Chandu Borde: the noble warrior

 

Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi, 1959. Fearsome Roy Gilchrist bounced. Courageous Chandu Borde stood tall and hooked. As the ball ricocheted off the boundary rails the crowd rose on its feet. Borde had just completed his 2^nd century of the match. Lo and behold, it was not to be. One bail was dislodged and the umpire raised his dreaded index finger. How could that possibly happen?

 

Out, hit wicket. The crashing hook shot was a certain boundary yet destiny decided otherwise. Borde’s 2^nd innings ended at 96. In the 1^st innings he had scored a very gutsy 109. Many players have scored two centuries in a match. It was nothing special. But this was a different kind of battle on the playing fields of India.

 

Gerry Alexander’s West Indies arrived on the Indian sub-continent in 1958-59 with two ebony rockets in the form of Roy Gilchrist and Wesley Hall. Alexander’s marauding army tore into the Indian defences as foreign invaders had done over the centuries. There was no respite. Territory after territory was lost; so were the Tests. The Indian selectors – Lala Amarnath, LP Jai, C Ramaswami and M Dutta Ray – picked 4 different captains for the 5 Tests!

 

Every time Chandu Borde went out to the crease he carried the national flag with him. For Borde, a patriot to the core, every innings was a duel to uphold the country's honour. He was a man of crises in the 1960s. Our man of inspiration; our man of hope.

 

In 1961-62 when Ted Dexter's England team had India in trouble at Eden Gardens, Borde (68 and 61; and 4 wickets) in tandem with Salim Durani (43 runs; 5 and 3 wickets) initially steadied the rocking boat, then held the wheel to steer to a vantage position and finally harpooned the opposition. With runs and wickets, the magnificent duo carried the day as India registered a rare victory.

 

In the next Test at Madras again they got their act together. Far from resting on their laurels, the two magnificent all-rounders proceeded to bring off another remarkable victory thereby enabling India to record her first-ever series victory over England. Borde with 5 wickets and Durani with 10 had skipper Nari Contractor smiling.

 

Within a couple of years Borde was again in the headlines as India out-paced Bobby Simpson's Australia at Bombay. It was an encounter of nail-biting possibilities with India needing 32 runs and Australia 2 wickets, and just about an hour left for stumps.

 

As Borde’s unperturbed, courageous figure emerged from the pavilion, a distinct sigh of relief could be heard all over the Brabourne Stadium. We need not have worried for the halo of Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was on him. With rasping cuts and ferocious pulls, he plunged the dagger in and the arrogant Aussies lay prone in abject surrender. In the company of tail-enders, Borde (30 not out) was at his rampaging best and India got the required 32 runs in even time.

 

This was the man who came up from the ranks to the highest throne. Borde's tryst with international cricket began in 1958-59 when Gerry Alexander's hordes were literally decapitating all and sundry in the sub-continent. Never before or since did we see such a gruesome pair of demoniac fast bowlers as Roy Gilchrist and Wesley Hall. And in the 1950s the Indian pitches were neither feather-beds nor slow turners, but were hard and had a semblance of green on them.

 

On such pitches the cricket ball really flew. Some batters gamely tried to put up resistance but were laid low; others did not have the stomach to fight and made themselves unavailable. While all this was happening one Maratha warrior was preparing his strategy.

 

Like his hero Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, the guerilla-fighter in Chandu Borde knew that a few reverses did not matter as long as the main battle was won. Here the main battle was not the match-result but something far, far more important: the battle for national self-respect; the battle for motherland’s honour. The main issue was to remove the stigma of fright which seemed to have enveloped the land. Borde took it upon himself to prove to the cricketing world that the Indian was as courageous as any.

 

In such a scenario Chandrakant Gulabrao Borde's strategy was to meet fire with fire, steel with steel and in doing so he came out with his ‘head held high’ in the immortal words of the one and only Tagore.

 

 When Gilchrist bounced it was not Borde who ducked but the short-leg fielder as Borde's violent hook thudded against the boundary railing. When Hall's snorter arrived, Borde took a step back to make room and with a rasping square cut sent the ball crashing to the point fence. Even the lethal weaponry of Gary Sobers could not disturb the ever-smiling façade of our mighty warrior.

 

He made 109 in the first innings and, as if this was not enough, in the 2nd innings he rammed into the West Indies attack with a scorching 96; most unfortunately hitting his wicket in the act of ‘hooking’ a boundary to record what would have been two centuries in the match, thereby emulating his mentor Vijay Hazare, who was the first Indian to score two centuries in the same Test, at Adelaide in 1947-48.

 

Those two innings of Borde's have very deservingly gone down in the annals of Indian cricket as among the most courageous ever. Standing on his toes he would hook with his arms straight and full; he would draw away from the wicket to make room for those powerful, patented square cuts of his. Without hesitation, he would sail to the pitch of the ball to drive hard, high and handsome.

 

Yet, whenever the need arose the man would undergo a complete transformation. He would give the broadest face of the bat to the ball and with a sphinx-like trance provide sanity and security. His defence was solid and severe, granite and concrete. There were no visible signs of weakness while he held the bat aloft as a flag for the country.

 

Chandu Borde automatically came to be regarded as our principal batsman, but actually he was one of the leading all-rounders of the world in the first half of the 1960s. With a series of hops he would reach the bowling crease and then a vigorous turn of the firm wrists would produce a variety to baffle the batter.

 

He did not turn his leggies much but enough to do the damage. Moreover, his top-spin and his googly were so accurate and deceptive that many a reputation suffered at his hands. In combination with Salim Durani, his all-round ability won two successive Tests for India against Dexter's team in 1961-62.

 

There was no ivory touch to his life. Nothing ever came easy to him. He had to fight every inch of the way for every achievement. All along obstacles in varied forms crossed his path. After establishing himself as a top-flight leggie, he developed serious shoulder trouble and consequently we lost a match-winner of a bowler forever.

 

As a fielder in the deep, he was truly outstanding. Fit to be compared with Neil Harvey, Colin Bland, Tiger Pataudi and Clive Lloyd. Borde prowling in the cover region was a delight to watch and came to be known as the ‘Panther’. However, as the shoulder injury became a permanent nightmare, this was another sacrifice he was forced to make.

 

For a player as successful as he was at home, it was indeed astonishing to observe that Borde never did justice to his ability abroad. On both tours to England he did precious little. In 1959 in 7 Test innings came just 143 runs including scores of 41 and 75. In 1967 just 60 runs in 6 innings.

 

Nothing seemed to go right for him. We held our heads in remorse as his detractors said that he had technical deficiencies against the moving ball. Was it really true that he had an inherent apprehension of the green, gloomy English scenario? Ironical, indeed, for a man who had been a Lancashire league professional for Rawtenstall for years.

 

In West Indies, too, in 1962 we suffered as did his reputation. Apart from a brilliant innings of 93, Borde again left people confused with his string of failures. Merely 224 runs in 10 outings and only 6 wickets was certainly not the true worth of this top-class all-rounder.

 

Australia beckoned him in 1967-68. Here too his lack of success abroad haunted us as much as it disappointed him. In the Test at Adelaide he led India for the first and the only time of his career and played a very responsible knock of 69, and later had another innings of 61 but a total of 166 in 8 innings was indeed very disappointing. Later, however, in New Zealand he made amends, averaging 48.4 but by then his Test career was virtually over.

 

Why did he fail on every outing abroad? No convincing answer has been discerned. Some contemporaries felt that he altered his style of batting whenever he batted abroad. It appears he became too adventurous, too quick to take charge. If this is true, did he lack faith in his own time-tested abilities?

 

This is really unfortunate. Because Borde should have realised that his technique, temperament and skills had given him enough success against every international opposition at home. So there was no urgent need to change his natural style.

 

For ten long years, Chandu Borde's presence was a stabilising and steadying influence on the other members of the Indian team. He played the game with courage and conviction. Most importantly, however, he never compromised with the basic etiquette of this great game. It appeared that Polly Umrigar had passed on his baton to a most deserving successor. The gifted, gracious gentleman never showed any rancour or remorse even in the face of grave provocations. A very essential lesson to the heroes of future generations.

 

At 18 the callow Christian youth received his cricket baptism in the stoic environment of Deodhar's Maharashtra. In his debut match he upset Bombay's apple-cart with 55 and 61 not out, and then after another successful season transferred allegiance to Baroda, where under the watchful guidance of one Vijay Hazare his true potential began to flower. His final years were again with Maharashtra and at the end of 20 years he had 12,469 runs at 40.74 and 306 wickets at 27.04. Truly a magnificent career for an extra­ordinary cricketer.

 

 His Test career graph reveals a very impressive average of 35.59 with 5 centuries' and an aggregate of 3061 runs from 55 Tests. His highest being 177 at Madras against Pakistan in 1960-61. He captured 52 wickets before that unfortunate shoulder injury permanently stopped him from turning his arm round. His most successful bowling series was against Dexter's team in 1961-62 when he scalped 16 victims.

 

One of his best innings was at Brabourne Stadium against Sobers’ team in 1966. The Indian innings was in shambles 3 down for a meagre 14 (Sardesai 6, Jaisimha 4 and Baig 0) against the fast and furious pair of Hall and Griffith. In walked the reassuring figure of Chandu Borde. My cricket-mad friend from Mumbai, Pranay Mondkar, remembers, “With Tiger Pataudi (44), Borde took the pacers by the scruff of the neck and in a glorious exhibition of clean stroke-play proceeded to 121 valuable runs to lend respectability for a lost cause.” This was typical of Borde, the heroic warrior. When the chips were down, he was always at his best.

 

Chandu Borde was a modest man, ever smiling and helpful; gracious beyond compare. The way he assisted his juniors in the State and national sides is still spoken of in admiration.

 

My first meeting with him was in my debut season in 1972-73 at Poona where Bengal had gone to play Maharashtra in the Ranji Trophy quarter-final. Skipper Chandu Borde had retired from international cricket by then but still showed us what class was all about. He played around with Subroto Guha and Dilip Doshi to register an unbeaten double-hundred. Then had us in trouble with the giant Pandurang Salgaokar –India’s fastest since Nissar – at his fearsome best.

 

Gopal Bose and I managed a semblance of a fight in the innings defeat. Borde came to our dressing room and told Gopal, “I am sure you will play for India very soon.” Believe it or not, within a year Gopal went to Sri Lanka and scored a century and a half century in the two unofficial Tests he played.

 

Then the magnificent cricketer looked at me with his signature-smile, “Young man, why were you wearing a shirt torn at the back.” Before I could answer, my skipper Chuni Goswami, “Oh! He is crazy. He always wears torn shirts for batting. That’s his superstition!”

 

Chandu Borde was stunned, “What? What has superstition got to do with your batting? No, no. You seemed so relaxed against both spin and pace. Why should you be unnecessarily superstitious? By the way, were you murmuring something while batting?’ I somehow mumbled, “Sir, my torn shirts have brought me luck. And I keep praying while batting.”

 

Chandubhai looked towards Chuni-da with his typical broad smile, “Never heard of anything like this before. Chuni, please ask him to continue praying but not to wear torn clothes at cricket. Does not look right for a first-class cricketer.” I got the message of cricket etiquette that day. That was the last time I wore my torn shirt. Within a week, Sportsweek published my picture with the torn shirt on, going out to bat against Borde’s Maharashtra!

 

But this was not the end. The most amiable gentleman presented me with a cricket ball, “Keep it as a keepsake. You got a wicket with this ball.” I was truly floored. Little did I realize the import of this gift at the time.

 

While returning by Deccan Queen train, the Hindustan Standard cricket journalist Subroto Sirkar walked up the aisle to me and said, “Do you know you have equalled a world record?” I was dumbfounded. Subroto continued, “With your first delivery in first-class cricket you got a wicket. Very few have done so.” Sure enough, in the following edition of Wisden Book of Cricket Records, one Mukherji appeared in a short list! Borde’s gift of a ball I got mounted and kept it as a souvenir to remind me of the magnanimity of a great gentleman.

 

Despite being constantly harassed by certain sections in the media to drive a wide rift between him and his captain Pataudi, Borde to his eternal credit never fell for the trap. He had the highest praise for Pataudi. This by itself was quite an achievement in the atmosphere of intrigue and conspiracy that still plagues the Indian dressing room.

 

As a national selector he was truly outstanding. A shining example of what an enlightened selector can help to achieve. Borde brought all his knowledge and experience in selecting national teams. Along with Ghulam Ahmed and Bishen Bedi, the presence of Chandu Borde gave sanity to the proceedings while selecting the India team for the world cup in 1983.

 

The other two selectors, Chandu Sarwate and Pankaj Roy did not find the time to attend the selection committee meeting. Thankfully so. The ‘quota players’ vanished overnight.

 

The 1983 world cup team was selected with ‘horses for courses’ in mind. On English seaming, breezy conditions genuine medium pacers who could ‘move’ the ball in the air and off the seam were chosen. The emphasis on fielding was paramount. Batsmen who possessed the spirit and the skill to ‘strike the ball’ when required were preferred.

 

Most importantly ‘quota players’ who had proliferated in the previous two seasons were totally ignored. Finally a strict man of distinguished presence – Maan Singh of Hyderabad – was appointed by BCCI at the helm to put difficult people into shape. All these were possible because the trio of selectors had the national cause in mind. The rest, as the cliché goes, is history…

 

My two idols Salim Durani and Chandu Borde came to Eden Gardens at the inauguration of my book Eden Gardens: Legend & Romance. Both gave heart-warming speeches. Borde further mentioned that Eden Gardens had never turned its back on him.

 

 The clear-cut features with a cultured voice related, “Having failed in two earlier Tests when I went out to bat at Eden against Benaud’s Aussies in 1959 I heard voices shouting, ‘Borde, tu khelna chhorde’. Upsetting yes, but my guru Vijay Hazare always used to say ‘Your job is to answer on the field’. Believe it or not, on my way back to the pavilion the shout had changed to ‘Borde, dada tumi guru!’ That’s Calcutta for me.”  For the record, Borde played a lion-hearted innings of 50 against the likes of Davidson, Meckiff and Benaud and saved India from a certain defeat in the company of Ramnath Kenny (62) and Jaisimha (74).

 

Over the years met him a couple of times at Sunil Banerjee’s residence at Calcutta. Borde and SK Banerjee shared seasons of club cricket in England and their friendship blossomed as the years went by. To me the magnificent cricketer’s modesty, knowledge, relaxed bearing and charming manner had all the signature-tunes of a man of true ‘class’.

 

Borde served Indian cricket in every possible capacity: player, captain, coach, manager and selector. In every sphere he left behind an indelible print of a man of high integrity. To this highly distinguished man all the deserving awards followed: Arjuna, Padma Shree and Padma Bhushan in due time. His popularity around the country, even after he had left the game as a player, was bewildering to say the least. He richly deserved every smile, every handshake, every nod, every autograph and photograph request. He was in the right sense of the term ‘the people’s man’.

 

To me, Chandu-bhai shall always remain a gentleman cricketer of the highest ideals. He was a warrior with a rare nobility of mind. Magnanimous and generous to a fault, he was actually the heroic Karna, a courageous warrior with a noble heart. May his tribe increase.