BackHow Mushtaq and Merchant overcame manufactured mistrust
In 1936, the Indian cricket captain hatched a cunning plan to destroy team spirit in a bid to mask his own failures. What happened next offers a valuable lesson that remains relevant to this day
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The Maharajkumar of Vizianagaram is a title, and a man, I suspect you didn’t think you would read about on a random Sunday morning in November 2015. I also suspect that if he’s remembered at all, it’s only among fans of Indian cricket; in fact, only among those fans with an interest in the history of Indian cricket. Because other than the link to cricket, I am hard-pressed to come up with any particular accomplishments by the man known by that title, one Vijay Ananda Gajapathi Raju.
My mistake: he was even better known as just Vizzy. And there’s a reason I want to remind you of Vizzy this particular Sunday morning.
Vizzy was the son of the king of Vizianagaram (thus Maharajkumar). In his youth in the 1920s and ’30s, he was a good cricketer, but always fancied himself as a great one. He used his money and royal position to influence the course of Indian cricket in those early years, never mind that he had a terminally average record playing the game at the first-class level. It must say something about the state of Indian cricket then that this man managed to get himself appointed as captain of the team that toured England in 1936.
Now, this was a team that had such remarkable talents as Syed Mushtaq Ali, Lala Amarnath, Vijay Merchant, Mohammad Nissar and C.K. Nayudu. For them to be led by a cricketing mediocrity solely because he was royalty was a recipe for disaster. Sure enough, several of the players made their displeasure known to the extent that the tour is still remembered for the unhappiness in the Indian squad. Lala Amarnath, characteristically, was the most vocal of the lot. Vizzy punished him by sending him back to India even before the first Test, a remarkably short-sighted move considering Amarnath had been India’s best performer on the tour till then.
Then the second Test, at Manchester, came around. In a story I first heard from the perceptive cricket journalist Ayaz Memon some years ago, Vizzy managed to surpass even the stupidity of expelling Amarnath.
Never forget that Vizzy was a passenger in this team, besides being an uninspired captain. In his entire Test career—the three Tests on this 1936 tour—he made 33 runs. Twenty-five of those had come in a heavy defeat in the first Test. Six more came in India’s disastrous first innings score of 203 in this second Test at Manchester. As England batted and piled on the runs—Wally Hammond 167, Joe Hardstaff 94 and even Hedley Verity, at No. 9, contributed 66—you can imagine the muttering in the Indian team picking up steam. What was going to turn this train wreck of a tour around? Certainly not the captain.
Given the muttering, but especially his own nondescript performances on the field, Vizzy seems to have turned, as you might expect a prince to do, to Machiavellian scheming. Could he somehow pull the rug from under his own team, so that their collectively miserable performance would mask his own failures? Their collapse for 203 and their inability to rein in England’s charge were, you would think, already miserable enough. And charge is the right word: on the second day, England scored nearly 400 runs before they closed at 571.
Still, Vizzy had a plan. And it involved India’s openers, Vijay Merchant and Syed Mushtaq Ali.
No doubt, those names have already said something to you. The times we live in, really. But in that earlier era, they seem to have said much the same thing to Vizzy, and he decided to act on it.
Before India began its second innings, he called Merchant to his room. “Watch out for Mushtaq," said Vizzy, “you can’t trust him!" He went on: “He will run you out." This left Merchant—we shall assume—scratching his head. “Why would Mushtaq do that?" he must have asked Vizzy. Vizzy replied, simply, “He’s a Mussalman, after all." Explanation enough for Merchant, the captain probably thought.
Merchant returned to his room still scratching his head; Vizzy called in Mushtaq. Much the same words were exchanged. Vizzy said: “Don’t trust Merchant! That Bania will run you out." Which now left Mushtaq befuddled. Explanation enough for him, the captain probably thought.
Think of what Vizzy had done. India was way behind in the match, faced with a monumental battle just to draw even. Before it even started, he had his two star batsmen looking at each other suspiciously, purely because of their respective faiths. A decade later, much the same kind of suspicion would be reason enough to massacre a million citizens of two new countries.
Still, as Ayaz told the story, Mushtaq and Merchant chose not to succumb to the seeds of mistrust. “Luckily," said Ayaz, “they spoke to each other." Thus, they understood Vizzy’s designs. They made a pact: whatever happened, they were not going to run each other out.
What did happen next is the stuff of cricket legend. Through the rest of that day, Merchant and Mushtaq scored 190 free-flowing runs—meaning 588 runs had been scored that day. Eight decades later, that remains the record highest number of runs scored in a day in a Test. The next day, the two openers took their partnership to 203—remember that India’s entire first innings score was 203—before Mushtaq was out. Both scored centuries. India reached 390 for five and comfortably saved the match. Vizzy, appropriately, was not out on zero at close.
All this, because Merchant and Mushtaq talked—and then paid zero attention to a leader who was out to divide them. All this, because Merchant and Mushtaq trusted each other instead.
This particular Sunday morning, here’s a suggestion: whatever happens, let’s not run each other out. Pick your parallel, your allegory.
Once a computer scientist, Dilip D’Souza now lives in Mumbai and writes for his dinners. His latest book is Final Test: Exit Sachin Tendulkar. He tweets on @DeathEndsFun
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