by Kalyanbrata Bhattacharyya
In the early 1960s, a bunch of young Indian cricketers achieved iconic status among the lovers of the game. The regal Tiger Pataudi, the ebullient Farokh Engineer, the stylish ML Jaisimha, the cherubic Abbas Ali Baig, and the elegant Salim Durani captivated our imagination. Spectators swarmed to witness them in action in the cricket field.
From Kabul to Rajasthan
Before the entry of Afghanistan in the world cricket arena, Durani was the only international cricketer born in Kabul. He was born on the 11th December 1934, though some accounts mention that his date of birth is the 15th August.
His father, Abdul Aziz, came to India in 1937, played in two unofficial Test matches. Although he chose to move to Pakistan following the partition of the country, Durani stayed back in Rajasthan with his mother.
His father followed the game with avid interest. Though his son was initially a right-handed batsman, his father wanted him to bat left-handed and tucked his right hand behind him during practice. He sought the services of th great Vinoo Mankad in coaching young Durani a few tricks of left-arm orthodox spin . Durani has mentioned during an interview that after the Maharaja of Udaipur watched him bat during a match, he asked Mankad whether this young man would like to come to Rajasthan. When Mankad broached the issue, he agreed.
Into top League
Durani made his debut in first-class cricket in 1953 for Saurashtra at the tender age of 18 and slammed a century. However, later he played most of his first-class cricket for Rajasthan and Gujarat . He honed his skills further under the watchful eyes of Raj Singh of Dungarpur at Rajasthan. Dungarpur, blessed with an astute cricket brain, virtually ran Indian cricket for a considerable while in the 1990s.
Durani made his Test match debut primarily as a batsman at Bombay on New Year 1960. It was against Richie Benaud’s Australian team . After bowling India to a miraculous victory in the previous Test at Kanpur, Jasu Patel sustained an injury. Durrani replaced him and himself got injured while fielding. He batted at No 10 , scoring18 runs. He bowled only one over in the second innings, conceding as many as 19 runs.
A year later, he took 8 for 99 runs in the Ranji Trophy final match against Bombay. Fortunately, he was summoned when Ted Dexter’s MCC team visited India next year. Durani made his presence felt immediately scoring 71 in the first Test match at Bombay. Chandu Borde, his comrade-in-arms for a long time, scored 69, and their partnership yielded 142 for the 5th wicket. As a matter of fact, this combination resurrected the brittle Indian middle-order batting time and again and also ran through the opposition on quite a few occasions.
In the 4th Test match at Calcutta, Durani captured eight wickets and scored 43 in the first innings, while Borde with his leg break, googly and well-concealed flippers, took four wickets, and scored 68 and 61 . This was India’s second ever victory against England in an official Test . This was followed by a haul of 10 wickets in the following Test match at the Corporation Stadium, Madras, which again, India won. Thus Durani was the chief architect of India’s first-ever series victory against England.
He became a household name, a hero, and it was clear that a Stella nova arrived to refurbish the then crippling Indian cricket team. Many followers of the game felt that Indian cricket had unearthed a cricketer of undeniable class almost by a Providential decree.
Carribean crusade
The Indian team visited the West Indies in 1962. They had no clue to the pace of Wesley Hall at his peak. Chester Watson was another extremely quick bowler with a gangling run-up and Charlie Stayers, a steady bowler of genuine pace. The visitors lost the first three Test matches in the most humiliating manner possible and the miseries were further compounded by the near-fatal head injury sustained by skipper Nari Contractor to the bowling of Charlie Griffith against Barbados. Contractor started bleeding from his nose and the right ear and was rushed to the hospital for immediate blood transfusion. It ended his international career.
Tiger Pataudi was pitchforked into the job at the tender age of 21 years and 2 months, a world record at that time. Nothing was propitious in the fourth Test match at Queen’ Park, Port of Spain as well.
Durani dearly wanted to go out in the middle in the second innings in order to meet the pace duo and spoke his mind to Jaisimha. When Jaisimha passed the message to Pataudi, he shuffled the batting order and sent Durani at the fall of the first wicket. The left-hander belted all the bowlers disdainfully, hooked, cut and drove with feline grace all around the wicket, and scored 104 in no time, the only test century in his career. India lost the match though the exploits of Durani remain ensconced in our memory and the honours were thus evenly shared by this remarkable rearguard action.
The heroics
When Mike Smith’s MCC team visited India in 1963-64, Durani and Borde yet again showed their unflappability under trying circumstances. The 2nd Test match was played at Green Park, Kanpur, rendered historic because MCC could not pick 11 fit cricketers while fielding owing to various India-linked afflictions that gripped their players. Pataudi most graciously lent the service of Kripal Singh from India who fielded for them. Henry Blofeld, then a pressman and later an eminent commentator, and David Clarke, the manager, also fielded. At one point in time, India had been staggering at 99 for 6 in spite of the limited resources of the handicapped opponents. The two all-rounders met in the middle and put together an invaluable 153 runs. Durrani scored 90, and Borde 84.
In the latter part of the same year, Bobby Simpson’s Australians, on their way from England after the Ashes series, arrived in India. The mandarins of Indian cricket chose the month of October in 1964 for the series when the weather in Kolkata is generally inclement and not conducive to quality cricket.
Tiger Pataudi, the Indian captain, won the toss at the Eden Gardens and though not fully convinced, decided to field. It was at the insistence of his most trusted lieutenant, Durani, who predicted that the wicket would suit his bowling.
The score at lunch stood at 92 for no loss. Bobby Simpson, the Australian captain, and Bill Lawry, his opening partner, were at their best and Durani and others were treated mercilessly to the extent, that judging by the account of Jaisimha, those vigilant at mid-off and mid-on, preferred to take their hands off, lest they sustained an injury.
As the players were returning to the pavilion Durani had to take the flak from his team-mates for putting the team into such an insoluble difficulty and understandably Pataudi was alarmed. Laconic and understated in conversation, his background and bearing taught him not to get flustered or betray emotion in public even in trying circumstances. An inveterate smoker till his last days, he preferred privacy and to be left alone at such difficult times. As the players had been getting ready for the post-lunch session, Pataudi stood at the gate of the pavilion in his customary imperial way without any apparent sign of worry and concern, a cigarette dangling between his fingers.
Suddenly, he heard a voice, ‘Nawab Saab! Mujhe ball dijiye’, [My Lord, kindly hand over the ball to me] Pataudi looked back and found Durani indicating with his palm that he would be capturing five wickets.
Tiger knew this temperamental genius in spite of his unpredictability and occasional eccentricities more than anybody else and obliged. The Australian total slumped to 102 for five in no time and Durani dismissed Bob Cowper, Peter Burge, and Brian Booth, three accomplished Australian batsmen, in one over and ended with six wickets. The performance of an incontrovertible genius! However, true to the climate in Kolkata, rain played spoilsport, the last two days were washed out, and the match was drawn.
In 1966-67, India wa struggling against the pace of Wesley Hall and Charlie Griffith of the visiting West Indies team in the first Test match at Brabourne Stadium, Bombay. Jaisimha, Sardesai, and Baig were soon back in the pavilion, and only Tiger Pataudi, the captain, put up any semblance of resistance with a flashy 44. But that was not enough and Durani and Borde joined in yet another magnificent partnership of 102. Borde scored 125, and Durani ended up with 55.
One photograph is still etched in the memory where Hall in a flurry of arms and legs is completing his delivery and Durani hooking him belligerently to the fine leg boundary.
The lows and the comeback
Curiously enough, Durani was ignored for the next two Test matches at the Eden Gardens, Calcutta, and Chepauk, Madras. The reason cited was that he lacked in discipline, was disorganized, eccentric, and a difficult person to get along with. The selectors were peeved at his reluctance to join the team for practice before the Calcutta Test match, while Durani told in an interview that he had to rush home in order to be by the side of his ailing wife and he did seek prior permission from the authorities. Thereafter, he was forced to hibernate in oblivion for the next five years.
Durrani was recalled when India visited West Indies in 1971 and thus he missed 19 Test matches in a row from December 1966. Prior to this visit, now an almost forgotten character, he scored a magnificent century in the Irani Trophy final and was chosen on his batting skills alone.
So impressive was his batting that some commentator said that henceforth, this tournament should be named Durani Trophy! Incidentally, Durani scored the first century of the tour for India against Jamaica.
Who can ever forget his inspired exploits in the 2nd Test match at the Queen’s Park, Oval, Trinidad, in that series? It was Sunil Gavaskar’s debut test match and Dilip Sardesai was at his peak. At one point in time, nothing was favourable for India. West Indies were batting well and Clive Lloyd and Garfield Sobers still to come. Ajit Wadekar, the captain, Srinivas Venkataraghavan, the vice-captain, Jaisimha and Sardesai, the think-tank in the team had been scratching their head during their meeting at their hotel that evening and they were at their wit’s end for the future course of action in the next day. Jaisimha, one of the most brilliant strategists in the game, suggested that Durani should be brought into the attack early on the next day, in spite of the fact that he was not bowling much at that time.
In an exclusive interview with Devraj Govindraj, the fast bowler who toured the West Indies but never played in a Test match, cricket historian Arunabha Sengupta revealed that during one of the drinks intervals Jaisimha, who had not been playing in the match, accompanied the 12th man, along with the drinks trolley in order to remind Wadekar about the presence of Durani which they discussed the previous evening. He was witness to his magical performances on many an occasion before.
Durani had been bowling to Clive Lloyd and for a left-handed batsman, the ball was turning into him.
Lloyd had been pushing the ball to the mid-wicket region where Wadekar stationed himself. Lloyd soon succumbed to Durani’s trap. He bowled one that looped into him and went straight. Lloyd heaved at it, expecting the ball to turn into him, but instead, he top-edged it and Wadekar ran a few steps back to gobble up a simple catch.
Sobers joined in the middle and Durrani bowled him through his gate with the first ball he bowled to the great man.
With these two giants gone, the match took a sudden turn and the rest is history. India won the match by 7 wickets and the series with Gavaskar, the debutante, hitting the winning runs. Erapalli Prasanna claimed in his autobiography, ‘One More Over,’ that Durani promised the previous evening that he would take care of Lloyd and Sobers the next day. Prophetic words from an unpredictable genius indeed!
(Editor’s note: One perhaps needs to take such stories by cricketers with a pinch of salt, especially when connected with rare, epochal victories of the past so easy to fall prey to mythification. One More Over is not completely devoid of factual errors either. But, it was a memorable moment indeed)
And finally, when he was at the fag end of his career and struggling to prove that he was still a force, his batting in the second Test match at the Eden Gardens, Calcutta against the visiting MCC side under the leadership of Tony Lewis in 1972-73 deserves a passing mention.
He was drafted in as the replacement for Dilip Sardesai after losing the first Test match at Delhi. Ajit Wadekar, the Indian captain, was hit on the chest in the first innings by from Chris Old. Since he was indisposed, Durani came out to bat at the No 3 in the second innings following Gavaskar’s dismissal at 2. It was soon evident that Durani’s footwork was not at its best, and he had been limping while running between the wickets following a nagging injury to his thigh. Yet he hooked Bob Cottam, the medium-fast bowler, imperiously and the ball ricocheted from the fence to the square leg region.
After the lunch interval, he came out to bat with Gavaskar as his runner and stitched a useful partnership of 71 with Gundappa Viswanath for the third wicket. The Eden crowd shouted for a six and Durani immediately obliged by hitting the usually miserly and accurate Derek Underwood.
He drove, cut, and steered with aplomb, and finally, in the late afternoon, he was out for 53. He edged a drive off Tony Greig, and Keith Fletcher at first slip dived full length to the left, his wrong side, and picked up one of the most spectacular catches ever seen at the Eden Gardens.
In the next Test match at Madras, he scored 38 in both the innings and was dropped in the next match at Kanpur for unfathomable reaso. When the spectators at Bombay demonstrated with placards in the streets reading ‘No Durani, No Test’, the selectors were virtually forced to recruit him for the final last Test match at Bombay, where he ended his career for India with 73 and 37.
The style and the man
Wadekar wrote in his autobiography, My Cricketing Years, that ‘This temperamental cricketer had cricket in his blood. But everything depended on his ever-changing mood.’,
While Prasanna vouched that Durani, ‘Prince Salim’, was only second to Sir Garfield Sobers in terms of cricketing genius.
In the book, ‘Talking Point’ edited by ESPNCRICIFO, ‘Tiger’ Pataudi said in an interview ‘I felt I couldn’t handle him well... I couldn’t get the best out of him. He was an extremely talented cricketer who lacked a certain amount of cricketing discipline. We tried to organize it—me and a few other senior players. But we didn’t succeed. He did well, but a man of his talent could have been made to perform much better.’ Prasanna wrote that ‘Durani was a joy to watch, the most elegant left-hander I have bowled to in this country. Technically, he was well equipped.’
In his autobiography, ‘Sunny Days’, Sunil Gavaskar described him as the wayward genius of Indian cricket.
Durani is the first sportsman to have received the coveted Arjuna Award in 1961, honoured with the Col. CK Nayudu Lifetime Achievement award in 2011, and in 2018, the Board of Cricket Control for India invited him for the inaugural India-Afghanistan Test match at Bengaluru owing to his Afghan origin.
As a human being, he is polite, often to a fault. Those who had the privilege of meeting him marveled at his simplicity and conviviality. He has no airs about him. He ranks Garfield Sobers, Rohan Kanhai, Colin Cowdrey, Ted Dexter, Ken Barrington, and Neil Harvey as the most accomplished batsmen he bowled to and reckons Alan Davidson, John Price, Derek Underwood, and Lance Gibbs as the most outstanding bowlers he faced.
Indeed, Salim Durani had a lot of élan, éclat, and charisma about him. Running from the pavilion in a distinctive style and joining his team-mates late, shoulders tucked up, approaching the wicket in a languid manner, excelling most when the going got tough, rather lackluster in easier circumstances, and making a mess of everything when much depended on him, and then again, producing something extraordinary when none expected him to do so as if inspired almost at will, was the picture he portrayed about himself. These unusual deeds marked him as an extraordinary cricketer.
He was a maverick, if not a bohemian, and much of his actions lent him a very special place in our mind. His magnificent and often miraculous deeds suggest that Durani was an exceptional cricketer though he failed to realize his potentials to the fullest extent. In a large measure, it lay partly on his uncharacteristic mental make-up and an element of eccentricity that often marks a genius.
Raju Mukherjee, the former Bengal and East Zone captain, who played against him, wrote in an effusive manner in his book, ‘Cricket in India: Origin and Heroes’, ‘Genius is a clichéd term. Misunderstood and misused. Only a handful can lay claim to the combination of originality, creativity, natural skills that are inherent in the nature of a real genius. Salim Durani combined extraordinary innovativeness with extreme ease of execution to walk into this exclusive elite group of cricketers. In the post-war scenario, apart from Keith Miller and Gary Sobers, Salim Durani was probably the only one who could transform the shape of a game in a matter of moments.’
Durani laments that his five years of exclusion from Test cricket from 1966 to 1971 was an irreparable blow to his career which put paid to his further achievements when he was at the acme of his carrier. Vaman Jani, his friend, who played with him for Jamnagar and Saurashtra, said, ‘He suffered a lot during his cricket journey and I am a witness to all that agony which he suffered… Success and failure are called the two faces of the same coin but in Durani’s case, this coin often spun so fast that they appeared to be embossed on the same side.’ Nowadays, clad in a worn-out blazer, unshaven for a few days, hunched at the back, face parched, and a desolate figure, he brings tears to our eyes. He is now 86 years of age and gone are the days of lazy elegance, debonair looks, and inimitable charisma. A lonely and forlorn figure, he seems to be now waiting in isolation for the final call. It is a sad commentary for such a magnetic personality.
Durani played in 29 Test matches in his truncated career and scored 1202 runs. He captured 75 wickets. In 170 First-class matches, he amassed 8547 runs and has 484 dismissals to his credit. This is certainly no admirable performance to cherish for an international cricketer but he was one of the characters of the game.
‘An Errant Genius’ perhaps sums him up best.