Published: Jun 21, 2015, 09:00 AM (IST)
Edited: Jun 18, 2016, 11:26 PM (IST)
Fathers are a serious species. They can do anything for you if you get things right, but cross them at your own peril. Just like any other aspect of life, cricket has had its own share of iconic fathers. On August 21, Abhishek Mukherjee lists the most iconic fathers to have graced the sport.
Fathers are awesome creatures, but few can match cricketing fathers when it comes to sheer coolness. They start off with their weekend matches; then they take you to those matches with packed lunch; then they try to convince them into taking up the sport; and if they are fortunate, they convince you to take up the sport.
Who, then, are the most famous fathers in cricket? We are not discussing great men who became fathers, Len Hutton and Sunil Gavaskar, for example. There are too many of them to list here. This is a list of fathers who are part of cricket history as fathers. This is not a story of iconic cricketers who became fathers: this is a list of fathers who left their mark on the sport.
The durable father
They called WG Grace the Father of Cricket, but there was more to it than that. Grace, the most recognisable face of Victorian England and the first champion batsman (and cricketer), had a career spanning a whopping 43 English seasons — from 1865 to 1908. It remains the longest in English cricket. WG Grace: Greatest cricketer ever?
His sons, WG Grace Jr and CB Grace, also played First-Class cricket. While WG Jr played First-Class from 1893 to 1903 (he passed away in 1905), CB’s career stretched from 1900 to 1906. This meant that WG outlasted the careers of both his sons.
The vengeful father
Fred Tate, the Sussex medium-pacer, had a career amounting to 320 matches and 1,331 wickets at 21.55. He played a solitary Test in 1902, where he dropped Joe Darling. He walked with 8 to win, hit a boundary, was clean bowled by Jack Saunders, and broke down into tears with the iconic words: “I have got a boy at home who will put it all right for me.” Fred Tate: One-Test wonder whose dropped catch on debut proved costly for England
Fred’s son Maurice, then seven, grew up to become one of the finest medium-fast bowlers in history. An Ashes hero, Tate’s peak came on the 1924-25 tour, when his 38 wickets from 5 Tests came at 23.18. England lost the series, but Maurice was a member of the Ashes-winning teams of 1926 and 1928-29.
The father who was too famous
Being Don Bradman’s son was not easy. John Bradman had no ambition to become a cricketer. Indeed, he grew up to become a lecturer in constitutional and environmental law in Adelaide. However, he was flanked by journalists and photographers to such an extent that he had to change his name at 32. He became John Bradsen. Lala Amarnath – one of the most colourful & controversial cricketers
John reverted back to ‘Bradman’ seven years after his illustrious father passed away. He was 68 at that time.
The father who broke a heart
Iftikhar Ali Khan, the Nawab of Pataudi Sr, was a fine batsman. He scored a hundred on Ashes debut and played six Tests, three for England and three for India. Additionally, he was also competent at hockey (he almost played for India), billiards, and polo. He was playing polo at Delhi on January 5, 1952 when he had a heart attack and passed away. Nazar Mohammad: First Pakistani batsman to score century in Test cricket
Unfortunately, it was also his son Mansur’s 11th birthday. Mansur later went on to captain India for close to a decade and remained one of the most talked-about characters in Indian cricket — but he never celebrated his birthday.
The namesake fathers
Joe Hardstaff, the Nottinghamshire all-rounder, played all five Tests of the 1907-08 Ashes before going on to become a famous umpire. They called him Joe Hardstaff Sr, for his son, Joe Hardstaff Jr, was an excellent batsman who played 23 Tests on either side of World War II.
The main problem arose when Joe Hardstaff Jr had a son, and they decided to call him (for what must have been some obscure Hardstaff family tradition, or was it due to lack of knowledge of Christian names?) Joe Hardstaff.
Joe Hardstaff junior-most played a mere two First-Class matches, but he had the honour of being the only Joe Hardstaff in the family who is mentioned without a suffix today.
The father who started off
Not only did Lala Amarnath score the first ever Test hundred by an Indian at Bombay Gymkhana in 1933-34, it also came on his Test debut. Decades later, in 1975-76, Surinder emulated his father by scoring a spectacular hundred at Eden Park — once again, on debut. Just like his father, Surinder finished his career with a solitary Test hundred.
Though Mohinder, younger brother of Surinder, did not manage to live up to family tradition (did the famously strict Lala have a go at the dinner table?), he had the most illustrious career of them all.
The father who saw through
Just like Lala Amarnath, Nazar Mohammad was also the first to score a hundred for his country, Pakistan. His 515-minute 124 not out at Lucknow was a painstaking innings, but he carried his bat through, and the hundred was instrumental in setting up Pakistan’s first ever Test win.
His son Mudassar Nazar, probably a slower batsman, carried his bat through an innings as well — with 152 from 495 minutes at Lahore in 1982-83. The opposition was, as with his father’s, India.
The fathers whose sons went away
What is common to Jahangir Khan (India), Wazir Ali (India), Ron Headley (West Indies), and Don Pringle (East Africa)? Their sons played for other countries. Indeed, Majid Khan and Khalid Wazir played for Pakistan, and Dean Headley and Derek Pringle for England. The Pataudis could also have made it to the list, but Iftikhar, having played for England, also captained India.
The hilarious ‘other father’
Graham Lloyd, son of David ‘Bumble,’ was an aggressive batsman. He remains the only batsman to win the Walter Lawrence Trophy (for fastest hundred) in consecutive seasons. The incident in question occurred in 1989, when Graham scored his maiden First-Class hundred — 108 against Oxford University at The Parks.
All that was fine, as was the mention of Graham Lloyd in the next day’s newspapers. However, The Telegraph got it all wrong: they mentioned Graham Lloyd, the son of, er, Clive Lloyd. One can only hope Susan Lloyd did not have to bear Bumble’s brunt!
(Abhishek Mukherjee is the Chief Editor and Cricket Historian at CricketCountry. He blogs here and can be followed on Twitter here.)
