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Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Full name | Cottari Kanakaiya Nayudu | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Nagpur, Central Provinces, British India[1] | 31 October 1895|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Died | 14 November 1967 Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India | (aged 72)|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Height | 6 ft 2 in (188 cm)[2] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Batting | Right-handed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bowling | Right-arm slow-medium | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
International information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
National side |
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Test debut (cap 7) | 25 June 1932 v England | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Last Test | 15 August 1936 v England | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Domestic team information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Years | Team | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1916/17–1940/41 | Hindus | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1926/27 | Madras | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1931/32 | Hyderabad | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1932/33–1938/39 | Central Provinces-Berar | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1934/35–1937/38 | Central India | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1941/42–1952/53 | Holkar | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1953/54 | Andhra | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1956/57 | Uttar Pradesh | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Career statistics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Source: ESPNcricinfo, 10 May 2020 |
Colonel Cottari Kanakaiya Nayudu (31 October 1895 – 14 November 1967) was an Indian cricketer and cricket administrator who served as the first-ever captain of the Indian national cricket team. He is widely regarded as one of India's greatest cricketers.[7] His first-class cricket career spanned over 47 years from 1916 to 1963, a world record.[8] He was a right-handed batsman, an accurate medium pace bowler, and a fine fielder. His ability to hit long sixes sent crowds into frenzy and became a part of Indian cricket folklore.[15] He was chosen as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1933. The Government of India awarded him the Padma Bhushan in 1956 — the first cricketer to be conferred the honour.[16]
Born into an illustrious family of lawyers, Nayudu excelled at various sports from an young age. Encouraged by his father, he adopted an aggressive batting style. His first scoring shot in first-class cricket was a six. His prime days were with the Hindus team in the Bombay Quadrangular tournament in the 1920s and 1930s, where he was the highest run-scorer in the history of the tournament.[17] In 1926–27, his innings of 153 runs, in 116 minutes with 11 sixes, for the Hindus against the visiting Marylebone Cricket Club paved way for India's elevation to Test status.[18][19]
Nayudu led India in their first-ever Test match in the 1932 England tour. He was the leading run-getter for India in the tour and also picked up 65 wickets as a bowler. He also led the Indian team in three more Tests when the England team visited India for their first official tour in 1933–34. Post-retirement from Test Cricket, he led the Holkar team to eight Ranji Trophy finals in nine years, out of which they won four. His career-best innings was 200 in the Ranji trophy, made at the age of 51. He was one of the few players in first-class cricket to have scored a double century after the age of 50.[20] Later, he became the vice-president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the chairman of the national selection committee. He was also instrumental in the formation of Andhra Cricket Association and was its founder president.[21][22]
In 1923, the ruler of Holkar State invited Nayudu to stay in Indore and honoured him first with the rank of a captain and later a colonel in his state's army. Nayudu is generally considered as 'India's first cricket superstar'.[23] Historian Ramachandra Guha noted of him, "C. K. Nayudu was the first Indian cricketer to be a popular hero, whose appeal transcended the barriers of caste, class, gender and religion. Each of his sixes was interpreted as a nationalist answer to the British Raj." In 1994, the BCCI instituted the C. K. Nayudu Lifetime Achievement Award, the highest honour it bestows on a former player. C. K. Nayudu Trophy, India's under-25 domestic tournament is also named after him.
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C. K. Nayudu is today universally acknowledged as one of the greatest Indian cricketers that ever lived.
:17
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).The pre-war batsman of stature most notable for hitting was an outsider. C. K. Nayudu was a straight hitter of withering force. A six out of Chepauk in December 1920 ended up near a coconut tree 50 yards beyond the ground. Six years later, 11 sixes in a two-hour 153 against MCC at Bombay Gymkhana advanced India's case for Test recognition. And one of Nayudu's 32 sixes on India's 1932 tour of England, at Edgbaston, was said to have cleared the county, crossing the River Rea, which then formed the boundary between Warwickshire and Worcestershire. Including Nayudu among the Five Cricketers of the Year, Wisden reported: "Possessed of supple and powerful wrists and a very good eye, he hit the ball tremendously hard but, unlike the modern Australian batsmen, he lifted it a fair amount." Most did not: Hobbs hit eight sixes in 61 Tests, Bradman six in 52, Walter Hammond 27 in 85. Nayudu was even an outlier among his countrymen: Vijay Merchant's best first-class score, an unbeaten 359, was unaided by a single six; B. B. Nimbalkar's record-breaking unbeaten 443 included just one.
In the popular imagination, Nayudu is remembered most of all as a legendary hitter of sixes. In Hyderabad, they will tell you of a six he hit out of the Secunderabad Gymkhana into the Plaza Cinema. In Madras, they still speak of a straight drive that sailed out of Chepauk, clearing the tall trees that then ringed the ground to land beyond the canal outside. Urban Indians of an older generation are wont to remember two things: where they were when Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated, and their first sight of C.K. at bat.
Just as every district in India takes pride in a legendary visit of Rama and Sita, so every cricket ground has a story of a famous six hit out of its premises by C. K. Nayudu.
He was a wonderful striker of a cricket ball, famous across India for the massiveness of his hits.
The earliest personality the game threw up was C. K. Nayudu. There were heroes before Agamemnon, but he came to stand for Indian cricket as a whole. It was fortunate for Indian cricket that there was a C.K. Nayudu in the initial stages of its first-class development to make it popular among the masses. His was a commanding presence, and he utilised it to make the game popular among the people. It seems strange that the "patron saint" of Indian cricket should have been of a temper so very different from the generality of Indian batsmen. Nayudu always strove to establish his mastery over the bowling and, with his natural gifts, he often succeeded. Hence the innumerable sixes with which his memory will always be connected. It was this which made not only him but also the game popular.
Nayudu was an exception among his compatriots when it came to six-hitting; there were only four sixes by Indian batsmen in Tests in large Australian grounds in 20 Tests from 1947 to 1990.
Nayudu's majestic personality and his dashing century against Arthur Gilligan's MCC side paved the way for India's baptism in international cricket. ..... But his hard-hitting for The Hindus at the Bombay Gymkhana impressed Gilligan, who carried the message to the authorities in England that India was ready to play Test cricket.
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