Polly Umrigar

Pahlan Ratanji "Polly" Umrigar (28 March 1926 – 7 November 2006) was an Indian cricketer.

He made his first class debut for Parsis at the age of 18 in the Bombay Pentangular in 1944, and studied for a BSc at St Xavier's College.

He captained the Bombay University team.

He also played hockey and football competitively.

He played in the Indian cricket team (1948 – 1962) and played first-class cricket for Bombay and Gujarat.

Umrigar played mainly as a middle-order batsman but also bowled occasional medium pace and off spin.

He scored 115* for Combined Universities against the touring West Indians in October 1948.

This performance brought him to national attention, and earned him a single appearance in the 2nd Test against the same team in Bombay seven weeks later.

By the time two Commonwealth teams visited India in 1949–50 and 1950–51, Umrigar had become a regular in the team.

He scored 276 runs in the unofficial Tests against the first team and 562 runs against the second.

In the Madras Test, he moved from 90 to 102 with two successive sixes off Frank Worrell.

He scored only 113 runs in the first four Tests against a weak England side at home a year later.

He was dropped from the fifth Test but was included in the last minute due to an injury to Hemu Adhikari.

Going in at No.7, he made 130 not out as India won their first ever Test match.

Though the bowling was not of a very high quality, Umrigar considered it the best innings of his life.

In England in 1952, Umrigar scored heavily outside Test matches, but in Tests he was a complete failure.

His aggregate of 1,688 was the highest in the season for the Indian team.

He made more than 800 runs in May and double hundreds against Oxford University, Lancashire and Kent, but seemed to struggle against the fast bowler Cuan McCarthy of Cambridge.

However, he made only 43 runs in seven Test innings, at an average of 6.14.

But more than the lack of runs, it was the way that he batted that was disturbing.

While facing Fred Trueman, time and again he backed away towards square leg and "(held) the bat out to each ball, missing it like a beginner".

Bedser dismissed him twice; Trueman dismissed him four times, and on three occasions he was bowled backing away.

More has perhaps been written about this series than any other phase of Umrigar's career.

Umrigar had far more success in his other encounters with fast bowlers.

He returned to form against Pakistan at home in 1952–53, and scored 560 runs in West Indies in early 1953 with two hundreds and four fifties.

He reached his hundred at Port of Spain with a six off Sonny Ramadhin.

Umrigar had led India in two unofficial Tests against the Commonwealth XI in 1953–54 winning one of them.

He captained India in eight Test matches from 1955 to 1958.

His innings of 223 against New Zealand at Hyderabad in 1955–56 was the first double century scored for India.

From the second Test match against New Zealand in 1955–56 till the first Test against the West Indies three years later, he captained the side in eight successive Test matches.

India won two of the New Zealand Tests by an innings.

He scored a hundred at Manchester in his next meeting with Trueman in 1959; he topped the aggregate for India in all his three series against West Indies who at various times had Frank King, Wes Hall, Roy Gilchrist and Charlie Stayers.

It was off the bowling of Hall and Stayers that he played one of the finest innings of his career.

When he retired in 1962, he had played in the most Tests (59), scored the most Test runs (3,631), and recorded the most Test centuries (12) of any Indian player.

He scored the first double century by an Indian in Test cricket against New Zealand in Hyderabad.

In 1998, he received the C. K. Nayudu Lifetime Achievement Award, the highest honour the Indian cricket board can bestow on a former player.

Polly Umrigar was probably born in Bombay but his place of birth is often cited as Solapur, Maharashtra.

His father ran a clothing company.

He grew up in Solapur and his family moved to Bombay when he was at school.

He was a Parsi (from the Zoroastrian community in India), the community that dominated Bombay cricket in the early decades of the twentieth century.