SK Flashback: Remembering the life and times of Vijay Hazare on his birthday

Hazare’s fledgeling first-class career

Hazare contributed with bat and ball to help Maharashtra to the title

One of India’s most proficient first-class cricketers in history, Hazare’s big break came in the 1939/40 season when he topped the batsmen’s and bowler’s charts as the highest run-getter of the season and the highest-wicket taker of the season.

Playing only his second season for Maharashtra, he single-handedly led his state to the title victory. Amassing 619 runs from just four matches with two centuries and two fifties at a stunning average of 154.75 coupled with 20 wickets at an average of 23.25, Hazare was without a shadow of a doubt, was the player of the tournament and was slowly rising up the ranks.

That season, Hazare also managed to place his name in the record books as the first cricketer to score a triple century in a Ranji match. A man of few words and more action on the field, Hazare’s magnificent first-class career spanned 33 years, right from his debut in the 1933/34 season to his retirement in the 1966/67 aged 51.

When he decided to hang up his boots in 1966, he was a giant in the domestic scenario. The prolific right-hander had amassed 18,740 runs at a whopping average of 58.06 in 238 matches, having played for Maharashtra, Baroda and Holkar during his career. Apart from his magic with the bat, he managed to pick 595 wickets at an average of 24.61 with his cunning medium-pacers and had found a place in the ‘Best all-rounders of domestic cricket’ scenario.

To put it in a nutshell, Hazare was a class apart when it came to the domestic scenario. A man whose all-round abilities went unparalleled throughout his career, adorned with 60 centuries and fifty half-centuries, coupled with a distinction that made him the first Indian to record two triple centuries at the first-class level and the first batsman to record 50 first-class centuries.