Cota Ramaswami & M. J. Gopalan

 

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Morappakam Joysam Gopalan was in a dilemma. He was needed by the Indian hockey team in Berlin; he was also required by the Indian cricket team in England.

 

The man from Chennai (then Madras) had excelled in both his chosen sports and the well-deserved recognitions were coming in profusion. And why not? In 1934-35 Gopalan had shown outstanding merit with the all-conquering Dhyan Chand’s Indian hockey team through New Zealand. And within a year in 1935-36 he had Jack Ryder's Australians in no end of trouble with figures of 6 for 23 and 5 for 62 for the Madras Presidency team.

 

 The right-arm pace bowler had a difficult choice ahead of him because the tours to Berlin and England coincided. He had to opt for either one of the two. His choice fell on cricket. A strange decision indeed. The mercurial hockey administrator of the time Pankaj Gupta had advised him, “Gopala, come with us to Berlin. You are assured of an Olympic gold medal.”

 

The defending Olympic hockey champions, Dhyan Chand’s India were the top favourites to retain the gold medal in the Berlin Olympics of 1936. And in England with the cricket team he would only be second fiddle to the magnificent duo of Mohammed Nissar and Amar Singh Ladha. But cricket was probably his first love and off to England he went with Vizzy’s Indians. On such slender threads hangs one destiny.

 

The dickensian twist of the tale unfolded in a matter of months. Whereas Dhyan Chand's men returned with gold medals around their necks, Vizzy's band of segregated groups showed the world to what depths petty-minded Indian sportsmen could stoop.

 

 Gopalan did not get to play a single Test match in UK and got very few opportunities to show his worth. He and the other in-form fast bowler Shute Banerjee even witnessed how one fast bowler (Baqa Jilani) played a Test (at Oval) because he abused another player (CK Nayudu) as directed by the captain!

 

 After his return from the disgraceful England tour in 1936 he did not play any official Tests but was included in one unofficial Test against Tennyson's England team in 1938.

 

However, by then, Gopalan had already printed his name in gold in the annals of Indian sport by becoming the country's first double-international sportsperson. In 1932-33 Gopalan made his official Test debut at Calcutta's Eden Gardens against Douglas Jardine's side. In that match he was not particularly penetrative, but his bowling figures were not disappointing either. He, however, had the satisfaction to accept all the three catches that came his way.

 

Gopalan's first-class career spanned from the day he delivered the first delivery of the inaugural Ranji Trophy match for Madras in 1934 to 1951. Although basically a bowler of medium-fast category, who relied on swing and seam, he later developed into a batsman of adventurous mien.

 

Even at the age of 40 his carefree batting style had John Goddard's West Indies team in disarray. Scored a breezy half century as captain of the South Zone team in 1948-49 as the last flickers ebbed away.

 

Hailing from a family of modest means, Gopalan initially was recruited by the Madras Police. Later his cricketing credentials so impressed his State captain CP Johnstone that at the latter’s insistence he was absorbed by the multi-national corporation, Burmah Shell.

 

 In 1961 Gopalan, India's first double-international, was awarded the Padma Shri. He left us in 2003 fully deserving the awards and recognition that came his way in the very restricted opportunities that was made available to him.

 

***

 

India's another sports double-international, Cota Ramaswami, was also from Chennai. He belonged to a different genre, though. Prosperous, articulate, confident, Cota Ramaswami was an amateur sportsman in the most authentic sense of the term. For him sport was certainly not the first priority.

 

 His academic achievements took him to Cambridge University and on his return accepted a highly responsible post in the Madras Agricultural Services.

 

In the midst of his various activities Ramaswami found the time to lay bare his outstanding sporting qualities. At Cambridge University he was denied a chance even to appear in the cricket trials! Racism, was it? Hope not. But the fact remains that the brilliant man Cota had little time to waste with radical means of protest. On the contrary the bright student decided to show them their mistake in his own splendid way. A splendid lesson for all of us.

 

Not to be outdone, Cota the Andhraite promptly switched allegiance to tennis and volleyed his way to a ‘tennis-Blue' in the early 1920s. A decade later he was representing India in Davis Cup encounters. Those who had ignored him at Cambridge played no international for any country. Some justice, somewhere.

 

Cota Ramaswami was a gifted timer of the ball. In his youth, the graceful left hander would use all his propensities for stroke-play with gay abandon. A delightful mix of academics and sports, his was a commanding figure for the big occasion.

 

When selected to play for Madras Presidency in 1935-36 against Ryder's Australians, Ramaswami was nearly 40, and well past his prime. But the gifts of timing and application were still very much in evidence. He proceeded to scores of 48 not out and 82 with utmost ease and utter disdain.

 

Then within months the India team for the tour of England was announced. Finding his name in the team, Ramaswami was said to have remarked that he was chosen for reasons other than cricket! Amazing men we have with us.

 

 Actually he was being far too modest and unnecessarily self-critical. Probably he said so because he knew that his salad days were behind him and that his physical condition did not measure up to his own high ideals.

 

 But on the 1936 tour of England the supposedly fitter men were beating hasty retreats to the safety of the pavilion. The 40-plus academician made his debut at Old Trafford with scores of 40 and 60. Then in the following Test at the Oval his consistency remained with innings of 29 and 41 not out. Thus with an average of 56.66 he finished his debut series in England as well as his Test career.

 

 Cota Ramaswami proved about 9 decades ago that more than physical fitness, it is a man’s skills and mental strength that takes him to the pinnacle of success. A lesson contemporary Indians, no less the cricketers, would do well to learn and emulate.

         

Ramaswami was the most respected personality in the Indian team on that tour of England in 1936. His impeccable bearing, his academic credentials, his manner of speech and conduct earned the admiration of his team mates. He was the man who, perpetually as it were, was acting the mediator between the warring groups.

 

When the impetuous youngster Lala Amarnath was being sent back from UK on disciplinary grounds by captain Vizzy and the manager Brittain-Jones, it was the sensible Cota Ramaswami who went to plead with the administration to keep Amarnath back with a caution. That matured view was not kept, but frowned upon. The legacy of that dreadful tour and its aftermath still remains in the contemporary cricket scenario with all our conspiracies and cronyism.

 

 Ramaswami would have made an excellent captain of India. He had all the requisite qualifications. But then in those days we suffered from a notion that cricketers from the north and the west were superior to the rest of the Indians! So the most deserving man from Madras was never under any consideration to give leadership to the nation.

One fine morning in 1990, the 94 year old Cota Ramaswami tottered out of his house and drifted away into the unknown...  his body was never found.

 

By international, standards, Gopalan and Ramaswami were not of the top bracket. But in the context of the Indian sports environment they were outstanding models. In a huge country like ours there are just too many obstacles to pass through: too many competitors, too few opportunities, logistics too complex, exposure far too restricted.

 

Only a handful rise to eminence. Apart from outstanding merit, in India one needs tons of luck to catch the selectorial eye. Especially so in team sports, where a brilliant individual can so easily be sidelined because of his team's failure to rise to the top.

 

In a country where sportsmen are known to be close to drug dealers, betting syndicates, black-mailers, match-fixers, murderers etc who has the time for sports double-internationals?

 

Yet, despite the travails, these two men went on to represent the country not in one sports discipline but in two! No praise can do them justice. No sports historian has yet found the time to think of these legendary double-internationals.