Nawab of Indian Cricket.

Imagine; in cricket that you are at the crease and about to face a formidable bowler like say Wesley Hall or Gilchrest or the notorious Charlie Griffith. You are protected only with an abdomen pad and a pair of batting gloves and leg pads and not with those fancy protections like a helmet with a visor chest and elbow pads etc available to all batsmen of modern day cricket. Also imagine that you are totally blind on your right eye!   How will you take that situation? Face it or run away from itMansour Ali Khan Pataudi (Tiger) was a man who decided to face it come what may and created history of sort in his chosen carrier.

When he took-up the captaincy of the Indian CricketTeam, Nawab of Pataudi  was all his 21 years and 77 days old and  the situation, to put it mildly, was very tense. Previous captain the flamboyant Nari Contractor was struck down and incapacitated in the previous match by a vicious delivery by the C. Griffith. Veteran Polly Umrigar refused to lead the team. The mantle fell on Pattaudi (Jr) as the outgoing captain vehemently recommended his name for the post. Since then he never looked back. 

I remember, as a school boy from Kerala, where popularity of cricket was just picking up, listening to all India Radio commentaries of the test matches and watching our heroes in the two minutes clips available in the Newsreels shown along with usual cinema in the local theatres. I also remember myself and my brother cajoling my uncle to get permission to watch only that portion at the local cinema where he had some friendship with the owner himself.

Now a day in my soft skill training classes I impress up on my listeners about the need of having a role model. I can proudly say now that Tiger (as he was nicknamed) was my role model who remained the same throughout.

I was in Bombay; in 1969-70 when Australia visited India and we lost the first two matches.

An arrogant Bill Lawry had predicted that in the Delhi  test, “if I win the toss, will wind up the match in four days and go for fishing on the fifth day”. Australia won the toss but lost the match in four days. The next day a famous cartoon appeared in the “Free Press Journal” daily. It was like this. Pataudi was shown fishing and finds a fish popping its head out and asking him “Where is Lawry”?    

When he got married with Sharmila Tagore, arguably the reigning diva of Indian Cinema I was rather disappointed; not because that I felt that he was not a suitable match for her but the other way round. How long he can maintain the relation with such a flippant woman I wondered. This was not only my impression. The general view in the bollywood was also that this was not going to last. But they proved the Doomsayers wrong hands down. Ms. Tagore proved that she had the capacity to keep a marriage going all through the years.

I was in Delhousie on an official tour circa 1973. A film shoot for the film “ek mahal ho sapnomka” was taking place there. Sharmila was acting in it. It was rumoured that tiger will be coming to be with his beau. I remember waiting at the hotel premises for hours to have a glimpse of my hero. 

In a touching piece of remembrance Vijay Lokapally has written that “In the 60s and early 70s, we only talked about Pataudi. We wanted to bat like him, field like him, we wanted to be (only) Pataudi.” Somewhere else I also read that children of that time used to keep their right eye close while practicing batting to emulate him in ditto. Here let me share a secret of mine. I honestly wished those days that I lost the sight of my right eye to be like Tiger my Hero.

When asked what really exited him he quipped. – “The sight of a wild elephant. With the ears and the trunk stuck out and coming at you. That really terrifies me and excites me”. 

Tiger might have finished his innings; but will definitely remain not out for a long time to come.