Published: Aug 01, 2017, 06:30 AM (IST)
Edited: Aug 01, 2017, 06:16 PM (IST)
CT Studd was not only one of the best all-round cricketers of his day. He was also a man of God who gave up the game to become a missionary and worked in China, India and Belgian Congo. Arunabha Sengupta recounts how the love of the game did not leave him in spite of his vocation.
There was more to CT Studd than the man who walked around feverishly at The Oval, wrapped with a blanket, as captain Monkey Hornby pushed him lower and lower the batting order during the day the legend of The Ashes was born.
A fantastic batsman and one of the leading bowlers among the amateur cricketers, he was the best young all-rounder of his day. Indeed, his all-round skills were almost at par with the great WG Grace and the Yorkshire pro George Ulyett.
He excelled at Eton, flourished at Cambridge, and was brilliant for both Middlesex and England. His brothers were superb cricketers as well: five of them played First-Class cricket, two of them enjoying long careers. In fact when Cambridge took on Australia in 1882, the three Studd brothers, JEK, CT and GB, combined to pull off a miraculous win over the visitors with their demonic bowler Fred Spofforth.
But it was CT who was crème-de-la-crème of the family as far as cricket was concerned. In that Cambridge win over the Australians, he claimed 5 for 61 before going on to score 118. In all, he scored over 4,000 runs and captured over 400 wickets, all in the space of just half a decade. And then suddenly he gave it all up and boarded a vessel for China.
He lived in the east for long, first in China and then in India. In between he visited America with the same missionary zeal.
Between 1900 and 1906 he was the pastor of a church in Ootacamund. It was during his stay here that he played a bit of cricket again, thrice turning out for local sides against the visiting Oxford Authentics.
After his return to England, Studd became concerned with spreading the gospel in Africa. Thus began his adventures in Sudan and then Belgian Congo. It was in Belgian Congo that he died in 1931, and he never played cricket again after the 1902-03 season, devoting himself to matters which he considered more important.
There were several books written about Studd. But only a few of them deal with cricket, and that too patchily, almost a glorified footnote. His life seemed a much nobler tale, of grappling with real problems, of spreading the word of God. Runs, wickets and catches paled in contrast.
However, there are at least some indications that his love for cricket never truly abated.
It was in Congo that Studd built a church under his supervision. And this great former cricketer made sure that the aisle of this place of worship measured exactly 22 yards.
Studd had a great heart, a noble one. But a corner of that heart kept telling him that he was a cricketer.
