Polly Umrigar

 ( 1926 Births ) 

He was a Parsi people (from the Zoroastrian community in India), the community that dominated Bombay cricket in the early decades of the twentieth century.Cashman, Patrons, Players and the Crowd, p.81. Of the early Test cricketers from Bombay, Dattaram Hindlekar and Janardan Navle were the only Marathi speakers. Others – Sorabji Colah, Jenni Irani, Rustomji Jamshedji, Khershed Meherhomji, Rusi Modi, Phiroze Palia, Vijay Merchant, L. P. Jai and Buck Divecha – were all Gujarati Parsees or Gujarati Hindus. He made his first class debut for Parsis at the age of 18 in the Bombay Pentangular in 1944, and studied for a BSc at St Xavier's College. He captained the Bombay University team. He also played Field hockey and football competitively.

By the time two Commonwealth teams visited India in 1949–50 and 1950–51, Umrigar had become a regular in the team. He scored 276 runs in the unofficial Tests against the first team and 562 runs against the second. In the Madras Test, he moved from 90 to 102 with two successive sixes off Frank Worrell.Great Indian batsmen, p. 104. Vijay Hazare, in his autobiography My story states that the sixes took Umrigar from 88 to 100.

He scored only 113 runs in the first four Tests against a weak England side at home a year later. He was dropped from the fifth Test but was included at the last minute due to an injury to Hemu Adhikari. Going in at No.7, he made 130 not out as India won their first ever Test match. Though the bowling was not of a very high quality, Umrigar considered it the best innings of his life.Polly Umrigar, "Oh, the first sight of clear skies", Outlook Special issue on the 75 years of Indian cricket (2005), p.69 : "This innings ranks as the best of my life, though the 170-odd that I got in the Caribbean in 1961–62 was perhaps my best in terms of quality."In its December 2004 issue, Wisden Asia Cricket conducted a poll among cricketers and cricket writers to select the best innings by an Indian. The 130* was ranked 29th while Umrigar's 172* at Port of Spain in 1961–62 came 45th

More has perhaps been written about this series than any other phase of Umrigar's career.Some writers have gone further on the impact of Umrigar's failures and attributed the bad reputation that Indian batsmen once had against fast bowlers to it : " .. but it was the deeper wound that Trueman had inflicted on Indian cricket that could never be healed. Trueman became an ogre India could not cope with and a whole generation of Indian batsmen were branded as cowards, men who ran away to square-leg at the first sight of a fast bowler. Not all Indian batsman ran away from Trueman and it is a canard to suggest that. However, one man did. " etc. (Mihir Bose, A History of Indian Cricket, p.181) Umrigar had far more success in his other encounters with fast bowlers. He scored a hundred at Manchester in his next meeting with Trueman in 1959; he topped the aggregate for India in all his three series against West Indies who at various times had Frank King, Wes Hall, Roy Gilchrist and Charlie Stayers. It was off the bowling of Hall and Stayers that he played one of the finest innings of his career.

He returned to form against Pakistan at home in 1952–53, and scored 560 runs in West Indies in early 1953 with two hundreds and four fifties. Umrigar's 560 runs in the 1952–53 series equalled Rusi Modi's identical tally against West Indies at home in 1948–49. This stood as an Indian record till Vijay Manjrekar scored 586 runs against England in 1961–62, and the highest abroad till Dilip Sardesai and Sunil Gavaskar made 642 and 774 runs in West Indies in 1970–71. He reached his hundred at Port of Spain with a six off Sonny Ramadhin.Umrigar was the first Indian batsman to reach a century with a six, a feat that has since been emulated by Kapil Dev, Sachin Tendulkar, Mohammad Azharuddin, Rahul Dravid and Virender Sehwag. His innings of 223 against New Zealand at Hyderabad in 1955–56 was the first double century scored for India.

After one Test against the West Indies in 1958–59, he was replaced as captain by Ghulam Ahmed who then announced his retirement from Test cricket after two successive defeats. Umrigar was again picked as captain for the fourth Test at Madras, but a confusion developed about the replacements for Ghulam Ahmed and Vijay Manjrekar, who was injured. Umrigar wanted another batsman, Manohar Hardikar, to replace Manjrekar, but Ratibhai Patel, the President of BCCI insisted on the off-spinner Jasu Patel to play in his place.While the BCCI President certainly went beyond his brief in insisting for Patel, Rajan Bala in The Covers are Off places some part of the blame in Umrigar's insistence on a Bombay man (Hardikar) as the replacement for Manjrekar. Umrigar resigned the captaincy on the night before the Test.Most sources agree that Umrigar resigned that night but Rajan Bala quotes Umrigar (The Covers are Off, p.71) as saying that he does not remember whether the decision to quit was taken during the night or in the morning after discussion with the selection committee chairman Lala Amarnath. He represented India for three more years but never again captained the country. His 337 runs in the five Tests of the series was the highest for India.

Umrigar's off-spin played a significant supporting role to Jasu Patel in India's first win over Australia at Kanpur in 1959–60, but his batting remained below par, and he missed the last two Tests in the series with a back injury. He scored three hundreds in the series against Pakistan in 1960–61 and another against England at home in 1961–62 (his third century in as many Test innings).

few weeks later, India lost every match in a five Test series in West Indies. In the fourth Test at Port of Spain, Umrigar scored 56 and 172 not out and took 5 for 107 in the West Indian first innings.The only other Indian cricketer to score a century and take five wickets in an innings was Vinoo Mankad who scored 72 & 184 and took 5 for 196 against England at Lord's in 1952. In 2011/12 v West Indies at Mumbai, Ravichandran Ashwin scored 103 and took 5/156 to become the third. His fifty in the first innings came after India had lost their first five wickets for 30. India followed on and Umrigar reached his hundred in 156 minutes and 150 in 203. When Wes Hall took the second new ball, Umrigar hit him for four fours in an over.Great Feats of Indian Cricket, p.117 The last two Indian wickets added 144. Umrigar's 172* in 248 minutes were scored off India's last 230 runs. He finished the series with 445 runs and nine wickets. His chronic back trouble made him announce his retirement from Test cricket after he returned home.

Umrigar continued to play first-class cricket for Bombay for another season and played his last first class match in 1967–68.

Umrigar's bowling improved over the course of his career. He bowled off-cutters, hardly flighted the ball and moved it in off the seam.Sujit Mukherjee, Playing for India, p.156 Occasionally he used to bowl medium pace and open the bowling, as at Bahawalpur in 1954–55 when he took his career-best 6 for 74 against Pakistan. Umrigar rarely bowled for long spells at medium pace. At Bahawal Stadium he only bowled about six overs "at the maximum pace that he was capable of, which would be about Ramchand's" (the wickets were taken in later spells), according to Sujit Mukherjee. (See the article on G. S. Ramchand for Mukherjee's opinion about Ramchand's bowling.)

Umrigar's aggregate of 3,631 Test runs and 12 Test centuries were India's best until bettered by Sunil Gavaskar in the late seventies. He led the victorious Bombay sides in Ranji Trophy in 1959–60, 1960–61 and 1962–63. In 59 Ranji matches, for Bombay and Gujarat, he scored 4102 runs with fifteen hundreds at an average of 70.72 and 140 wickets.140 wickets as per Indian Cricket 2004 p.461 and 138 according to Christopher Martin-Jenkins, Who's Who of Test Cricketers (1986) p.482, but a manual count of his wickets shows the Indian Cricket's tally to be correct. 134 of the wickets were for Bombay, 6 for Gujarat. His highest Ranji score of 245 was made against Saurashtra in 1957–58. He twice scored 1,000 runs in an Indian domestic season. He also spent a few years for Church in the Lancashire League.

Umrigar was diagnosed with lymph cancer and underwent chemotherapy in mid-2006. Hindu report on Umrigar's illness He died in Mumbai from the illness on 7 November 2006. Former India skipper Umrigar dies bbc.co.uk, accessed 7 November 2006

He married his wife, Dinu, in 1951. He was survived by his wife, two sons and a daughter.

• Partab Ramchand, Great Feats of Indian Cricket, Rupa & Co
• Partab Ramchand, Great Indian Batsmen, Rupa & Co (2005)
• Sujit Mukherjee, Playing for India, Orient Longman (1988)
• Mihir Bose, A History of Indian Cricket (1990)
• Rajan Bala, The Covers are Off, Rupa & Co (2004)
• Richard Cashman, Patrons, Players and the Crowd, Orient Longman(1980)

• Umrigar turns 80, Profile
• Interview
• Raju Bharatan,
• Obituary, The Daily Telegraph, 9 November 2006
• Obituary, The Guardian, 9 November 2006
• Obituary, The Independent, 9 November 2006
• Obituary, The Times, 9 November 2006