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This article was written in 1975 for a special issue of Best & Co’s house journal, Crest.
Denniston commentating at a Ranji Trophy match.
It is said that cricket suffers from two kinds of fools – those who think that it holds the empire together (before 1947, of course) and those who think it isn’t worth a tramp’s boots. There is, however, a third lot of God’s chosen few, who believe that cricket is just fun and must be enjoyed as such. To this happy fold belonged a truly noble soul, the late Sir Robert D. Denniston – just plain ‘Denny’ to his thousands of admirers – a man who rose from a Junior Assistant in the firm of Best & Co. of First Line Beach, to the coveted position of its Chairman and Managing Director in the fullness of time.
Judged by any standard, Sir Robert, one of the most immaculate of cricketers, a player of rare charm, and a doyen of cricketers and, above all, a great sportsman and a good friend and companion to several, belonged to an age when Scotch Whisky cost only 3s 6d per bottle and England basked in the pride of an empire. The most widely known picture of Denniston is the reproduction of a man, with a pipe in his mouth, with a solar topi energetically talking of cricket under the sun.
He was Number 1 in the batting order with Shattock for the MCC, and was the only exponent of lob bowling, who used to earn a crop of wickets with his clever slows. When he got a wicket, within 120 seconds he had consoled the departed, talked to both umpires and his captain and most of the fielders, done up a shoe lace, greeted the new victim and measured his short run again. Yet when you met him sharing the triumphs and failures and the fuss, you found a calm and philosophical citizen with a decided weakness for cocktails, in high company. Yes, temperament is a funny thing, nearly as funny as Groucho Marx.
How readily he comes to the mind’s eye! Having known him for several years, I am in the happy position of being able to recall several anecdotes about him. Denny was quite a capable commentator on cricket as well as hockey. But he was rather painfully slow, both in his narrative and speech. Once, when broadcasting a Ranji Trophy match in the late 1930s at Chepauk, his commentary sparked a telegram by none other than Arthur Dixon, yet another cricket addict, reading thus: “Remove Denniston stop Replace by anybody.” And on another occasion, at the opening ceremony of the sports shop of A.G. Ram Singh, the famous Madras all-rounder, he said, “Gentlemen, I have great pleasure in declaring open the sports firm of A.G. Ram Singh and Sons, Un-Ltd.”
In 1944 when the B. Subramaniam Memorial Nets were declared open by the then Governor of Madras, Sir Arthur Hope, the Committee had decided that His Excellency was to receive the first ball off the bowling of Denny, who remarked that the whole proceeding would provide a great laugh and hoped in all sincerity that the batsman would be fit enough to play the ball after his brief sojourn at the MCC bar! He would always refer to the late Dr. P. Subbaroyan, the well-known cricket administrator, as the “synthetic doctor and the walking Wisden”. It was a remark showing a fine sense of humour and deep appreciation of the man’s real worth.
We, in the MCA, were desirous in 1945 of placing an order for a full size white cricket sight screen from Best’s, but did not mention this to Sir Robart. The Assistant Manager in charge of ‘sundries’ regretted his inability to make a screen according to our specifications. When the matter was brought to the notice of Sir Robert, he remarked that nothing was impossible at Best’s, a trading concern, and when the final article was made and delivered (it lasted us for a full seven seasons braving rain and sun), Sir Robert, with his engaging smile, said that there was nothing to pay! What great magnanimity! Since then, all our needs were met only by Best’s for many years.
At the suggestion of Sir Robert, schoolboys were admitted free at Chepauk at 4 p.m. on the last day of every Ranji Trophy match. In a match in which Madras won, thanks to some lion-hearted bowling by Ram Singh, the boys made a mad rush to garland the hero and, in doing so, damaged quite a number of flower pots and the grass bed. A bill was promptly sent by the MCC to the MCA for Rs. 200/- and Denny, learning about this, sent a cheque for the amount to the MCC with his best compliments.
He organised a good deal of club cricket under the banner of the Eccentrics Cricket Club. It was a pleasure and honour to play for this club those days. Denny staged matches regularly with the Vellore Police, the Ganjam Gypsies and several Ceylon teams.
He took all which cricket in its bounty had to give, and being its natural intermediary, he handed the gift to the crowd. And how they loved him! With his briar pipe, he was a very popular figure. His sweet smile, his encouraging words and his various acts of kindness will remain happy memories for many. I once asked him if he would choose the same life if he had to do it again. Prompt came his reply: “Oh, yes, indeed. You see, the friendships I cultivated, the places I saw and the many happy memories of this great game, it was really wonderful and lovely.”
The Madrassi Englishman
Excerpted from The Spirit of Chepauk
To Robert Denniston, “Cricket was his religion and Madras Cricket Club his Church”. He was truly loved and respected both as a player (a solid opening batsman, a good fielder, an “excellent” captain and a surprisingly successful underarm bowler, after injury forced him to change his bowling style) and as a man not only by his fellow Europeans, but also by Indians in Madras sports and business circles. As K. Balaraman of The Hindu, later to become one of its most eminent journalists, wrote, saying ‘Vale’ to his friend Denny, “If all Englishmen were Dennistons, there would have been no ‘Quit India’.”
Balaraman spoke of Denniston’s wit and sally, Denniston the humourist, Denny who was Oriental in his hospitality and Denny the true blue democrat. Balaraman also wrote of the Madras Cricket Club member who was so passionately fond of sport that he had no time for marriage. And Balaraman wrote of his love affair with Cricket:
“As an exponent of the art of Cricket, Denny certainly did not hit the heights, but on his day he could (as an opening batsman) break any bowler’s heart. I have seen him out-stonewall Stonewall Jackson. He was not quite popular in batting circles with his slow legbreaks and later when he took to underarm bowling many batsmen considered it ‘underhand’. In fact, he became quite hateful with his low creepers and many a batsman who came to scoff became his prey.
“Denny’s love of Cricket verged on the sentimental. He wrote and spoke about it with great felicity. His articles and radio commentaries glamorised the game and bathed it in a suffusion of romance. Indubitably a master of both the written and spoken word...
“It was typically Dennyish that he did good by stealth. He was the patron saint of many struggling clubs and struggling players. I was connected with one such club.”
What Balaraman did not mention was that Denniston was one of the first Europeans to turn out for Indian clubs. In 1929-30 he turned out for little-known Emmanuel Club with not a player of note in the team. Then, in 1935-36, he was playing for a first division club, a team that had won the League championship, Minerva Cricket Club. He was also an enthusiastic member of the Eccentrics Cricket Club founded by A.F.W. Dixon to bring Indian and European cricketers closer together.
P.N. Sundaresan, a journalist who was a fair cricketer, once wrote that batsmen did not relish Denniston’s underarm lobs. “From personal experience of playing those lobs I can say one had to gather all his strength to strike them, but (would) still (be) uncertain that the hit would not sail into the hands of half a dozen fieldsmen posted strategically on the leg-side.”
A story that was once legendary at The Madras Cricket Club relates that during a match Denniston kept making faces at C.P. Johnstone, his captain, while fielding, wanting to get into the thick of the action. But when he was put on to bowl, Rangachari the bowler of all people hit him for 2 sixes and 3 fours! As he finished his over, Denniston turned to Johnstone with a furious face and crisply stated, “WRONG END”! All who were near burst out laughing, while Johnstone struggled to keep a straight face befitting a captain wedded to discipline.
Denny, whom Chari remembers “as having a heart as warm as his face was sunny” had a fine collection of sports books and would gladly lend them to any Indian interested in sport. Getting them back never worried him. He was, it is stated, the first in Madras to broadcast ‘running commentaries’ on cricket matches.
Denniston arrived in India as a 21-year-old in 1911 to work for Best & Co. When he left India in 1946, he was a Knight (1942) and had retired as head of the Company. A bachelor all his life, he lived most of his years at the Madras Club. Despite his close association with the elitist Madras Club and his Presidentship of two ‘Europeans only’ institutions, Denniston was probably the Englishman with the largest number of Indian friends. As he said just before his departure, “I was born an Englishman but I was brought up a Madarassi. I’ll keep coming back, but the only snag is I can’t keep on travelling at the company’s expense.” Sadly, he never came back. Within a few months of arriving in England, he died – and Madras sport was left only with memories of his contribution to several games. Today, few remember even that.
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