Published: Jun 07, 2014, 12:26 PM (IST)
Edited: Aug 04, 2014, 06:20 PM (IST)
Rekha Manjrekar, the wife of Vijay and mother of Sanjay Manjrekar, passed away on June 4, 2014. Few families have produced father-son combinations as prolific at Test level as the Manjrekars. Abhishek Mukherjee looks into at the finest father-son combinations in history.
Rekha Manjrekar’s demise on June 4, 2014 at Hinduja Hospital, Mumbai, had left this columnist thinking. Mrs Manjrekar had witnessed two fine batsmen in husband Vijay and son Sanjay [arguably the ones with the soundest defence in their era]; how many others have done the same?
It will not be fair to compare the father-son combinations in terms of number of total runs scored, since that will skew things for pairs with one prominent batsman. A better idea would be to consider the minimum runs scored by a batsman from a father-son combination. The Manjrekars come third on the list, after the Mohammads and Nourses.
| Most prolific father-son combinations in Tests (Minimum: 500 Test runs for each) | |||||||||
| Father | Tests | Runs | Son 1 | Tests | Runs | Son 2 | Tests | Runs | Minimum |
| Hanif Mohammad | 55 | 3,915 | Shoaib Mohammad | 45 | 2,705 | 2,705 | |||
| Dave Nourse | 45 | 2,234 | Dudley Nourse | 34 | 2,960 | 2,234 | |||
| Vijay Manjrekar | 55 | 3,208 | Sanjay Manjrekar | 37 | 2,043 | 2,043 | |||
| Chris Broad | 25 | 1,661 | Stuart Broad | 67 | 2,010 | 1,661 | |||
| Vinoo Mankad | 44 | 2,109 | Ashok Mankad | 22 | 991 | 991 | |||
| Lance Cairns | 43 | 928 | Chris Cairns | 62 | 3,320 | 928 | |||
| Ken Rutherford | 56 | 2,465 | Hamish Rutherford | 12 | 611 | 611 | |||
| Peter Pollock | 28 | 607 | Shaun Pollock | 108 | 3,781 | 607 | |||
| Lala Amarnath | 24 | 878 | Surinder Amarnath | 10 | 550 | Mohinder Amarnath | 69 | 4,378 | 550 |
| Walter Hadlee | 11 | 543 | Dayle Hadlee | 26 | 530 | Richard Hadlee | 86 | 3,124 | 530 |
| Special mention: Everton Weekes 4,455, David Murray 601 | |||||||||
What about the bowlers, then? Let us choose a minimum barrier. At the time of writing this article, the overall runs-per-wicket ratio has been 32.11; if we use the number we should be using a cut-off of 16 wickets. Let us put it at 15, then. The number of bowlers is significantly less than the number of batsmen, but that has probably a thing or two to do about the fact that everyone in a side bats, but not everyone bowls or is allowed a bowl.
Rather surprisingly, of the four pairs who qualify, three are from the previous table, which probably says a thing or two about father-son combinations of specialist bowlers.
| Most prolific father-son combinations in Tests (Minimum: 15 Test wickets for each) | ||||||
| Father | Tests | Wickets | Son | Tests | Wickets | Minimum |
| Lance Cairns | 43 | 130 | Chris Cairns | 62 | 218 | 130 |
| Peter Pollock | 28 | 116 | Shaun Pollock | 108 | 421 | 116 |
| Jeff Jones | 15 | 44 | Simon Jones | 18 | 59 | 44 |
| Lala Amarnath | 24 | 45 | Mohinder Amarnath | 69 | 32 | 32 |
| Surinder Amarnath bowled sporadically, but the Lala-Mohinder combination still works | ||||||
(Abhishek Mukherjee is the Deputy Editor and Cricket Historian at CricketCountry. He blogs at http://ovshake.blogspot.in and can be followed on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ovshake42)
