by Arunabha Sengupta
An Indian cricketer, hailing from royalty and playing for England. In the 1920s and 1930s all these factors together charted a complicated cricketing career.
His willow conjured up magic in the 1928 summer with six hundreds for Sussex .
While in India for the winter, Kumar Shree Duleepinhji was approached by the newly formed Indian Cricket Board to play a greater role in the development of Indian cricket. This included an offer to captain the 1932 side to England—scheduled to play their inaugural Test match.
Following uncle Ranji’s advice, Duleep declined. But, he did play a Quadrangular game for Hindus against Parsees making 84 and 38. When the spinner Rustomji Jamshedji bowled a negative line, Duleep resorted to a stroke now known as reverse-sweep.
Riding on a gamut of runs in the 1929 summer, Duleep made his Test debut at Edgbaston against South Africa. Not too successful in the Test, he nevertheless ran into some extraordinary form after that, amassing six hundreds in six weeks.
However, he was omitted from the England side for the subsequent Tests. There were speculations that men high up were not quite happy with an Indian playing for England. There was also rumour that the South Africans were not too happy playing against a non-White cricketer.
Duleep was not even selected for the Gentlemen, leading his coach to remark that the omission was a blemish on English cricket. The coach was none other than Aubrey Faulkner, himself a great South African.
A confused young Duleep contemplated retirement. At the same time, he kept piling up runs. When Tich Freeman routed Sussex at Maindstone, Duleep uncharacteristically promised Kent supremo Lord Harris a hundred in each innings in the return game. He did better, hitting 115 and 246 at Hastings. He was named one of the five Wisden cricketers of the year.
Early in 1930, Duleep broke Ranji’s Sussex record with a spectacular 333 against Northamptonshire at Hove, compiled in just five and a half hours.
In the Lord’s Test that summer—a platonic ideal of a cricket match according to Neville Cardus—Duleep hit a magnificent 173 on the first day, filled with splendid on-drives and late-cuts. However, when he was out to a reckless stroke towards the end of the day, in the stands Ranji was not amused. “The boy was always careless,” he is supposed to have said.
The series is indeed remembered for the deeds of Don Bradman, but Duleep did get 416 runs at 59.42. In between there were centuries in both innings in the Gentlemen-Players fixture.
That winter when England travelled to South Africa, Duleep was not in the side. The official reason was health issues. However, for all intents and purposes, it was a precursor of the Basil D’Oliveira affair of 1968-69. ‘Diplomatic’ reasons and a quiet word. The traditional nudge-nudge wink-wink White tolerance for discrimination.
In 1932, Duleep scored hundreds in the Test trials and the Gentlemen-Players encounter. The latter match saw a 161-run association with the Nawab of Pataudi. Curious, given that the two superb batsmen were gunning for a place in the England side and the visiting Indians were struggling in the batting department.
Duleep was recognized to be England’s best batsman after Herbert Sutcliffe and Wally Hammond. He, alongside Sutcliffe, Wally Hammond, Les Ames, George Duckworth, and captain Douglas Jardine, was among the first players to be selected for the tour of Australia.
And then tragedy struck. Tuberculosis made him unavailable for the tour and subsequently ended his career.
995 runs in 12 Tests at an average of 58.52 with three hundreds. 50 hundreds in a first-class career that ended at the age of 27.
KS Duleepsinhji was an epic tale of greatness with pages that remained unwritten after the first few chapters. He was born on 13 June 1905.
Illustration: Maha