Ranji in about 1905, shortly before he came into his inheritance in Nawanagar, India. By this time he was a veritable star, a seasoned celebrity playing for Sussex County Cricket Club and, from 1896 to 1902, he had been a breathtaking batsman and regular fixture in England’s Test side. By 1912, however, the great man’s appearances on English cricket pitches had been increasingly irregular; he was now forty and putting on weight, and duty called. The Great War would soon remove any question of a reappearance.
Part 1 of 2
THEY loved him from the first for the novelty of the thing. It was as though a pet kitten had begun to talk Tariff Reform. It is the Jam Sahib’s supreme service that, through his genius for the English game, he has familiarised the English people with the idea of the Indian as a man of like affections with ourselves, and with capacities beyond ours in directions supposed to be peculiarly our own.*
We do not judge a cricketer so much by the runs he gets as by the way he gets them. There are dull, mechanic fellows who turn out runs with as little emotion as a machine turns out pins. Cricket is not an adventure; to them it is a business. It was so with Shrewsbury.* His technical perfection was astonishing; but the soul of the game was wanting in him. There was no sunshine in his play, no swift surprises or splendid unselfishness. And without these things, without gaiety, daring, and the spirit of sacrifice, cricket is a dead thing. Now, the Jam Sahib has the root of the matter in him.
* “He worked an entire revolution in the manner in which Indian Princes were regarded by Englishmen” wrote historian and civil servant Laurence Rushbrook-Williams (1890–1978). “Hence it was that from him, many Englishmen came to realise that differences in the pigmentation of the skin matter very little.” Rushbrook-Williams believed this had even oiled the wheels of Indian independence. “It may well be doubted whether the Government of India Act of 1919 would ever have been passed, if the Ministry and the back-benchers alike had not seen something of ‘Ranji’ in the lineaments of the Indian whom they pictured in their mind as the subject of their legislation.”
* Arthur Shrewsbury (1856-1903). “Say what you will,” warned W. G. Grace, “the cricket-loving public likes lively batting, and for this reason, that is, for the good of cricket, I think hitters should be encouraged... As a proof that the public do really prefer rapid scoring to the most finished and perfect batsmanship of the slow order, it is only necessary to remind readers of the way that the steady, not to say tedious, play of Scotton, Shrewsbury, and sometimes even Gunn killed for a time all interest in Notts county cricket.”
Part Two
Ranjitsinhji in about 1908, shortly after his accession to the throne of Nawanagar. He returned to England that year to try to pick up the threads of his dazzling sporting career, but by common consent the magic was gone. Despite his years in England, Ranji was not the Westernised bureaucrat that successive Viceroys would have preferred. Nawanagar saw a rapid improvement in infrastructure and finances, but Ranji mistrusted the strident and turbulent politics of interwar Europe, and refused to move towards ‘undiluted democracy’ or republicanism. The unhappy history of twentieth-century Europe suggests that the Jam Sahib deserved a fairer hearing.
HIS play is as sunny as his face. He is not a miser hoarding up runs, but a millionaire spending them, with a splendid yet judicious prodigality.* It is as if his pockets are bursting with runs that he wants to shower with his blessings upon the expectant multitude. It is not difficult to believe that in his little kingdom of Nawanagar he is extremely popular, for it is obvious that his pleasure is in giving pleasure.
He is as engaging with his tongue as with his bat, a lively raconteur, and a man of thoroughly democratic sympathies and serious purposes.* It was he who first set himself to break down the practice of professionals and amateurs lunching separately, providing thus a curious commentary on our vague conceptions about caste.*
He goes back to his own people, to the little State that he recovered so romantically,* and governs as a good Liberal should govern,* and the holiday crowds will see him no more. But his name will live in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of British people, to whom he has given happy days and happy memories.
* Ranji played for Sussex CCC and for the England Test side. Over his career, Ranji played 307 first class matches, amassing 24,692 runs at an average of 56.37, and hitting 72 centuries with a top score of 285 not out. He scored 989 runs in 15 Tests at an average of 44.95, including two centuries and a top score of 175. Ranji took 233 catches in the field, and was also a decent finger-spinner, taking 133 wickets at 34.59 and taking four 5-wicket hauls with a best of 6 for 53. No player based mainly in England would surpass Ranji’s career batting average until 1986, when Geoffrey Boycott retired. Surely his most extraordinary achievement — and one which remains unique to this day — was to score two centuries on the same day, batting at Hove on August 22nd, 1896, in a match against Yorkshire. See espncricinfo for the scorecard.
* “I conscientiously believe in hereditary kingship from the beginning” Ranjitsinhji declared at the founding of his new Advisory Council in 1919; “that principle has been running in our blood for untold generations, and I have firm faith in the creed. ... But what is really essential is this: we must know the needs of the people, and in all measures that we adopt for their protection and betterment, we should secure their concurrence and goodwill.”
* He took the same principles into his government of Nawanagar, overcoming prejudices and discrimination while fostering long-standing traditions. See A Page Out of Pageantry.
* Ranji’s grandfather was cousin to the Jam Sahib of Nawanagar, Vibhaji. In 1878, Vibhaji began measures to adopt Ranji as his heir. Six years later, however, Vibhaji unexpectedly named Jaswantsinhji, a boy born to one of the women of his court, in his stead. The British administrators respected his decision, though clearly there were questions to answer, and when Vibhaji died in 1895 the twelve-year-old Jashwantsinhji succeeded him, taking full control in 1903. However, Jashwantsinhji died only four years later, following a brief illness, and this time London moved quickly to install Ranji.
* By the time Ranji died in 1933, the state had made remarkable economic and social progress. That was thanks chiefly to his administrator and lifelong friend Colonel H. W. Berthon, who worked his position as both the Jam Sahib’s man inside the Raj and London’s man inside Nawanagar with considerable skill.
