V.V. Kumar

When Sir Garfield Sobers came to Chennai more than a decade ago to assist former India leg spinner Vaman Kumar at the MAC Spin Academy, he was obviously impressed by the energy and dedication of the veteran already well into his sixties. During an informal dinner that some of us were privileged to attend at the Madras Cricket Club at the end of the camp, Sobers was not, therefore, very surprised when we named V. V. Kumar the best orthodox wrist spinner in India after Subhash Gupte in reply to his query if Subhash's younger brother Baloo would have fitted that description.

Like many cricketers of my generation from the South, I have been a life-long admirer of V. V. Kumar, the leg spinner as well as a fan of his sense of humour and eccentric, unpredictable ways on and off the cricket field.

Long before I saw him in flesh and blood, Kumar had excited my imagination with his heroic deeds in Pakistan as a member of the Indian Starlets team that toured that country circa 1960 under the captaincy of Lala Amarnath, by then retired from Test cricket. It was a great opportunity for young Test hopefuls on both sides of the border to impress the national selectors. On the Indian side, Kumar and fellow Madras cricketer A. G. Milkha Singh were the undoubted successes of the tour. At my grandfather's Trivandrum residence, I excitedly awaited the arrival of The Hindu around 4 pm every day from Madras, bearing all the cricket news of the day. V.V. and Milkha rarely belied my expectations that summer.

I first saw V.V. in action when he made his Test debut not long afterwards at Delhi's Feroze Shah Kotla and my father, then working in New Delhi, took me and my brothers to the match. I was barely 14 then and my memory of the action is clouded by the passage of time, but I can never forget the thrill I experienced when V.V. snared his first victim – Imtiaz Ahmed, the Pakistani wicket keeper. Kumar went on to take five in the innings and seven in all in the match.

Unfortunately, Kumar's dreams of prolonged success as a Test bowler were crushed after his second appearance for India. By a strange coincidence, I happened to be one of the spectators at the Brabourne Stadium, Bombay, the next season, as my father had by then joined Bank of India there. It was a miserable match for Kumar, as he finished with none for 70 in the first innings, did not bowl in the second and did not distinguish himself in the field. There were murmurs about a hidden finger injury leading to this debacle, and even though only one of the four Indian spinners, Chandu Borde, was among the wickets, V.V's failure was highlighted by his critics. One of the other Madras players in the Indian team, left-hand batsman A. G. Milkha Singh – who had a decent outing at the Kotla versus Pakistan – failed too and was booed by an unsporting crowd, while his elder brother Kripal Singh scored 38 and 13, both not out. Neither V.V. nor Milkha played for India again despite sterling performances in the Ranji Trophy for several seasons, and Kripal came back into the side under Tiger Pataudi's captaincy. It was all so depressing for the young fan from Madras.

Returning to Madras in 1962, I had several opportunities to watch Kumar bowl in the local league and the Sport & Pastime (later The Hindu) trophy matches and eventually play with and against him – with him in the BS Nets organised by the cricket association, and against him in league games. He was a master bowler, constantly improving, adding new weapons to his armoury while perfecting those he already possessed. He did not believe in exaggerated flight, but tossed it up in a tantalising arc, varied his pace, bowled two different types of googlies and an effective flipper. He was accuracy personified, as was his younger spin partner in the State team, S. Venkataraghavan. Both were workhorses, wheeling away in the nets for three hours every evening. I once made the foolish mistake of charging V.V. in the nets with some success, and he made my life miserable forever afterwards by switching over to my net from wherever he was bowling in the practice complex of half a dozen wickets. He did this day after day for a whole season, even though I was a miserable tailender, not a frontline batsman. He was really intent on testing himself against someone who seemed to master him during a solitary session of practice. It is this competitive streak that made him such a successful bowler against all the top batsmen in the country.

I witnessed another side of the V.V. Kumar persona in a practice game I played under him. When stand-in umpire C.S. Dayakar (our own teammate) negatived an lbw appeal, V.V. reprimanded him sharply, and then carried on as if nothing had happened. He'd actually snapped "Idiot" at Dayakar who, made of sterner stuff, was unmoved. It was one occasion when Kumar's gamesmanship had no effect on the umpire, unlike the time he barked at a Test umpire in a local match. He caught the umpire nodding away at the crease and waking up startled by his appeal for leg before. "Told you not to stuff yourself with curd rice at lunch," V.V. admonished. "Come on V.V., mind your tongue," the umpire retorted. A couple of balls later, V.V. rapped the batsman on the pads again, but though the ball was clearly missing the leg stump, he nonchalantly turned to the umpire and asked: "How about this one, I say?" This time, up went the umpire's finger.

No batsman in domestic cricket mastered Kumar, with the solitary exception of V. Subramanyam of Karnataka who, in the course of a double century in 1967, punished V.V.'s bowling severely. In the South Zone, the leading lights of Hyderabad and Karnataka, like Pataudi, Jaisimha, and Vishwanath always found him a handful. He had more than 400 Ranji Trophy wickets and 599 first class scalps in all in his long career. He took part in two hard-fought Ranji Trophy finals against Bombay in 1967-68 and 1972-73, both of which Madras lost despite Kumar's splendid bowling. Despite his consistent successes, his return to Test cricket was blocked by the emergence of the unorthodox but match-winning leg spinner B.S. Chandrasekhar.

In his seventies now, Kumar is fitter than men half his age. He still enjoys bowling in the nets. For the benefit of today's cricket followers brought up on a Qadir-Warne-Kumble legacy, it is important to acknowledge V.V.'s greatness as one of the finest exponents of the art of leg spin bowling in the history of the game.

* Madras Province/State/Tamil Nadu.