ave 42.38) and 33 centuries he hit, in a career spanning 22 years, saw Pankaj Roy hold his India slot on sheer performance.

Yet there was an inherent contradiction in the man's batting. For instance, Pankaj Roy looked dead-set as he grafted 35 while opening with Vinoo Mankad in that reassuring stand of 106, as the famous Lord's Test of June 1952 got underway. After looking the picture of security during that 35 came, inexplicably, 4 (of those 5) Test ducks in a row. And Pankaj Roy was only marginally a better proposition, as he returned to England for the 1959 tour. In a team of lambs ready for slaughter, he had a Test scoreline of 54 and 49; 15 and 0; 2 and 20; 15 and 21; 3 and 0. But, in the second Test at Lord's, he led India with aptitude and imagination (in Dattajirao Gaekwad's absence). In fact, in the BBC round-up (strictly for India) at the end of a 5-0 sweep by England, `Vizzy' even asked Dattu Gaekwad whether he felt it would have made a difference if Pankaj Roy had led India in his place! ``I don't want to answer that question!'' was Dattu Gaekwad's ultra-bold response. Dattu Gaekwad never captained India again.

Nor did Pankaj Roy skipper India again, after it had been established that (like Sourav Ganguly) the man had admirable qualities of leadership. The shots Pankaj brought off, if Sourav could but get to glimpse them now! They would have Ganguly wondering what Pankaj lacked that he commands. Through the covers, Pankaj sent the ball to the fence like streaked lightning. And Pankaj, helmetless, was a fierce hooker, getting better `inside the line' than does Sourav. Plus Pankaj was no less dominant against spin than Sourav.

If Pankaj faltered, it was only against the highest class of pace. And that mainly on pitches abroad in conditions alien to him. Could Sourav say that he is any more certain than was Pankaj in a `seaming atmosphere' abroad?

There is thus nothing I see Sourav doing, today, that Pankaj did not do equally resourcefully with the willow. This should be manifest from the fact that Pankaj Roy stayed the Test course through 11 series in an era during which team selection, in India, was a matter of whim when not fancy. Pankaj Roy's aggregate of 334 (ave 33.40) from 10 innings in the 5 Tests of 1958-59 (against Gerry Alexander's West Indies in India) underscores the spirit animating the man's cricket. Pankaj Roy fairly proved himself against the mighty West Indies, England and Australia, the three great powers in the game during the time he represented India.

Pankaj Roy never let failure get to him. In fact, the setbacks he suffered taught Pankaj one thing - never to neglect his fielding. This is one area in which the stocky frame of Pankaj comes through as Sourav's superior. Pankaj (like Sourav) loved football, but cricket was his passion. Pankaj Roy never gave anything less than 100 per cent to the team, attracting as much notice in holding the 16 catches he did, in Tests, as in scoring nearly 2500 runs for India.

The fact that the maximum quantum of those runs for India, 717 at 39.83, came from 18 innings in 9 Tests against the West Indies is proof positive that Pankaj Roy never shirked his role as opener. Having begun his international career as an opener alongside a Vijay Merchant scoring a masterly 154 (in the November 1951 first Test at Kotla vs Nigel Howard's England), Pankaj Roy knew, from the outset, what it took to be India's No. 1 against a paceman of Brian Statham's fire and fibre. Now, when Brian Statham is no more, Pankaj Roy is no less - as one who drove straight with flair. The image, it will endure.

RAJU BHARATAN

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