by Abhishek Mukherjee and Sumit Gangopadhyay
Born December 16, 1909 at Kuala Lumpur, Lall Singh remains the only Malaysia-born Test cricketer.
Lall Singh was born in Kuala Lumpur on Dec 16, 1909. He represented India in their first ever Test match at Lord’s in 1932. In order to include him in the team, the All India team had to seek permission from the Imperial Cricket Conference (the body that eventually became International Cricket Council )
In his only Test, Lall Singh scored 15 and 29. In the second innings, he added 74 in a rearguard partnership with Amar Singh. The runs were scored in just 40 minutes. It was the first half-century partnership for India and remained the highest eighth wicket partnership for the country till 1954-55.
However, Lall Singh was perhaps the first ever cricketer to play for India because of his fielding. In fact, the only one until Eknath Solkar came onto the scene.
He was short (5’7”), lithe, and “glided over the ground like a snake.” Wisden wrote: “On the tour of England in 1932 he stood out in a team in which the fielding was below average with some spectacular work in the field.” He was incredibly fast, had great anticipation, pounced on the ball with amazing alacrity, and threw accurately: in a nutshell, to borrow a cliché, he set the field on fire with his superlative fielding.
It was his exceptional throw from the deep that resulted in the run out of Frank Woolley on the first day of the Test, which had England stumbling at 19 for 3 against the rookie side even before the spectators had taken their seats. He swooped on the ball and released it in one go: the ball flew to Janardan Navle’s big gloves on the bounce with pinpoint accuracy, and Woolley was found short of the crease. The Cricketer wrote: “It was an extraordinary lapse of judgment on the part of a highly experienced cricketer who should have known that Lall Singh was about the best fieldsman in an exceptionally good fielding side.”
He was also the first ever Sikh to play Test cricket along with being the first Malaysia-born Test cricketer. His brother BS Gill also played cricket —though not at First-Class level — for Malaya and Federated Malaya States. Lal Singh played a handful of matches for Federated States of Malaya.
Road to Test cricket
His electric fielding grabbed attention when a star-studded team (led by Bert Oldfield) toured Malaya in 1926-27. After Oldfield declared at 229 for 6 in a one-innings, one-day match at Ipoh, the hosts were bowled out for 93. Batting at 5 Lall Singh was left stranded: he top-scored with an unbeaten 30. A few days later at home he displayed some rare bowling skills, routing Straits Settlements for 189 with figures of 5 for 44.
There was a match haul of 5 for 73 against Hong Kong at their den; against Straits Settlements in Singapore, he had 6 for 109, followed by 138 and 4 for 76. But above everything he remained a champion fielder. Words of his skill got around, and on arrival to India, he was picked by Vizzy’s XI against Ghnashyamji Limbdi’s XI. The resident Indians of Malaysia had raised a fund to send him to Patiala for the match.
In what turned out to be his First-Class debut, he scored 31, but his fielding received wide acclamation. In the two trial matches for the England tour, Lall Singh was selected for Possibles to play the Probables and for Rest of India against India at Lahore. He scored 10 in the first match, and 1 and 0 in the second. Despite that he was picked for the tour — because nobody matched his quality of fielding.
Lall Singh scored 42 and 47 in his first match of the tour against Gilbert Scott’s XI at Peasmarsh, but the match did not get First-Class status. Thereafter there was a series of failures till the match against Worcestershire at New Road: by now the marked specialist fielder, Lall Singh batted at 8 and scored 52. It remained his only fifty of a tour where he finished with 418 runs at 19.90.
After the tour
Lall Singh was already employed by the Maharaja of Patiala for his service. He stayed back in India and played Ranji Trophy for Southern Punjab in Ranji Trophy and for the Hindus (though he was a Sikh) in the Bombay Quadrangular. He scored 57 against United Provinces at Patiala and 67 more for a strong Cricket Club of India (CCI) against Bombay.
He scored a duck against Parsees in the 1935-36 Bombay Quadrangular, but Hindus managed a lead of 57. The Hindus were in return reduced to 140 for seven when a youngster called Vijay Merchant joined Lall Singh. Runs came at a breakneck pace, and Merchant was left stranded on 30 as Lall Singh raced to 107 before CK Nayudu declared. It remained Lall Singh’s only First-Class hundred.
He also played three matches against the touring Australians. As Southern Punjab lost by an innings against the tourists, Lall Singh, walking out at 39 for 2, scored 53 as Ron Oxenham ran through the hosts with 7 for 14. Southern Punjab folded for 115. Lall Singh went back to Malaysia after the season. He played a match for Straits Settlements at home. He batted at four, just below Gill, and top-scored with 85.
In First-Class cricket, Lall Singh scored 1123 runs at 24.95 with a solitary hundred. He played in the Quadrangular for the Hindus and in the Ranji Trophy he represented South Punjab and Patiala.
In 1931, playing for the Federated States of Malay against the Straits Settlement, he had hit 138 and also captured 4 wickets. Unfortunately, that was not a match deemed first-class .
Later days
Lall Singh married a singer from Taj Mahal hotel, but exactly what he did after his playing days remains shrouded in mystery.
In Patrons, Players and the Crowd, Richard Cashman wrote that he ran a nightclub in Paris with his wife. However, Mihir Bose had another version in A History of Indian Cricket: “There were stories of his running a nightclub in Paris. The truth was more prosaic. He lived out his life as a groundsman in Kuala Lumpur.”
Partab Ramchand almost agreed with Bose; he wrote in ESPNCricinfo that he “moved to Kuala Lumpur where he did much to foster talent and encourage the game.”
Lall Singh was invited (though it is not clear from where) to attend the Jubilee Test of 1980 in Bombay. He passed away on November 19, 1985, a month before his 76th birthday.