With the advent of the IPL, the
present day Indian or for that matter any cricketer has been exposed to a lot
of glamour quotient wherein they are constantly in contact with a lot of film celebrities and are
surrounded by beautiful and glamorous faces. While the present lot of
cricketers are indeed lucky to such a kind of a celebrity following, their
predecessors in the early 60’s and 70’s were not so lucky. I have picked 5 cricketers from the
yester-years whose inclusion in the IPL might have been something to be seen to
have been believed.
Mohammad Mansoor Ali khan
( Nawab of Pataudi) - also known
as Tiger Pataudi was in every sense a royal Nawab. He inherited his cricketing
genes from his father Ifthikar Ali Khan Pataudi who was the eight Nawab of Pataudi
. Tiger as he was fondly called by his
teammates for his daredevil fielding, during the days when the Indian cricket
grounds could be best described as maidans with bumpy outfields, was a handsome
man who had that magnetism which could draw the people around him. At the age
of 21 he became the then youngest captain to have ever played test cricket. He
was an attacking batsman and a fine leader of men. Tiger was a man of few words
and they carried a lot of weight in
Indian cricket. Despite a tragic
accident in july 1961 where he lost his right eye as the broken windscreen glass was penetrated in his
eye, tiger continued to play for India in 46 test matches, 40 of them as
captain. People still remember fondly his master class 2 innings at the MCG, during the 1967-68 tour
where he scored 75 and 85 on 1 foot and
with 1 eye against the likes of Lenny Pascoe. He had a dry sense of humour and once when the former Aussie skipper Ian Chappell asked him what did he do for a
living, tiger replied” Ian I am a prince”.
When Ian did not get the point he asked him again what did he do between
9 and 5, tiger in his inimitable manner snapped and said “ Ian I am a f*****g
prince”. One can only wonder as to what heights he could have achieved with a pair of eyes.
Salim Durrani- Salim Durrani was one of the most charismatic
cricketers of his generation. A slow left arm orthodox bowler and a hard
hitting left hand bat. He was a decent all rounder of sorts at a time when the
Indian team was on a look out at utility players. Such was his aura and
charisma that inspired by his good looks he was fondly called ‘Prince Salim’ by
his teammates. Salimsaab was known to be
one of the most popular players with the crowd. He is probably the only Indian
player who manfully accepted the crowds challenge of hitting a sixer. Whenever
he went out to bat, he was treated to rapturous reception and the crowd would
scream “ we want sixer “. To his credit he would respond to the gallery and
deliver the public demand. Such was his
popularity with the crowd that when Durrani was inexplicably dropped from the Kanpur test in 1973, the angry crowd had held banners of “ No durrani no test”. During those days when the game was
not as popular as today, it was an amazing response from the crazy fans who
wanted to see their favourite cricketer on the park. Salim durrani was one of
the very few cricketers to have actually acted in a hindi movie called Charitra
opposite Parveen Babi. Truly prince Salim
must have been an eye catcher
and people would flock to the stadiums
to see him bat.
Motganhalli Laxminarsu Jaisimha – popularly known as ML
Jaisimha was a cricketer who played first
class cricket from Hyderabad. He was a great influence to the great sunil
gavaskar, who considered him as his hero and always looked up to him. Even
today during commentary gavaskar often talks fondly about jaisimha. ML Jaisimha
was a cricketer who had boyish good looks, his inimitable gait, trademark slik
shirt, sleeved buttons at the wrist and the collar turned up rendered many
people around the cricketing circles to describe him as a cultivated stylist.
The collar turned up sure was a style statement in those days and that
influence could be easily seen on 2 of hyderabad’s stylish batsmen, namely
Mohammad Azharuddin and VVS Laxman. Whenever people talk of wristy batsmen,
gavaskar is quick to name ML Jaisimha first in the list to be aptly followd by
the above mentioned gentlemen.
Abbas Ali Baig.- A man whose
career spanned into 2 decades, was truly unfortunate to have played only 10
tests for india. Abbas Ali Baig was a no 3 batsmen who burst on to the test
arena scoring a fine 112 against England at old Trafford. He sadly did not score a century thereafter in his
test career. Abbas Ali Baig was a very handsome man in his heydays and still
today looks every bit classy even at the
age of 74. He also played first class cricket for
Hyderabad.
Farookh Maneshka Engineer- one of
the very few Indian cricketers from parsi origin, farokh played first class
cricket for bombay ( now Mumbai ). He was a fine wicket- keeper and an
attacking batsman down the order who scored 2611 runs from 46 tests with 2
hundreds. Farokh engineer had rugged features and his charisma made him a
worthy successor to Keith Miller and Dennis Compton when he was signed on as a
brylcream model during the late 60’s and early 70’s. to have bagged an
endorsement in those days speaks volumes about his good looking persona and
personality. Even today he is still associated with cricket as an official and
would have been perfect choice for the slam bang IPL cricket. He has also
served as a match referee in the 2008 IPL season during the Bhajji- Sreesanth
slapgate. He has moved to UK and despite putting on a few kilos still the part
and still has the charisma to woo people.
All these 5 fine cricketers would have added the glamour
quotient to the IPL and it would have been one heck of a scenario to have
witnessed them had they played during the IPL
days.
