A Colonel Destined To Lead

by Aditya Bhushan, Storymirror Info Pvt Ltd (Contributor)

A Colonel Destined to Lead is the fascinating story of Indian cricket's first superstar - Col. CK Nayudu. CK, as he was popularly known as, started playing cricket at a time when the game was still in its nascent stages in the country. In fact, it was his innings of 153 runs for the Hindus against the visiting Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) at the Bombay Gymkhana which paved way for India's elevation to test status. Thus, it was only fitting that he went on to become India's first test captain in 1932. Test cricket came very late in his life and his prime days were with the Hindus team in the Bombay Quadrangular tournament in the 1920s & 1930s. Post retirement from Test Cricket, he remarkably led the Holkar team to four Ranji Trophy titles. His first-class cricket career spanned over an astonishing 47 years. He played his last first-class match at the age of 68 years. Later, he also became the Chairman of the national selection committee. His story is an inspiration for anyone aspiring to take sports as a career and a delight for any sports lover.

118 pages, Paperback

Published August 3, 2019

About the author

Aditya Bhushan is a Freelance writer with Sportskeeda and has written on various topics like Cricket, Lawn Tennis, Hockey, Olympics, Indian Sports etc. He works as an Associate Manager at Accenture in Bengaluru. He has done his MBA in Marketing from Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai and also holds a B.Tech degree from Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (VNIT), Nagpur.

Aditya has been following the game of cricket since childhood and rarely misses the actions of the Indian Cricket team.

Reviews

[Salil Lavgankar · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the current generation of the cricketing fans, it is very difficult to surmise or imagine the cricketing feats of the yesteryear players- with no footage and bare statistics being insufficient. As with every generation, there is always a tendency to elevate the achievements of the present era when compare with any past examples. For Indian cricket specifically it is often that we have to look at anecdotal evidence and the cricketing conditions existing in a particular era along with other corollary factors to better understand the impact that was made.

Hence it is a pleasant surprise to read this book on ‘Colonel’ Nayudu-a giant cricketer of his time by an young and first-time author. As the author mentions in the book, while researching different topics for his planned cricket book, he came across Colonel Nayudu as India’s early cricketing heroes which piqued his interest to write the book.

The author in his book provides a comprehensive biography of C K Nayudu starting with his early days in Nagpur, the shift to Bombay for the Quadrangular/Pentangular, his career as India player and captain, and then with Holkar for a triumphant run in the Ranji trophy. The author provides a great start with an analysis of C.K.Nayudu’s most celebrated cricketing innings- the 153 scored against the visiting MCC team for the ‘Hindus’ in 1926. As the author says, this innings put India as a force on the cricketing map and helped accelerate India’s path to Test cricket where again C K Nayudu had the honour of leading India in its 1st test ever against England at Lords.

The author explores C K Nayudu’s cricketing attributes well- his style of play, captaincy instincts, way of leading from the front and managing the players. His relationship with key personalities including the Maharaja of Holkar is also well-explored. The author is also able to bring out Nayudu’s personality- which centered around some firm beliefs and had a touch of eccentricity in the book.

The author’s research attempt is evident as he has tried to understand from C K Nayudu’s family, former players, officials the different dimensions of his personality. He has also added some rare pictures of the cricketing memorabilia and at the end, has provided a nice photo collage of the people he interacted with during his research.

A great read on India’s cricketing superstar- who if playing in today’s media era, would have stood tall with the best players and would have provided great entertainment to the cricketing fans.