Before the billion-dollar deals and the roar of the Wankhede, there was a quiet schoolteacher’s son from Sangli who turned a cricket bat into a shield.
Vijay Hazare didn’t care for the limelight, and he certainly didn’t care for proper technique. He cared about one thing: staying exactly where he was. In an era where Indian cricket was still finding its feet, Hazare gave it a spine.
From the dusty fields of Sangli to the wet wickets of The Oval, this is the tale of the man who made patience look like a radical act of defiance.
From tennis balls to Test hundreds: The grimmett influence
March 11, 1915. Sangli. Some town in Maharashtra where the Krishna flows and cricket is what you do while waiting for the monsoon. Schoolteacher’s son. Eight kids in the family.
Vijay preferred kicking a ball to opening a book. Started bowling medium pace, batted low, kept his mouth shut. That was the whole package back then.
Then Clarrie Grimmett happened. Australian leggie, got the tap from his national side, needed the money. Landed in India looking for coaching gigs.
Some Maharaja shoved Hazare in front of him. Grimmett threw tennis balls for a week, showed the kid how to keep the thing out, and told him to stop dreaming about bowling. Your rent gets paid at the other end, mate. Hazare nodded and got on with it.
The stance that made coaches cry
You should have seen him. Hands spread wide on the handle like he was trying to snap the thing. Bat jammed between his pads. Shoulder pointing at mid-off. Looked like he was facing square leg. Any modern coach would have taken one look and sent him home.
Worked though. Somehow. He hooked when they dug it in. Cut late, beat the fielders who’d already started celebrating. The on-drive was a thing of beauty when he decided to show it. Made three hundreds before lunch in Ranji games. Just chose not to most days. Why hurry? The bowlers were the ones getting tired.
Vijay Merchant batted with him, against him, watched him closer than anyone. Said Hazare concentrated harder than any Indian going around.
Straightest bat in the business. Silly mid-on breathing down his neck, silly mid-off doing the same. Didn’t matter. Forward, dead bat, ball dies. Next one. Rinse and repeat. Nothing got in.
Merchant didn’t throw praise around. Ever. Said Hazare was the only Indian who could bat on matting or turf. Only other name he could think of was Hobbs. That was the list.
When two Vijays became one story
1941. Hazare moves to Baroda. Hunts tigers for the maharaja. Becomes army captain. Starts this thing with Vijay Merchant that lasts the whole decade.
Merchant was different. Bombay boy. Opener. Smooth as the rest of them weren’t. Both men hated talking themselves up. Someone compared Merchant’s average to Bradman’s once. Merchant nearly walked out of the room. Begged them never to mention it again.
But they both loved the big scores. Loved them too much, maybe. 1941-42. Merchant makes 243. Indian record. Next Pentangular, Hazare gets 248. 1943. Merchant hits 250. Hazare answers with 309. His team made 387. His brother Vivek made 21 of their 300-run stand. The rest was all Vijay.
Kept going. 1946 tour of England. Merchant 242 against Lancashire. Hazare 244 against Yorkshire the same week. Crowds loved it. Papers built it up. Both men swore blind there was no competition. Just coincidence.
Brian Statham saw it another way. England fast bowler. Tough bloke. Played them in 1951-52. Watched Merchant and Hazare crawl through a Test at Delhi with his hands on his hips. England 203. India 64 for 2.
End of day two? 186 for 2. They added 39 in the last hour and a half. Batted into the third afternoon. Five hours plus for the partnership. Statham reckoned they ran one when three were begging to be taken.
Merchant out for 154. New Indian Test record. Beats Hazare’s old mark. Hazare could have declared. Had a monster lead. Batted on instead. Declared end of day. England got their rest day. Hazare finished 164 not out. Eight and a half hours. Took his record back.
Match drawn. People talked. Both batsmen denied everything. Statham wrote a book about it later. Didn’t buy their story for a second.
Adelaide changed everything
Hazare was 32 in 1947. Thirteen years of making mountains of runs in India. Nothing overseas. First six Test innings in Australia? Seventy-four runs total. People said he was a home track hero. Couldn’t handle the real quicks. Lindwall and Miller would sort him out.
Fourth Test. Adelaide. Australia 674. Bradman 201. Hassett not out 198. India follow on. Hazare makes 116. Adds 208 with Phadkar. Not enough.
Second dig. Mankad out first ball. Amarnath out second. Hazare walks in. Miller bounces him twice. Hazare hooks both along the carpet for four. Miller asks Bradman for a leg-side fielder. Bradman tells him to keep bowling. Hazare makes 145. Six of his mates make ducks.
Bradman calls it superlative. The Don didn’t use that word for just anyone.
Here’s the thing though. Hazare picked another knock as his best. Thirty-eight at The Oval, 1952. Wet pitch. Trueman, Bedser, Laker, Lock. The lot. India 98. Next best score? Twenty.
Trueman said later Hazare was as good against fast bowling as anyone alive. Also said he was a proper gentleman. Trueman didn’t call many people that.
The captaincy that wasn’t
Hazare led India to their first Test win. Madras, 1952. Beat England by an innings. Sounds good. Reads well. Wasn’t.
Captaincy ate him from the inside. Too quiet. Too careful. Wouldn’t take a punt when the punt was there. Merchant said later they never should have given him the job. Stopped him being India’s best ever bat. Called it a tragedy. Meant it.
Hazare hit back, because that’s what you do. Pointed to early scores as skipper. Said the team was green. That draws counted for something back then. Set fields with hand signals because words came slow.
When they finally beat England, Umrigar asked what he thought. Hazare looked up and said “Well played.” That was the whole speech. That was him.
1952 England tour proved the point. Lost 3-0. Rain saved them from worse. But Hazare stood up to Trueman. Came in at 42 for 3. Seventeen for 5. Seven for 2. Six for 5. Zero for bloody 4. Made 333 runs at 55 average.
Took 7 for 50 against Middlesex too. Forgot he started as a bowler. The medium pace, the round-arm action, the whole thing.
The long walk back
Hazare played until 1960. Nearly 19,000 first-class runs. Sixty hundreds. Almost 600 wickets. Died at 89. Quiet week in hospital. Quiet end.
They named the one-day trophy after him. Makes sense. Never the crowd favourite. Never the pretty one. Never the bloke you paid to watch.
But when it all went to hell, when the quicks came hard and the situation needed more than fancy shots and desperate slogs, Hazare just stood there. Didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Waited them out.
That was his thing. That was enough.