Polly Umrigar
A wonderful allround cricketer, Umrigar was a stylish batsman, a useful
bowler of medium pace outswing and offcut and, on occasion, a dab hand at
captaining.
His most memorable innings was one of his earliest - 130 not out in
Madras in 1951/52 which helped India to their first Test win against
England.
On English soil he was, against county opposition at least,
unstoppable, scoring 1,688 runs at 48 on the 1952 tour (including five
centuries, three of them double) and more than 800 before the end of May
in 1959.
In the Tests, however, he was strangely muted - 43 in four Tests in
1952 and 112 in seven innings in 1959 before scoring a defiant 118 at Old
Trafford.
He was for all that one of India's most consistent run-scorers at the
time, with a best of 223 against New Zealand in 1955 - at the time India's
highest Test score.
He led Bombay to five successive Ranji Trophy victories from 1958/59
and played the last of his 59Tests in 1962, ending with 3,631 runs at 42.