by Kalyanbrata Bhattacharyya

‘His bat was like a violinists bow, playing soft melodious tunes to the ripples of applause of the connoisseurs. .. No violence erupted as he caressed the ball to the railings. No bravado exhibited as the innings unfolded and the match won. Sheer artistry of form delineated the canvas. He used the willow as a painter would use his brush...’

So wrote Raju Mukherjee, the former Bengal and East zone captain, who played against him on many occasions and witnessed his batting in wonderment while fielding. His velvety style and lissome grace mesmerized one and all.

In the late 1950s and early ‘60s, two young Indian batsmen, Ajit Wadekar and Hanumant Singh had been regularly hogging the headlines in the newspapers by virtue of their performance in domestic cricket and knocking at the door of entry into the national side. Hanumant Singh got the call earlier and played his first Test match at the Feroz Shah Kotla ground, New Delhi in the fourth Test match against Mike Smith’s visiting MCC team in 1963-64 and scored 105 runs. This was the fifth century by an Indian on their debut Test match, others being Lala Amarnath,

Deepak Shodhan, AG Kripal Singh and Abbas Ali Baig, but unlike others, he scored his century in the first innings.

It was essentially a lackluster series where Pataudi won the toss in all the five Test matches and all of them were drawn, the bat dominating the ball all along. The English batsmen stretched caution to the extent that in Madras Brian Bolus, the opening batsman, scored 88 in 415 minutes and the ever careful Ken Barrington pushed and nudged for no apparent reasons to register only 80 in 312 minutes. So reluctant were the two batsmen at speeding up the proceedings that Bapu Nadkarni, the left arm accurate orthodox left-arm spinner bowled a spell of 21 consecutive maiden overs and finished with 32 overs with 27 maidens and 5 runs, thus conceding only one run in each of 5 overs in the innings, both being rather unenviable records till date!

Runs were scored aplenty in the lifeless and docile tracks and as many as 11 centuries were registered. Jaisimha scored a magnificent 129 at Calcutta hitting John Price, Barry Knight and David Larter, the fast bowlers with rare contempt, Budhi Kunderan, the wicket keeper and opening batsman caught the eye of one and all with a hurricane 192 and 100 at Madras and Delhi respectively, Colin Cowdrey, flown in as a replacement for the indisposed English batsmen when he was out of practice for more than six months following a fractured left forearm against a lifting delivery from Wesley Hall in the historic Lord’s Test match in 1963, scored a labored 107 in 380 balls at Kolkata and thereafter, an equally patient 151 at Delhi showing his indisputable class, Pataudi scored 203 not out at Delhi, till then the highest score by an Indian against England, and almost resurrecting himself from his indifferent form, while Barry Knight and Peter Parfitt, another replacement, scored 125 and 121 respectively at Kanpur, which was followed by an incredible rearguard innings of 122 not out by Bapu Nadkarni, promoted to bat following on at number 3 in the second innings at Kanpur.

However, Hanumant Singh sparkled most with an elegant 105, hooking and driving the pace bowlers almost casually and dancing down the wicket to Freddie Titmus, Donald Wilson, and John Mortimore, the spinners, with nimble footwork and feline grace at Delhi. His fluent and effortless stroke play all around the wicket was a visual delight for the tired eyes. Cricket connoisseurs were treated to a rare aesthetic pleasure and they realized that a true artist far above the ordinary measure had arrived to decorate the game of cricket.

Royal Roots

Hanumant Singh was born of royal parentage in the princely state of Banswara in Rajasthan on the 29th of March, 1939 and bore the lineage of the immortal KS Ranjitsinhji, the ruler of the princely state of Nawanagar and often known as Maharaja Jamsaheb, and his nephew KS Duleepsinhji, the two premier characters in the now forgotten history of Indian cricket. His mother was the sister of Duleepsinhji and thus he was the maternal grandson of Ranjitsinhji.

His cousin KS Indrajitsinhji played in four Test matches for India as a wicket keeper and occasionally, as an opening batsman and his elder brother Suryaveer Singh played for Rajasthan with distinction as well. Royal blood ran through his veins and it was no surprise that his batting was marked with an element of class and elegance.

He was born in Banswara, Rajputana, the older name of Rajasthan, and studied in Daly College, Indore, where a cricket ground is now named after him. His precocious talent showed up while he was studying in school and was an instant success when he made his debut in First class cricket in 1956-57. He represented Madhya Bharat, Rajasthan and the Central Zone in domestic cricket.

Test career

In October 1964, an Australian team under the leadership of Bobby Simpson arrived in India. In the first Test match at Madras the Indian team were in doldrums in the second innings and had little answer to the guile of the fast bowlers, Graham McKenzie and Neil Hawke. The scorecard read a dismal 24 for 4 and Hanumant Singh, still a man on trial, walked out to join Vijay Manjrekar, easily the most prolific Indian batsman in the 1950s and early 60’s till his retirement in 1965.

Hanumant Singh scored an invaluable 94 runs out of a total of 193 when Manjrekar played the role of the sheet anchor at the other end and scored a patient 40. Once again this innings was studded with scintillating strokes played with effortless fluidity. It is on record that he rated this innings ahead of his century on debut. He told Raju Bharatan, the noted cricket writer, ‘May be the century on my debut Test match gave me immense personal satisfaction, especially as, in that knock, I found my stroking rhythm from the word go. Still it was, after all, a hundred made on a Kotla wicket that was a sleeping beauty. Whereas this 94 at Madras had dared me to carry the war into the opposite camp at a time when Simpson and his men were bowling with their tails up. On cricketing balance, therefore, this 94 must rate way above that 105, even if that century was on my Test debut.’

In the next season in 1965, the New Zealand team under the leadership of John Reid visited India and Hanumant Singh scored 75 not out and 82 in two consecutive Test matches at Bombay and Delhi. He said, ‘... The 75 came when Dilip Sardesai had virtually saved the Bombay Test match and was galloping towards his unbeaten 200. Against that, the 82 by me in the Kotla Test where Sardesai had set the pace with 106 came on a pitch on which Richard Collinge bowled with rare devil, making me earn every run. Pace never really worried me, but this was one time when I had to watch out for the ones that Collinge, a hefty, lively left-armer, got to buzz around my ears.’

Thus the second Test century, like all his Indian predecessors who scored a century on debut, remained elusive.

In 1966-67, when Garfield Sobers’ invincible West Indies team visited India, the 2nd Test match at the Eden Gardens was marred by the unprecedented riot between the spectators and the police, the pitch invaded by hoodlums, and the pavilion set on fire on the 2nd day, the 1st of January 1967. The match was about to be abandoned since the safety and security of the players were at stake and only after pertinacious persuasion from Sir Frank Worrell, who had been visiting India at that time, did the West Indians agree to take the field.

The wicket was badly damaged by the stampeding crowd and was virtually unplayable. There, Hanumant Singh’s classic display of negotiating the legendary off spinner, Lance Gibbs and Garfield Sobers by going on to the back-foot and pushing the ball towards mid-wicket or lifting it over mid-on was a treat to watch and his 37 runs on this treacherous track impressed everybody.

In the following Test match at Madras, the first Test match ever played at the Chepauk Stadium, he ended the series with 50 and India narrowly missed the opportunity of defeating the West Indies for the first time owing to some inexcusable fielding lapses. Only Chandu Borde with two centuries of 121 and 125 at Bombay and Madras respectively, outshone him in the series.

India visited England in the following summer in 1967 amidst one of the worst climates. It rained incessantly and virtually not a single county match could be completed. Interestingly, ‘Tiger’ Pataudi, the Indian captain wrote in his autobiography, Tiger’s Tale that before the first Test match at Leeds, the only deciding factor for selecting the team was to choose the players who participated in most of the matches. When the journalists asked him the basis for selection, he remarked in his characteristic laconic and witty fashion, ‘By guesswork’.

Nothing was propitious as England amassed a mammoth 550 for 4, Boycott scoring a labored 246 [the rate of scoring cost him his place in the side with the selectors stressing on the need to play brighter cricket], D’Oliveira 109 not out, his maiden Test century, while Barrington was run out for 93 and to compound the problems further, Rusi Surti injured his finger while fielding and Bishen Singh Bedi pulled a hamstring muscle and both of them retired to the pavilion. India succumbed to a humiliating 164 where Pataudi contributed a masterly 64 not out.

However, following on, the riposte was simply breathtaking when India responded gallantly with 510 runs. Pataudi scored a magnificent 148 and was given the accolade ‘The Nawab of Headingley’, while Ajit Wadekar and Farokh Engineer chipped in with useful 91 and 87 respectively. Hanumant Singh entered into an invaluable partnership of 134 with Pataudi where his own contribution was a chaste and unblemished 73.

However, in spite of such a tremendous comeback, India lost the match by 6 wickets. Raju Bharatan wrote, ‘It was the 73 ... that put the stamp on him as India’s batsman of the future. Here was a willowy performer who played all the shots in the book, in the arc between cover and midwicket. With the certainty of eye and foot that rendered his stroke play a joy even to the opposition. To English eyes, Hanumant Singh’s was a bat cast in the Gunn & Moore mould...’ However, in the following two Test matches his batting lacked in glittering distinctions and he lamented, ‘...let me confess that it was during the English summer of 1967 that I unwittingly acquired the onside tilt of my play...I, predominantly a back-foot player, did fall into the error of going on to my front foot, something that cost me quite a few runs in the series. In hindsight, I see no reason why I should have gone on to the front-foot. GR Viswanath began as a back-foot player and remained one to the end, contriving to play down the steepest bouncer by getting up on his toes.

Raw Deal

When Hanumant Singh had been progressing in rapid strides and cementing his place in the Indian team, he suddenly got an unexpected raw deal, a bolt from the blue, from the Indian selectors six months later on the eve of his cherished desire to visit Australia in the summer of 1967-68.

In spite of the fact that he was enormously gifted, his batting generally lacked in consistency, though studded with some brilliant performances, particularly when they mattered most, and thus in a way he was not doing justice to his abundant talent. But everything gainsaid, there was no denying that he was the most attractive stroke maker in the country.

His lithe footwork, consummate command over playing of the back foot , particularly in the region between fine leg and long on, marked him as a celestial star in the Indian batting line-up. However, a recurring feature in his batting was his impetuosity which often cost him his wicket and thus, in a way, he never did justice to his indubitable natural capability and thus an element of unpredictability was soon evident in his batting.

When the selectors gathered in order to select the squad to tour Australia, everybody was startled to observe that his name was missing, particularly at a time when in 1967, he enjoyed his halcyon days in domestic cricket. He scored 109 and 213 not out in the final match in the Ranji Trophy championship Trophy, thus earning the coveted distinction of being the first batsman to achieve the rare feat of scoring a century and a double century in a Ranji Trophy match and scored 869 runs in the series at an average of 124.14 runs.

The reason given by the Board was that he failed to pass the fitness test in spite of attending scrupulously the training camps in Pune and Bombay and was instructed to undergo a further trial. It is true that he had been suffering from a niggling injury to his foot but he passed this test without any bother and yet again he was asked to visit another specialist who pronounced the identical judgment. An X-ray of the thighs revealed that the left one was more bulky than the right one and he said that this difference was noticeable since his childhood and he was never troubled by it.

As if this was not enough, he was then referred to an orthopedic surgeon who suggested that he should rest for some time and keep away from the tour to Australia since he had many years of cricket ahead of him!

Hanumant Singh was shattered, though he continued to score heavily in the domestic circuit. However, something had snapped inside and he could not motivate himself to greater deeds. The trauma of missing the tour to Australia rankled and the crestfallen batsman could not forget the injustice meted out to him and he seemed to lose his zeal for the game.

However, two years later, when some radical changes were taking place in the selection process of the Indian team under the stewardship of Vijay Merchant, he was recalled to play against the visiting New Zealand team under the leadership of Graham Dowling in September, 1969. He was out to Dayle Headley, the fast bowler, in both the innings for 1 and 13, while batting for 44 and 92 minutes, a most uncharacteristically restrained performance judging by his standards. And with that ended the Test career of this exquisitely stylish batsman in a whimper.

He said, ‘There couldn’t have been a worse moment for me to stage a comeback. I was then going though some acute personal problems in my family and my mind was just not on the game, leave alone the international game. Not surprisingly, I fell cheaply to Dayle Hadlee in both innings. So, wretched was my mental condition that I even had recourse, for the first time in my life, in a sleeping-pill in the evening before that Bombay Test began. The pill only served to slow my reflexes next morning’.

Post Test-days

Hanumant Singh continued to play in First class cricket and ended his 22-year long career in 1979. He was endowed with an astute cricket mind and captained Rajasthan in three Ranji Trophy final matches, though he lost each time. He was the skipper of Central Zone and led them to their first ever victory in Duleep Trophy in 1971-72.

After his retirement, he was appointed as the manager of the Indian team which toured the West Indies in 1982-83 under the leadership of Kapil Dev. Later, he coached the Kenya cricket team at the time of the 1996 Cricket World Cup, the Wills Trophy in India, and the team defeated the strong West Indies in one of the matches.

He also served as an International Cricket Council Match Referee in 9 Test matches and 54 ODIs from 1995 to 2002 and was the Chairman of the National Cricket Academy. He also turned into a cricket commentator and was known for his clarity of thought and brevity of expression. He felt that the art of deception in spin bowling was on the decline and once he said during a match, ‘ People are bowling the straight ball in a different way. They are over-spinning it, bowling top-spinners, some of which go the other way, which only Prasanna used to bowl in my time. But the subtleties of pace variations are definitely as good... And too much one-day cricket is affecting use of the crease’.

He passed away on the 29th of November, 2006 at the Breach Candy hospital, Mumbai, from the complications of dengue and hepatitis B infection after fighting gallantly with exemplary fortitude for some time. Bapu Nadkarni, Ajit Wadekar, and Madhab Apte, all from Bombay, attended the funeral ceremony and Bishen Singh Bedi flew from Delhi to pay his homage. Tributes followed after his sad demise and it is worth recalling what Srinivas Venkataraghavan, one of the finest off-spin bowlers of India and Hanumant Singh’s contemporary, said about him.

‘His greatest quality was the suppleness and his wristwork. Hanumant would work on the bowler without offending him, he would cleverly play in the gaps, pushing and nudging the ball away and collecting runs. He had soft hands and was always in control of the shot, always on top. As a bowler you had to keep the ball away from his leg stump because he was very strong in that direction. He could place it at will if you drifted towards his pads, a bit like Azhar. Perhaps the best strategy against him was to peg away at the off stump, bringing the ball in because he was not strong on the cut. Which is why I would bowl outside off, slanting it in to keep him quiet. But he had solid defense and a very stable temperament.’

Bishen Singh Bedi, one of the greatest orthodox left arm spinners ever in the world and his team-mate said,

‘It's a tremendous loss to Indian cricket. Hanumant was one of the finest gentlemen I have met. He was talented enough to have gone on to lead the country but things didn't go his way at all. He was a very good reader of the game, one of the shrewdest minds I have encountered. He was a wonderful mentor and fine coach. My fondest memory of him was during my Test debut in Kolkata. It was the game against West Indies when the stand was burnt down. There was tear gas being sprayed and I couldn't see anything. Amid all that commotion I was trying to search for my shoes and blazer. It was Hanumant who came to me, found my things and guided me to safety. He always thought of others before thinking of himself.’

Erapalli Prasanna, the legendary off-spinner said,

He was a very close friend of mine...I fondly remember our tour to England in 1967 and it was when I realized how well he analyzed cricket. I haven't come across someone who could analyze cricket so well. He also made batting look very easy.

And finally, Ajit Wadekar, who played with him for some years wrote,

‘I have lost one my very best friends in Hanumant Singh. I played with him for many years for the State Bank team... The main thing about Hanumant was that he was a damn good batsman off the back foot. It is very rare to find someone in India who is good off the back foot, generally all are front-foot players. We've shared some big partnerships for State Bank, and some great memories as well. He was a bit of an introvert, but a wonderful guy and a team man. It's amazing that his India career was curtailed by that so-called injury. Otherwise I have no doubt he would have gone on to score plenty of runs for India. Even after that he was absolutely and completely devoted to the game. For him it was just cricket, cricket, cricket, in whatever role he played.’

Indeed, Hanumant Singh’s batting had a silken touch and each and every shot was executed with an effortless ease. It was pristine and ethereal. It often seemed as if he was chosen Providentially to bat with a casual elegance and his signature strokes on the on side were a treat for the cricket aficionados and later batsmen like, Gundappa Viswanath carried the mantle of his artistry to delight us to heavenly ecstasy.

So talked-about was his on-side play that once he himself said, ‘If it is a ball pitched between my middle and leg stump, the tuck to mid-wicket was a shot I could play in my sleep’ and Vasu Paranjape, a First class cricketer from Baroda and Bombay who played against him, once wrote, ‘driving through the on-side with such comfort... was compared to Peter May, as was his reading of the game. This would come out when Hanumant chatted about cricket. Some years back, he made the point that VVS Laxman was repeatedly being dismissed caught on the off side because he was playing across the line... he summoned a bat and demonstrated how Laxman was actually playing across the line from leg to off, rather than the other way round, the common definition of the term "playing across the line."’

Affectionately known as ‘Chhotu’, meaning diminutive, since he was a man of small physical frame, Hanumant Singh was an extremely affable person with charming behaviour and the same charm permeated into the batting. He was a gentleman to the core and Raju Mukherjee wrote that when Hanumant Singh was asked whether he had any regrets, he simply answered, ‘To be replaced by Gundappa Viswanath is no sadness’. This is the kind of modesty that symbolized him all along.

However, he was not known to mince his words when the situation so deserved and he held firm views about the issue of chucking. He once said, ‘The umpires should be given the authority to call it as they see it. They say it's only after 15 degrees that the eye is first able to see a throw. That itself solves the problem. The moment you see it with the naked eye, you call it.’

His mental toughness showed up when as a selector he sacked Kapil Dev for the Test match at Kolkata when David Gower’s MCC team visited India in 1984-85. Kapil Dev was caught in long off by Alan Lamb of the bowling of Pat Pocock, playing a reckless shot at Delhi in the previous Test match and India, once safely placed, lost the match. It was no easy task to drop the iconic figure and Hanumant Singh is on record to have said the press that he decided to quit if the Board had put the selectors under pressure and before attending the meeting at Calcutta he said, ‘By the evening I may not be a selector’.

He was a non-smoker and a teetotaler. Though born to royalty, he had no airs or arrogance in his bearing and was convivial and personable in his conversations. He was always ready and eager to help others. He was a Prince and yet he joined a private sector commercial organization and worked there with a lot of zeal and enthusiasm. Rajasthan and the Central Zone rose to great prominence and won under his leadership and it is also worth bearing in mind that the combined East and Central Zone team defeated Gary Sobers’ visiting West Indies side by an innings under his leadership and the side boasted of players of the stature of Rohan Kanhai, Conrad Hunte, Basil Butcher, Seymour Nurse, Clive Lloyd and David Holford in 1966-67.

Indeed, it remains one of the enigmas in Indian cricket that Hanumant Singh’s tenure could be so short. No less a person than ‘Tiger Pataudi’, the Indian captain during Hanumant Singh’s short tenure in the national team from 1964 to 1969, wrote in his autobiography ‘Tiger’s Tale’, ‘...he is a classy batsman’. Yet, the selectors turned a blind eye towards him when he was shaping into an outstanding batsman in the late 1960s. The premier batsmen like Vijay Manjrekar had retired, Chandu Borde was on the wane, and there was hardly anybody in sight, worth serving with distinction at that time. In 14 Test matches he scored 686 runs at an average of 31.18 and in First class cricket he participated in 207 matches, scored 12,338 runs, hit an impressive 29 centuries and his average stood at 23.90. At the time of his retirement from First class cricket in 1974, his tally of 6,170 in Ranji Trophy was only marginally short of the then record aggregate of Vijay Hazare, the Master batsman in the 1940 and ‘50s who totalled 6,312. An abysmally absurd and unjustified statistical record that patently belies the class and ability of a batsman of his rare caliber.