Stumped right through his career!
Chandrakant Trimbak Patankar’s name is on the long list of cricketers with a mere one Test cap each against their names — 51 in total, six wicketkeepers among them. People who had seen him in action believed his glove work was neat and ecient, and, most importantly, he had the ability to spot Subhash Gupte’s googlies. But the same people sympathised with Patankar citing the fact that his career clashed with that of another highly procient stumper, Naren Tamhane.
Patankar had a decent outing in the only Test he played, at Calcutta’s Eden Gardens against the Harry Caveled New Zealand in December 1955. He took three catches, those of openers Gordon Leggat and Bert Sutclie and lowerorder batsman Jack Alabaster, and eected one stumping, that of Anthony Roy Macgibbon, in the rst innings. But he dropped a dicult skier and was promptly removed from the playing XI for the fth Test played at Madras’ Corporation Stadium.
Patankar had made his debut as a replacement for Tamhane, who apparently had not been up to the mark in the rst three Tests of that series played in Hyderabad, Bombay and New Delhi, but the missed catch paved the way for Tamhane’s return.
Many decades after his nal game, in which he represented Maharashtra in a Ranji Trophy West Zone league match against Gujarat at Satara, Patankar refused to apportion blame for his misfortune at not being able to establish some sort of permanency in the Bombay and India sides — he was continually sidelined by the selection committees of both. But he was eventually named assistant secretary for sports at the Cricket Club of India (CCI) by its president, the late Raj Singh Dungarpur, who he describes in no uncertain terms.
Asked to name the people who helped him the most, Patankar, now nearing 90 and
India’s second oldest surviving Test cricketer, said: “Tamhane was a great friend, Madhav Apte helped me a lot, and Raj Singh was my godfather.”
Describing everyone as his friend, the softspoken Patankar, in a twohour interaction at his residence at Parel’s Ambekar Colony in Mumbai, recalled the happy moments of his edgling days, especially when he saw for the rst time, in esh and blood, Prof. Dinkar Deodhar and Col. C. K. Nayudu at PYC Gymkhana in Pune.
Chandu Patankar, now nearing 90 and India’s second oldest surviving Test cricketer, recalls the happy moments of his fledgling days.
Patankar was born on November 24, 1930, in Pen, a town in today’s Raigad district in Maharashtra that is famous for its artisans who make the idols for the 10day annual Ganesh Chaturthi festival. He was just ve when his father, who had earned an MBBS degree in Bombay and had treated patients in Pen for some time, decided to move bag and baggage to Pune — then Poona — to set up shop as a general practitioner.
Luckily for the young Patankar, who was yet to be charmed by cricket, the house his father bought was just outside PYC Gymkhana.
“I used to play sports every day. As a schoolboy, I used to play hockey some days and cricket some days. I completed my primary education at Bal Shikshan Mandir. Then one day I saw Prof. Deodhar and C. K. Nayudu play a match. Nayudu hit a sixer and broke the school’s wall clock,” said Patankar. Playing tennisball cricket initially and seeing Maharashtra’s star cricketers practise at PYC Gymkhana and the nearby Deccan Gymkhana led Patankar to taking up
the game seriously. At Modern High School, which he joined for his secondary education, he played for the junior and senior teams. He had been a medium pacer, but began keeping wickets on prodding from the school’s physical education master, W. V. Sane. After achieving more success in school, Patankar enrolled at Fergusson College, which had a good cricket team.
though,” Patankar recalled.
After one year at Fergusson College, Patankar relocated to Bombay, mainly to join a medical college, but also to play cricket. Recalling his rst year in the city, Patankar said, “My father wanted me to become a doctor. My sister and brotherinlaw were professors in Ruia College, Bombay, teaching botany and physics. They were staying in the same building as Madhav Mantri at Hindu Colony. So I came to Bombay in 194■ and stayed at my sister’s place. I joined Ruia College, and after a selection trial, I was selected in the college team... We had Ramnath Kenny and Subhash Gupte. All of us were in the rst year at Ruia and we won the intercollegiate tournament. I played for six years for the college because I studied there up to MSC. Principal Dr. N. N. Murthy insisted I did my MSC and also play for the college.”
of the Commonwealth team) wrote in Sport & Pastime (the precursor to Sportstar) that it was a rare combination to see Chandu Patankar and Subhash Gupte together and that Patankar could pick Gupte’s googlies. It was an encouragement for me. I was out rst ball to leftarm seamer Henry Lambert. But everyone appreciated my work behind the stumps. Those days we played a number of matches against Commonwealth teams. I played ve from 1950 to 1954,” said Patankar. choice and it was only in his absence that they picked Patankar, who played one match each in 195354 and 195455, three in 195556, none in the next two seasons, two in 195■59, none the next season, one in 196061 (the nal) and two matches in 196566 (seminal and nal).
Reminiscing about those challenging and dicult days, Patankar said, “Madhav Mantri wrote this to me: ‘Unfortunately, Chandu was born when another great cricketer was in action, but of the two, Chandu was better on the leg side.’ Even Tamhane understood my suering. He even told his wife that it must be tough for me not getting enough chances to play for Bombay and India.”
In 1954, Patankar got a call at the 11th hour as a replacement for Tamhane for trial matches involving India cricketers in Bangalore to pick the Silver Jubilee XI. Nayudu was chairman of the selection committee that watched the net sessions for three days and two practice matches to pick the team that would play Bombay.
“I was made the captain of one team that played the trial match. I was shocked. In the evening, CK asked me, ‘What’s the reaction of you being made captain? Mr. Patankar, don’t worry about what people say. You are going to open and I don’t want you to block a single ball. I don’t want you to bring pressure on the other batsmen. Hit every ball. Doesn’t matter if you don’t score, but hit,’” said Patankar. “CK was a disciplinarian, a man with a tremendous personality. He wanted you to be proactive. He would make you think. Ramnath Kenny was never considered a bowler, but CK made him a bowler in two days’ time. He told Kenny how to bowl, and he got two or three wickets in a match.”