In the summer of 1934 the Ranji Trophy, for which the states of Indiawage a battle royal, was launched by the Maharaja Bhupindra Singh ofPatiala
Prof. AS Balakrishnan22-Jun-2007In the summer of 1934 the Ranji Trophy, for which the states of India wage a battle royal, was launched by the Maharaja Bhupindra Singh of Patiala. It is a fitting cricketing memorial to Ranji, Colonel His Highness Shri Sir Ranjithsinji Vibhaji, Maharajah Jam Saheb of Nawanagar, GBE, KCSI, the Midsummer night’s dream of cricket, as Neville Cardus put it. Yet to many of the present generation, Ranji is little more than a name. It was an irony of fate that the greatestcricketer India ever produced, should never have played first-class cricket for or in India!. Here is an attempt to put into perspective the complex situation of the remarkable man who was both a legendary English Cricketer and an Indian Prince at a crucial time in Indian history.Ranji was born on 10 September 1872 at Sarodar, a small village in the Western Province of Kathiawar. Sarodav near Jammagar, in Ranji’s time was an arcadia, inaccessible and remote. In its special way, it was a kind of paradise and its charm was of site and the imagination,scarcely of facilities.Ranji was proud of his lineage , stemming as it did from Loard Krishnaand his clan, the Jadejas, were Rajput warriors. They claimeddescendancy from the Persian Ruler, Jamshed, deriving from him theirtitle. Later, the Jadejas migrated to Jamnagar in 1535. It is said JamRawal, founder of the present house , was told in his dreams to seekpastures new in Kathiawar. After a series of bloody encounters, JamRawal became the undisputed master of the whole of Kathiawar andestablished his capital, calling it Nawanagar, or “new town”.In spite of enlightened rulers who were creative and inspired, therewas a curious shortage of male heirs in the family and Vibhaji whosucceeded the throne five years before the Mutiny of 1857 was drivento adopt Ranjithinhji, the second son of an ideal Rajput gentleman,Jiwantsinghji. At the age of eight, Ranji entered Rajkumar College, aPublic school in Saurashtra. Chester Maenaghten the Principal,initiated Ranji into the magic world of the Willow and when he died in1896, he had bequeathed to the world a genius; his pupil had compiled2,780 runs, the highest aggregate recorded in an English summer.In 1888, Ranji went to England and joined St. Faith’s, Cambridge. RSGoodchild, the Headmastrer prophesied a bright future for the lad fromIndia whose gifts were rough and untutored with no orthodox defence atall, though tennis, shooting and billiards captured his attention, atCambridge , he was determined to enrich his knowledge on the game andpractice it the hard way. In 1892 he became a regular member of theTrinity college team but despite consistent performances in thecollege matches he was not in the university eleven that year. Thathe was an Indian held back his inclusion, a mistake which theCambridge captain, FS Jackson, later admitted and regretted. In 1893he got his blue – the first Indian to win a Blue, but his progresstowards it, in the year 1890-92 was not spectacular. However he was akeen student of the game and innings by innings, he adjusted andimproved his technique. Chosen to represent Cambridge against Oxfordat Lord’s, Ranji did not set the Thames on fire. He made 9 in hisfirst innings and 0 in the second but his fielding stood out. At sliphe took three good catches. CB Fry in his autobiography , “Life WorthLiving”, recorded, “he fielded marvellously”.In the same year he was chosen for the South of England against theAustralians and the Gentlemen vs Players at the Oval. His Cambridgefigures were nothing extraordinary – 386 runs for an average of 29.9,but he was the third in the Cambridge batting averages.’Run-get’ Singhji, as his Cambridge colleagues called him, wasapproached by Surrey to join them, but Ranj had other ideas. He wantedto qualify for Sussex. Sussex was a comparatively weak side and Ranjiwas sure of his place. Beside he had friends there, CB Fry and WLMurdoch. The wet summer of 1894 saw little cricket played. In allRanji played sixteen innings making 387 runs at an average of 32.Playing for MCC against Cambridge at Lord’s under WG Grace, Ranji made94. For the South against the North at Scarborough, he made 44 and 52not out.But the best was yet to be. The year 1895 heralded a new dawn. In hisfirst match for Sussex against MCC at Lord’s Ranji scored 77 not outand 150, “Playing in a fashion which beggars description”, took sixwickets and made two catches, a total of 1,227 runs were scored in thematch. 48 year old WG Grace made 103 in MCC’s second innings and MCCwon by 19 runs. In all Ranji made 4 centuries during the season, atotal of 1,766 runs at an average of 50.16, only Grace and Maclarenwhere above him in the first class averages. ‘Punch’ paid tribute:”Great Grace to young Maclaren yields his place, and Ranjitsinghjifollows after Grace”.Like Pied Piper, the bloom of the tropics, already in his secondseason in the first class game, Ranji had acquired a following. A muchtalked about character, he had grown into a living legend. 1896 was anAustralian summer, Harry Trott leading a strong Australian side. Ranjiwas in full cry, 30 and 74 against MCC, 64 and 33 against Yorkshire.He had established himself as the most exciting batsman in thecountry. Judged from any standards, Ranji should have been a certaintyfor the Lords Test on 22nd June. Those were days when Test teams werenot chosen by an independent selection committee, but by the countryat whose ground the matches was to be played. Lord Harris, Presidentof the MCC, six years previously Governor of Bombay, was not in favourof playing what he called “birds of passage”. Ranji was not selected,a decision that invested the wrath of the public and the press. Thesecond Test was to be played at Old Trafford and the wise men ofLancashire had no hesitation in including Ranji. Australia battedfirst and made 412. England made a dreadful start and Ranji batting atnumber three was caught by Trott off Mckibbin for 62. England repliedwith 231 and faced with a deficit off 181, England had to follow on.At draw of stumps on the second day, England were 72 behind and thecream of the batting had gone. Ranji rose to the occasion and playedthe finest innings of his career. He took the total to 305 andremained unbeaten with a scintillating innings of 154 made in 190minutes with twenty three hits to the fence. Wisden described it as”marvellous”. Ranji became the first Indian to play Test cricket andthe second batsman after WG Grace to score a hundred on his initialappearance. George Giffen, Ranji’s opponent in this match describedRanji as the batting wonder of the age, while another Australian saidof Ranji “he is more than a batsman – he is nothing less than ajuggler”. England ultimately lost the Test but Australia had to fightfor victory. England won the final Test of the series at the Oval by66 runs and claimed the rubber, Ranji failed in both the innings,scoring 8 and 11. His aggregate of 235 was the highest for the seriesand with an average of 78.33 Ranji topped the combined English andAustralian batting averages. Soon afterwards he scored three centuriesin successive innings – 165 vs Lancashire, 100 and 125 againstYorkshire, the last two made in a single day. By the end of the summerhe had, too, broken WG Grace’s record of 1871 by scoring 2,780 runs ina season (averaging 57.91, with 10 centuries).Wisden selected Ranji as one of the “Five Cricketers of theyear” and noted “If the word genius can be employed inconnection with cricket it surely applies to the young Indianbatsman”. He (Ranji) has burst upon the cricketing world like astar from the East??.he has adopted cricket and turned it intoan Oriential poem of action”.In 1897 though handicapped by frequent bouts of asthma, Ranji wentwith AE Stoddant’s side to Australia where he scored 189 in his firstmatch of the tour, and 175 in his first Test there. Batting at numberseven, he was the last batsman to get out, It was the highest scorethat had ever been made for England in Test cricket. Ranji alsoachieved the unique distinction of scoring a century on his debutagainst Australia both in England as well as in “Down Under “. ErnestJones, the Australian fast bowler, who was the country’s highestwicket taker was a blatant thrower and Ranji accused him of’chucking’. This annoyed the Australian public and they barrackedRanji throughout the innings when the teams met for the third Test atAdelaide, Ernest Jones’ home ground. The importance of being Ernestwas evident. Except for this unsavory feature, it was a triumphanttour for Ranji. He became the darling of the people and created a”Ranji fever”. There were Ranjitsinghji matches, Ranjithsinghjisandwiches, Ranjitsinghji hair-restorers, bats and chairs”.In March 1898 the team returned to England, Ranji stayed back atColombo as he had decided to spend some time in India after being awayfor ten years. At Patiala, he played his first club cricket in India.He made a century against the Simla Volunteers and a double centuryagainst Umballa. After spending nearly a year at Nawanagar, he wentback to England in time for the next season. The close of the 19thcentury marked Ranji’s best year in country cricket. He now possessedthe power effectively to destroy even the best bowling. In 1899 whenhe became Captain of Sussex, he scored 3,159 runs, in 1900 3,065,including his remarkable 202 against Middlesex made in three hours ona difficult wicket. His highest score Was 285 not out, againstSomerset (1901) made after having been up all night fishing. Under hiscaptaincy Sussex tied with Kent for the third place in the countychampionship; only Yorkshire and Lancashire were ahead of them. He wason top of the cricket world.Country cricket in 1902 was overshadowed by the presence of theAustralian team under Joe Darling. It was a strange summer for Ranji,half a dozen superb innings alternating with an unusual number of lowscores. He was picked for the first four tests and was dropped for thefifth. He never played in a Test match again, What an inglorious exitto a Test career which began with a glorious hundred!. If 1902 saw theend of Ranji as a Test cricketer, he was far from finished so far asSussex was concerned. In 1903, Ranji scored 1924 runs including adouble century (204 vs Surrey) and four centuries. Twice he was outin the nineties. He was again second in the first class battingaverages. The following year (1904) he scored 2,077 runs includingeight centuries and headed the English averages with 74.17. Wisdenhailed his 207 not out against Lancashire at Hove, “He was at hishighest pitch of excellence and beyond that the art of batting cannotgo”. Away from England during 1905-1907, Ranji returned to first classcricket in 1908. He was installed Maharaja Jam Saheb of Nawanagar on10th March 1907, “the prince of a little state, but King of a greatgame”(AG Gardiner). All the ingenuity and resourcefulness he haddisplayed as a batsman went into the administration of his state. In1908 he played 28 innings, scored 1,138 runs with an average of 45.52.After the 1908 season there followed an interval of three years. Backin England in 1912, he resumed playing cricket, good performancesfollowed, but a strained wrist handicapped him.1915 was a black year. WG Grace and Victor Trumper passed away andRanji met with an unfortunate accident. Ranji took a party of friendsup to Crosseliff in Yorkshire. He was hit in the right eye by hisneighbour, a notoriously erratic shot. The celebrated astrologerPandit Hareshwar’s prediction of some form of mutilation for Ranjicame true. For the rest of his life he wore a glass eye and carriedspectacles. Undaunted, after an interval of eight years in August1920, Ranji returned to the crease, His reappearance in three matcheswas warmly welcomed. He was 48, had put on weight and far from hisregal self. At Hastings against Northamptonshire, he played his lastInnings in first class cricket, He was out for 1.In all Ranji played 500 innings, 62 times not out and scored 24,692runs with an average of 56.37. He made 72 centuries of which fourteenwere double centuries, often playing on “satanic wickets and againstdemonical bowling”. The cricket of Ranji, though, is not to bemeasured in statistics. He was inventive, elegant, exciting to watch -as spectators of three countries testified. Knight, Cardus, DenzilBatchelor, CB Fry and AG Gardiner have witnessed and eulogized on theimpact of the Indian Prince’s batsmanship. Gardiner wrote, “hecombined an oriental calm with oriental swiftness – the stillness ofthe panther with the shrewdness of its spring”. He revolutionizedbatting technique, Before him batsman scored by forward play, Ranjidemonstrated that strokes could be elegantly executed off thebackfoot.If Bosanquet is remembered as the father of the googly, Ranji will beremembered as the inventor of the leg glance. He made it a thing ofbeauty and this was partly due to his natural powerful eye, quicknessand elasticity. It was executed nearer to the stumps – in fact, oftenoff the middle and later, than anyone else. He had, though, all thestrokes, and if at first he favoured behind the wicket on the legside, he became a splendid cutter and a powerful and punishing driver.” But he was loved not because of his mighty scores but somethingwhich mattered a great deal more. He was loved by many friends becausehe was personally charming, piquantly amusing and above all, wildlygenerous”(AA Thomson). Popularity and success sat lightly on him andhe was never given to the first person singular. He had regards andsympathy for the professional cricketers. He had a nice sense ofhumour and was an excellent extempore speaker. Ranji was a benevolentruler and an outstanding statesman, particularly remembered for hiswork in the Chamber of Princes and in the League of Nations where herepresented India with dignity and distinction. The Jubilee Book ofCricket which he authored on Queen Victoria’s Diamond jubilee is aclassic. His ideas on the game find eloquent expression in the book.Till the end Ranji lived a life of single blessedness. He nevermarried. Alan Ross casually mentions Ranji’s alleged engagement to aRajput princess in his youth. “He liked the company of women-andindeed had a discreet and long-standing relationship with an Englishgirl. But he showed no signs of considering marriage”. Jamnagar’sgrowth and development were his dream children. Ranji died inJamanagar at five O’ clock on the morning of 2nd April 1933. He wassixty. For five days he had struggled from lack of sleep. Asthma andbronchitis dogged him and on the night of 1 April, Ranji’s heart hadbegan to fail. It is said Ranji had returned from Delhi earlier afterhis farewell speech as Chancellor of the Prince’s Chamber, a sad andbitter man, An unpleasant and unfortunate exchange of words with theViceroy, Lord Willingdon, one of his greatest friends, who hadpresided over the meeting, left Ranji a broken man. “His notoriousbelief in the goodness of humanity was torpedoed and wrecked”.(AlanRoss). Wisden described him as “all that a cricketer should be -generous in defeat, modest in success and genuinely enthusiasticregarding the achievements of either colleagues or opponents”.This September marks Ranjitsinhji’s 127th birth anniversary. AlreadyJamnagar is agog with excitement and celebrations have been plannedfor October. A monogram showing the immortal leg glance on one side ofthe coin is to be presented to 22 Ranji Trophy veterans of Nawanagarthat month.Cricketers may come and cricketers may go, but Ranji goes on forever.There never will be another Ranji. He was to quote GL Jessop, “themost brilliant, period ” Here was a Ranji! When comes such another?.
