Leading the team out

Tiger Pataudi was the hero of my adolescence. I dare say many other cricket lovers in India of my generation also hero-worshipped him. Heroes never die, so Tiger in my eyes is the Peter Pan of Indian cricket. His cricketing career was made of stuff of which epics are made.

I distinctly remember the first time I saw him play, even though I was then only a schoolboy and not yet in my teens. India was playing Ted Dexter’s English side in the winter of 1961-62 and Eden Gardens was hosting the fourth Test match. Tiger got 64 in the first innings, and 30-odd in the other. He played majestic lofted drives of the kind one had never seen before in Eden Gardens. The drives always beat the fielders, they were so well timed and placed. In the first innings he was out playing a delicate leg glance off David Allen, the off spinner, which Tony Lock picked up at short fine leg. It was a memorable cricketing moment: a superb shot and a superlative catch. But most of all what remains etched in my memory from that first sighting of Tiger was his fielding. When the bowling was from the Maidan end (now called the Club House end) to a right hand batsman, Tiger fielded in the covers; when the bowling was from the other end, he stood at midwicket. He wore an India cap that wasn’t tightly pulled on his head; when he ran he took it off with his left hand. But did he ever run? His anticipation was so quick that he seemed to be there at the correct place even before one had noticed any movement. He glided over the beautiful green turf of Eden Gardens. It was hero worship at first sight and the image never faded.

But was it hero worship at first sight? The making of the hero had begun even before I had set eyes on Tiger Pataudi. Brought up by a father who was obsessed with cricket, I had been told of the talents Tiger showed as a schoolboy at Winchester. I was told how Pataudi senior had taken his son to be coached by the great Frank Woolley, who had been ecstatic about the boy’s prodigious talents. I had learnt how, first as a player and then as captain of Oxford University, Pataudi junior had torn apart the bowling of some of the best English bowlers, including Freddie Trueman and Brian Statham. I had read about the accident that had damaged one of his eyes and of his remarkable return to first class cricket.

There are two other memories of Tiger in Eden Gardens that come almost immediately to mind. One is of him running back from extra cover, facing the sun, to take an extraordinarily well-judged catch to give Bishen Bedi his first Test wicket. The batsman was Basil Butcher and the year was 1966. Tiger made a difficult catch look easy. The other is Tiger coming into bat in the late afternoon against Clive Lloyd’s West Indies side in 1974. His chin had sticking plaster on it as earlier in the day he had taken a hit on the chin off a nasty delivery. Tiger selected Vanburn Holder for special treatment, taking some 18 runs in one over. One particular stroke remains engraved in my mind. He hit a drive past mid off, which was vacant. Before the next delivery, Lloyd shifted the fielder at mid on to mid off. Tiger hit the next ball through mid on. It was a typical Tiger shot, a half drive, half pull, perfectly placed and timed. The ball just raced to the boundary. That was Tiger’s last appearance in Eden Gardens. India won the Test match.

In between the first and last sight of Tiger at the crease in Eden Gardens, I had matured as a watcher of cricket. Watching him bat, I could imagine the adjustments he had had to make to his batting after he lost sight in his right eye. His stance had always had been open, the injury forced him to make it even more two-eyed. The bat thus came down from gully and Tiger had made adjustments to avoid a gap between bat and pad. He had cut off certain shots, playing more into the arc between cover and midwicket. His penchant for leg side shots had become more pronounced. It must have taken hours of practice at the nets to do all this and to get back focus. I read that he had been back at the nets within a month of his accident.

What had enabled Tiger to do all this was not just his determination but also the cerebral qualities he brought to his cricket. He was a thinking cricketer. This was most evident, of course, in his captaincy. He was laid-back but from his vantage point at either mid off or mid on (he preferred to field in these two positions when he was skipper) he missed nothing. No one handled Prasanna, Bedi and Chandrasekhar better than he did. Those who saw it will never forget how he persisted with Chandra after the latter had been hit by Lloyd in the Test match India won in Calcutta in 1974. Chandra did not let down his skipper, who was speaking to him often, between deliveries. Tiger brought out the best in these bowlers. He had the rare gift of nurturing talented youngsters like Viswanath and Solkar.

It was a rare privilege of my life that in middle age I got to know the hero of my adolescence. Whenever we met, cricket naturally dominated the conversation. Tiger was a man of few words. But his laconic comments were always thoughtful and occasionally impish. Regarding his own cricketing abilities he could be modest and frank. I remember once I was praising his fielding and he surprised me by saying, “I was never a top class fielder after my injury.” I retorted with something like, “This kind of modesty doesn’t suit you, Tiger.” He said, “No, seriously, I wasn’t. I saw the ball that fraction of a second late to be really top class.” I asked him about his fielding before his accident, he said, “Then I was good.” I asked, “How good?” He said, “I often fielded where Eknath used to and I was as good as he.” I was charmed by his ability to distance himself from his own abilities.

It was my good fortune that once I was entrusted with the responsibility of arranging and steering a conversation between Tiger and Salman Khurshid. The transcript of that conversation was printed in The Telegraph. I realized then what a razor-sharp mind Tiger had because, in that conversation, he appeared in his intellect and his understanding of India to be equal, if not superior to, Salman.

Thomas Carlyle wrote in Heroes and Hero-Worship: “The Hero can be Poet, Prophet, King, Priest or what you will, according to the kind of world he finds himself born into.” Tiger Pataudi was born into aristocratic privilege. He was destined by his lineage to be an outstanding cricketer. That same destiny tried to curb his genius by taking away an eye. But Tiger reconfigured his game and refashioned Indian cricket. He played cricket as it should be played before Mammon made a mockery of it. He was once our hero — perhaps our eternal hero.