by Sumit Gangopadhyay
Pankaj Roy was born in present day Kumartuli, to a family which produced either cricketers or footballers. The Roys of Dhaka Bhagyakul treated business and sports with equal importance. Their contribution to clubs like Mohun Bagan, East Bengal, Sporting Union is immense.
Pankaj Roy started cricket at the age of 12 and football at the age of 14. Gradually, as he transitioned from School to College, he was called up for Bengal. At that time he was a regular bowler, and reputed to be one.
However, in his Ranji debut in 1945, he scored a century against Uttar Pradesh. He did not look back.
In 1948, he broke Ganesh Bose's record of 271 runs in Calcutta local cricket by scoring 283 for Vidyasagar College against Carmichael.
That same year, he was selected the All India University against the West Indies. But captain Yeshwant Palwankar, son of the great Baloo, sent him in at No 11, allegedly to allow Polly Umrigar more opportunity.
Shortly afterwards, Roy scored a century for the Bengal Governor's side against the West Indies, the first international century by a Bengali cricketer.
That same year, he scored a goal for IFA agaisnt Burma. However, he gave up football on the advice of Kartick Bose.
Focusing on cricket, he started playing regularly for Calcutta University, in Rohinton Baria, became a captain and scored hundreds.
Two incidents took place during the MCC visit to India in 1951. He became the captain of the Combined University and then he made his Test debut in Delhi.
Dismissed for 12 in his first Test, Roy hammered two centuries in that series. An unprecedented frenzy arose in the sports arena in Calcutta when he scored a century in the second Test. It was after all the first Test century by a Bengali. The second Test hundred followed soon enough, at Madras during India’s first ever Test victory in the fifth match of the series.
In 1951-52 he also bettered his own record by scoring 288 for Vidyasagar College. However, he fell short of the 305-run mark set by Benjamin Frank.
However, the most successful event of his career took place on 11 January 1956 in Madras against New Zealand. With Vinoo Mankad he put on a world record 413 runs for the first wicket. It stood for for almost 52 years before Graeme Smith and Neil McKenzie added 415 against Bangladesh in 2008. It is rumoured that he was prevented from topping 200 in that innings by a message to accelerate sent from the dressing room.
When India toured England in 1959, Roy became the captain in the Lord's Test. The first ever Bengali Test captain. However, he was a stand-in skipper and led in just that one Test.
Roy was dropped from the side during the 1960-61 visit of Pakistan. It is said that Vijay Merchant demanded that he return to the Kolkata Test, but the calls went unheard..
In 185 first-class matches, Roy scored 11868 runs with 33 hundreds. However, to get a measure of the man, one has to visualise the steel in his psyche that enabled him to score a 90 over seven hours against Roy Gilchrist. His ability to score a couple of hundreds in the same match against the best bowling attack of his time after spending a sleepless night with an ailing relative in the hospital.
After serving as an Indian opening batsman for over a decade, he retired as one of the top five run getters of India.
Pankaj Roy was born on 31 May 1928.