The decision to nominate the late cricketer for a special award needs to be hailed considering the entertainment value his cricket embodied
Budhi Kunderan (centre) with manager Keki Tarapore and Dilp Sardesai (right) on the 1967 tour of England where India lost 0-3. Pic/Getty Images
Considering the fine entertainer that the late Budhi Kunderan was, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has chosen a right time — during the highly-entertaining Indian Premier League — to nominate him for special recognition at this year's awards ceremony. Like many of Kunderan's admirers, I was delighted at the decision for more reasons than just the fact that I knew him well through his brother Bharat, an erstwhile Indian schoolboy cricketer.
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Scotland-based Budhi was at one time denied of his benevolent fund dues from the BCCI. When Bharat kept following up with the men who ran the old BCCI office at the North Stand of the Brabourne Stadium, he was told that the money could not be granted because Budhi was no longer an Indian passport holder. An irate Bharat once asked them whether all his records for India and in domestic cricket meant nothing since he didn't have an Indian passport.
Budhi had probably given up on getting his dues when he wrote to BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya, who ensured Budhi's cheque was ready in 10 days' time. Budhi visited India regularly, but when he was here in 2004, he said it would be his last trip and took the opportunity of meeting as many friends and cricketing colleagues as possible.
When we met for the interview, he didn't sound frustrated over the fact that he could play only 18 Tests for India. At the same time, he had not forgotten the injustice meted out to him. He was straight-talking and that got him into trouble. He was stunned by his exclusion from the 1967-68 Australian tour and held then captain Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi responsible. "Something happened after the 1967 England tour — in East Africa and in Pune when we played the Irani Cup. We had some words. I thought Pat was out of order and told him off," said Budhi.
Budhi did not wear the India cap after the tour of England on which he opened the bowling and batting in the third and final Test at Edgbaston. In his pre-Test interaction with the media, captain Pataudi (according to Edward Docker's History of Indian Cricket) asked whether any of them had heard of, "a complete non-bowler, a reserve wicketkeeper, opening the bowling in a Test match." Pataudi went on to tell the clueless reporters, "That's what we'll be doing in Birmingham." When one of them asked what does Kunderan bowl, Pataudi replied: "We don't know. He'll have to bowl one to find out."
Kunderan opened the bowling with his Mysore teammate V Subramanya and gave away 13 runs without claiming a wicket in four overs. He could manage only two while opening the batting with Farokh Engineer and ended his Test career with a second innings 33. In the previous Test at Lord's he scored 47 out of India's 110 as the visitors slumped to an innings defeat. Had John Snow not inflicted an injury on Dilip Sardesai's hand, Budhi would have come in at No. 8 as he did in the first innings in which we scored 20.
He was adjudged the best Indian batsman of the Test and was awarded 50 pounds.
A Test career that began surprisingly way back in 1960 (he was picked for India even before he had played in the Ranji Trophy) ended in seven years and 18 Tests. In 2004, Budhi surprised me by revealing that he did not own a pair of wicketkeeping gloves when he was picked for India to play against Australia at the Brabourne Stadium.
With club matches on, none of his Azad Maidan friends could lend him theirs. He recalled: "I remember going to Naren Tamhane, who was dropped for that Test. I knocked on his door and Naren asked, 'You are playing a Test match tomorrow and you don't have your own gloves?' He felt sorry for me and let me borrow his old practice gloves. To me, those were the best gloves I ever had."
During that 2004 meeting, I forgot to ask Budhi about his 525 runs in five Tests against the touring Englishmen in 1963-64. Some of his strokes during his 192 in Madras, where he became the first Indian wicketkeeper to score a Test century, were described by journalist Dicky Rutnagur as "imperious and blue-blooded."
In the 1964-65 edition of The Indian Cricket-Field Annual, Rutnagur elaborated on the Madras knock: "As one saw Kunderan's innings go from strength to strength that day (January 10, 1964), it seemed that he worshipped the same cricketing god as Rohan Kanhai." Budhi died of lung cancer at 66, two years after his 2004 Mumbai visit. He will be smiling from up above when the BCCI honours him soon. The same BCCI asked him who the hell he was when he questioned the poor payments players received in the 1960s and the manner in which they were treated by officials. And his answer was, "I am nobody but a past player." An entertaining past player he ought to have said.
mid-day's group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance. He tweets @ClaytonMurzello Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
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