MAK Pataudi - the man who looked adversity in the eye

MAK Pataudi: One of the greatest captains for India

More than fifty years ago, a young cricketer from India was making waves in England. Playing for his school, he rewrote quite a few records and went on to become the first Indian to captain Oxford University.

While still at school he started playing first-class cricket, representing the English county of Sussex. He scored two centuries in a match, while in another he hit eleven consecutive fours and cricket lovers saw in him the makings of a great batsman.

And then came the disaster.

He met with an apparently minor car accident only to realize that he had lost sight in one eye. People around felt a promising career had ended prematurely but Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi had other plans.

Within six months of the accident, he debuted for India and 3 months later, playing only his fourth Test, led the Indian team against Sir Frank Worrell’s West Indies. At twenty one years of age, Tiger Pataudi, as he was popularly known, became the youngest captain in international cricket.

When he hung up his boots, he had played 46 Tests for India – 40 of them as captain.

As a schoolboy, I had heard awe-inspiring stories about Pataudi from my brothers. And later I was fortunate to see him play. I often wondered how this one-eyed Nawab could even put bat to ball.

Without the benefit of binocular vision, everyday life was a serious challenge for Pataudi, not to mention playing cricket at the highest level. He would miss the glass by a few inches while pouring water into it. He made a number of adjustments in his daily routine as well as on the playing field.

Wearing contact lens in the damaged eye, he saw two of everything – two bowlers running in, two balls being bowled! Discarding the lens, he decided to make the most of his one good eye. It needed loads of courage to play fast bowlers like Hall and Griffith– without a helmet.

The Indian cricket team then was divided along regional lines. Pataudi strove to forge a national identity.

“We are not playing for Delhi, Madras, Mumbai, Bengal or Maharashtra,” he told the players. “We are playing for India.”

He also had an eye for cricketing talent. He nurtured the careers of G. Vishwanath and the famed spin quartet – EAS Prasanna, Bishen Singh Bedi, B. Chandrasekhar and S. Venkataraghavan.

In the sixties, India had talented cricketers but lacked self-belief. Pataudi inspired the players to believe in themselves by recognizing their potential and helping them realize it. He was refreshingly even-handed when it came to promoting talent.

A few years into his captaincy, Pataudi realized India need to play to its strengths. Going against conventional wisdom, he played three spinners and India’s performance started improving. He was way ahead of his time in the importance he attached to fielding. To provide good support for the spinners, he worked hard on the Indian team’s fielding – he himself was a superb fielder.

In course of time, some outstanding fielders like Eknath Solkar, Abid Ali and S. Venkataraghavan emerged. India notched up its first Test series victory abroad in 1967-68 against New Zealand under his captaincy.

How did he fare as a batsman? He made a little less than 3000 runs in Tests at a modest average of around 35. Some cricket lovers believe the average and aggregate should be multiplied by two had he not met with his life altering accident.

The famous English cricketer, Trevor Bailey, said that if Pataudi had not lost his eye he would have been ‘in the Bradman class’. Colin Bland, a top-notch South African fielder of yesteryear, put Pataudi above Jonty Rhodes as a fielder.

Pataudi was respected by his team mates and opponents alike for not so much his achievements as a cricketer, but for his sheer courage to play cricket at the highest level with the gravest of handicaps.

Pataudi never talked of what his life would have been like if the accident had not happened. He also snuffed out any such speculation by others. The way he accepted life as it was and flowed with it was perhaps his greatest quality and the reason for his stupendous success on the cricket field.