Yadavindra Singh of Patiala had a name that wouldn’t fit on a jersey. Not that jerseys existed when he played. He was born into cricket, lived through its dirtiest politics, and died with only one Test cap to his name. That cap sits in history’s attic now, gathering dust.
Man with too many names
He started as Yadavindrasingh. Played as Yuvraj of Patiala.
Died as Lieutenant-General His Highness Farzand-i-Khas-i-Daulat-i-Inglishia, Mansur-i-Zaman, Amir ul-Umara, Maharajadhiraja Raj Rajeshwar, 108 Sri Maharaja-i-Rajgan, Maharaja Sir Yadavindra Singh, Mahendra Bahadur, Yadu Vansha Vatans Bhatti Kul Bushan, Maharaja of Patiala, GCIE, GBE.
That’s what power did to you back then. It gave you words. It also took away your game.
A father who owned the sport
His father was Bhupendra Singh, Maharaja of Patiala. The man who gave Indian cricket its biggest prize – the Ranji Trophy. He had ten queens and 88 children. Yadavindra was the second born, the chosen one. The heir to both a kingdom and a cricket legacy.
Bhupendra played too. Scored 83 against England in 1918. But his real contribution was writing checks and opening palace doors. He hired English cricketers to teach his son. Maurice Leyland, Abe Waddington, Roy Kilner – these men found themselves coaching a teenage prince in Patiala.
The boy was six feet five inches tall. He looked like a cricketer. Moved like one too.
Test that mattered
December 1933. Madras. England were touring. Douglas Jardine brought his Bodyline scars with him. India had never won a Test. Yadavindra walked in at number six in the first innings. Scoreboard read 66 for 4. Hedley Verity was spinning circles around Indian batsmen.
He made 24. Top score. Cut and drove Verity like he had been doing it all his life. Wisden noticed. They always noticed when you took on Verity.
Second innings. India needed 452. He walked out again. This time he made 60. Again top scorer for India. Dazzling. Reached for the spinners, used his height, hit straight. Caught behind eventually. But the fight was there. India lost by 202 runs. Verity took 11 wickets.
That was it. One Test. Twenty four and sixty. Never played again.
Why? Because Indian cricket in the 1930s wasn’t about cricket. It was about thrones.
Battle of the Maharajas
Abhishek Mukherjee wrote about this in Cricket Country. He explained how three empires fought for control. Patiala. Porbandar. Vizianagram. Vizzy was the worst cricketer among them but had the deepest pockets. He donated £40,000. That bought him a deputy vice-captaincy in 1932.
Yadavindra was better. Everyone knew it. Mihir Bose wrote he was “probably one of the finest cricketers to play for India.” He could bat. He could bowl – took 50 first-class wickets. He could field too, which made him a unicorn in that era.
But Vizzy wanted to be captain. So he manufactured ways.
The 1936 England tour selection became a circus. Patiala wanted his son to lead. Vizzy wanted the job for himself. Pataudi Sr. – the one who played for England – was also in the mix. He scored that famous Ashes hundred. But he declared himself unfit.
Vizzy played dirty. He got himself on the selection committee. He made sure Yadavindra captained only one unofficial Test against the Australians in 1935-36. Bombay Gymkhana. The crowd booed him. He was the outsider. The prince who replaced their hero CK Nayudu.
He hit five sixes and a four in one innings. Made 40. Rumours said the Australians bowled him full tosses. The mob believed it. Didn’t matter if it was true. Truth was never the point.
The Vizzy show
Vizzy kept scoring token runs in big matches. Forty here, forty there. Enough to stay relevant. He led Nawab of Moin-ud-Dowlah’s XI and won without batting, bowling, or catching. The politics worked.
When the final vote came for the 1936 captaincy, Vizzy won 10-5. Patiala voted for Nayudu. Think about that. A father voting against his own son because even he knew the prince wasn’t the best choice. But Vizzy wasn’t either. That’s how broken the system was.
Yadavindra scored 102 not out for Southern Punjab soon after. But the battle had moved to boardrooms. Cricket was just a sideshow.
From Player to King
March 23, 1938. Bhupendra Singh died at 46. Yadavindra became Maharaja. The cricketer turned into a king. Like CB Fry’s mythical Albanian throne, except this was real.
He was 25. Already married. He also became President of the British Indian Olympic Committee. Led the charge for Asian Games. Played cricket between running a state and serving in WWII.
He played his final first-class match at 45. Past XI vs Present XI at Kotla. Scored 23. Took five wickets in an innings. Got Pankaj Roy and Nari Contractor out. Still had it. But why bother? He had palaces to run.
The real work
Patiala state was huge. 5,942 square kilometers. 1.6 million people. Bigger than many countries. When India got independence, he convinced other royals to join the union. Became Rajpramukh of PEPSU. Helped refugees from Pakistan find homes.
He served as Indian ambassador to Italy and Netherlands. UN delegate. UNESCO. Food and Agriculture Organisation. The man had range.
He told his son Malvinder later, “Politics is not my cup of tea. Bahut gandh ho gaya hai. Politiciana nu honour naam di cheez hi nahin pata.” Roughly translates to: it’s gotten filthy. Politicians don’t know what honour means anymore.
The final flight
He died in 1974 at The Hague. Age 61. Heart failure. Ambassador to Netherlands. The man who started with cricket ended with diplomacy.
His son Amarinder became Chief Minister of Punjab. Another son, Malvinder, told The Tribune about his father’s donations. Old Moti Bagh Palace to National Institute of Sports. Pinjore Gardens. Half of Chail properties. A summer residence in Himachal for poor children.
The forgotten prince
Yadavindra Singh remains a footnote in Indian cricket history. One Test. Two innings. Eighty-four runs. Not much on paper. But behind those numbers is a man who navigated the dirtiest era of Indian cricket with some grace left intact.
He wasn’t perfect. He was royalty in a time that needed democracy. But he could play. Really play.
Abhishek Mukherjee wrote about him in cricketcountry. Called his life fascinating. It was more than that. It was a mirror to Indian cricket’s original sin – letting money and power pick the team.
The sport survived. Yadavindra didn’t. Not in memory, anyway. But for one afternoon in Madras, he showed what he could do against Hedley Verity. And sometimes, one afternoon is all you get.
His name is too long for history books. Maybe that’s why they left him out.