Off Spins, Sixes And Surprises: Free Read| MERCHANT OF EXCELLENCE
Nothing comes even remotely close to the excitement that cricket evokes in both the young and the old in India. Cricket in India is a religion, with cricketers revered as gods. While we have grown up watching cricket on our televisions, we have felt the tension, euphoria and joy that cricketers on the field may have experienced while playing.
Of Spins, Sixes and Surprises: 50 Defining Moments in Indian Cricket is a humble attempt at reliving those occasions.
MERCHANT OF EXCELLENCE
While India had begun playing Test cricket abroad, the national cricket scene was in need of a structure. The Bombay Quadrangular was in the national consciousness, and there were other tournaments in cricketing centres across India. This was also the time of the country coming together and unshackling itself from the British rule. Mahatma Gandhi’s Salt Satyagraha had got the country together, and a tournament that pitted communities against one another naturally seemed at odds with the nation’s direction. As a result, the Bombay Quadrangular was paused between 1930 and 1934, and the time seemed perfect for an all-India state-wise cricket tournament, which was in line with a united India.
However, it was not a smooth sail. The Quadrangular was extremely popular, a lot more popular in the minds of the national cricket enthusiasts than the new, state-wise tournament, and its return was eagerly awaited. J.C. Maitra, sports editor of the Bombay Chronicle and a proponent of the national zonal cricket tournament (as opposed to a communal one) had to agree.
But it would be unfair to blame the common cricket fan. The Quadrangular was a popular, long-standing tournament, and the anticipation during the four-year gap had made it even more so. On the other hand, state boundaries had only recently been drawn in many cases, and several of the teams in this nationwide cricket tournament were aggregated teams from multiple states. Take the example of a few teams in the tournament: United Provinces, Northern India, Central Provinces and Berar, and Central India. These are not teams with a commonality or drawn out of a common entity, be it linguistic or cultural. On the other hand, the Parsees, Europeans, Hindus and Muslims can very easily be identified with, and supported by, the members of those communities. However, as the Quadrangular lost importance and the interstate competition expanded to include most states, the latter became immensely popular.
Some excellent books have been written on the competition between the two tournaments. For now, it’s enough to say that some of the most influential administrators of the times were involved in the fracas. Ranji got involved. Even the Mahatma’s opinion was sought. The winning team of the tournament was almost given the Lord Willingdon Trophy instead of the Ranji Trophy! In the two competing factions were the Maharaja of Patiala and the Maharajkumar of Vizianagram —both of whom offered to present the trophy given to the winner. Maharaja of Patiala won in the end, and his trophy, named the Ranji Trophy, was eventually the one that was presented, and not the one from Vizianagram, which was the one named after Lord Willingdon.
The inter-zonal tournament eventually started in 1934. This first edition included 15 teams. South Zone was represented by Madras, Mysore and Hyderabad; West by Gujarat,Maharashtra, Bombay, Sind and Western India; North by United Provinces, Northern India, Delhi, Southern Punjab and the Army; East by Central Provinces and Berar and Central India.
The first match of the competition was played on 4 November 1934, between Madras and Mysore. It still holds a unique record in the annals of Indian cricket—it was completed in one day! Mysore, batting first, were dismissed for 48. Madras then batted, and was all out for 130. Mysore then proceeded to get all out for 59, thus handing out an innings-and-23-run victory to Madras, all on Day 1 of the match.
10 Brilliant performances littered the tournament. S.M. Hadi of Hyderabad was the first man to score a century in the tournament, with an unbeaten 132 against Madras. George Abell of Northern India scored the tournament’s first doublehundred—201 in his match against the Army. Baqa Jilani, who later gained infamy over a fracas with Nayudu on the England tour of 1936, took a hat-trick in the semi-final, playing for Northern India against Southern Punjab. A.G. Ram Singh of Madras, the patriarch of a family that had seen first-class cricketers for three generations, took the most wickets in the tournament, scalping 22 batters.
Bombay vs Northern India, Ranji Trophy Final, Gymkhana Ground, Bombay, 9–12 March 1935
The tournament eventually reached its finals on 9 March, at the Gymkhana Ground was meeting Northern India in the finals. Kanga might lay claim to being the first batter of the ‘Bombay School’ of batting, but the first true great of that pedigree was indubitably Vijaysingh Madhavji Merchant. This tournament saw the establishment of the legend Vijay Merchant.
The two teams were almost equally strong on paper. Bombay had, along with Merchant, present and future India players in wicketkeeper Dattaram Hindlekar and captain L.P. Jai. Northern India had Baqa Jilani, fresh from his hat-trick in the semi-final; George Abell of the double hundred fame; Amir Elahi who went on to become a dual-international for India and Pakistan; quick bowler Devraj Puri; and the father of the voice of sports on Doordarshan in the ’80s and the ’90s, Narottam Puri.
Bombay batted first. The Northern India bowlers breathed fire, with Puri, Saeed Ahmed and Mubarak Ali taking wickets(Jilani had an off day) to dismiss Bombay for 266. Merchant was run-out for 9 runs. Even that score would have been difficult to reach had it not been for a rearguard 54 by the No. 8 batter Padmakar Chury.
In reply, Northern India could not build up substantial partnerships either and collapsed for 219, giving Bombay an unexpected first-innings lead. The chief wicket-taker for Bombay was Merchant, who took three wickets with his medium-pacers.
Bombay’s second innings saw Merchant excel again, this time displaying full batting pomp. After 5 wickets had fallen for 70, with Bombay teetering on the edge, Merchant had a scintillating 135-run partnership with experienced quickbowling all-rounder Hormasji Vajifdar. Merchant scored a brilliant 120, Vajifdar had 71, and Bombay crept up to a respectable round 300 all out, leaving Northern India with the daunting task of scoring 348 runs to win the final.
Vajifdar was an equal hero of the finals, along with Merchant, as he got his best first-class performance of 8/40,leaving the Northern India team all out for 139 runs—a full 208 runs short.
Bombay had won the tournament, the first of many, helped by a scintillating innings by their star player Merchant, and a once-in-a-lifetime performance by Vajifdar.
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