Left is right - When one of India's greatest batsman batted left-handed

I was once asked a question “Can a right-handed batsman bat left-handed”? I said, of course yes, and cited examples of Kevin Pieterson and David Warner. They change their grip at the very last moment and execute the switch hit. Although the person who asked the question seemed convinced, I was not. I searched for such instances in cricket and could not find any such instance.

I met a former statistician of BCCI and enquired about the same question. I was amazed to find that one of India’s greatest batsmen had indeed batted left-handed in a Ranji Trophy game.

Bombay was the team to beat in the early 70′s and 80′s. Rajasthan, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu had challenged Bombay regularly but somehow the champion side always used to emerge victorious. In 1973, Bombay reached the M.Chinnaswamy stadium to play hosts Karnataka in the semi-finals of the Ranji Trophy. Bombay had won 15 titles in a row and was just two games away from clinching the coveted Championship. Bombay had big names in their side. Sunil Gavaskar, Ramnath Parkar, Ajit Wadekar (the captain of the national side then), Ashok Mankad and Eknath Solkar had all played test cricket for India. Besides Sudhir Naik (he went on to play 3 Tests for India in 1974), Milind Rege and Padmakar Shivalkar were seasoned campaigners.

Karnataka won that game in 1973. In 1981-82, Mumbai again went to Chinnaswami Stadium to take revenge and that was again a semi-final encounter like eight years ago. The ball was turning prodigiously. Raghuram Bhat, a left arm spinner from Karnataka, confounded the Mumbai batsmen with his spin. Bhat took 8/123 and the star-studded Bombay team scored only 271. Karnataka took a lead of 199 runs.

Bombay had Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar, Sandeep Patil, Ravi Shastri and Balwinder Sandhu. In the second innings, Bombay lost their six wickets and did not even wipe off the deficit. Bombay was facing an innings defeat. The kings of the Domestic cricket knew that they would not proceed to the finals. Their immediate task was to prevent an innings defeat or an outright loss.

Bhat was again the wrecker-in-chief, picking up four wickets out of six. Sunil Gavaskar came in at No.7 and took a leg-stump guard standing like a left-hander.The Karnataka players were astonished and the partisan crowd too could not believe what they were witnessing. Bhat, who was virtually unplayable, was negotiated safely by Gavaskar. Bhat says, “I tried all my tricks. The faster one, armer, Chinaman, Yorker. I bowled round the wicket, over the wicket, and used the bowling crease. But Gavaskar played with confidence.” Gavaskar played with soft hands and Bhat’s threat was negated. Mumbai had only one left-handed batsman in their team – Suru Nayak. Nayak scored zero and nine in the game. Gavaskar scored 18 runs batting left handed. In fact, Gavaskar had never ever batted left handed at any level.

Gavaskar had this thought to bat left-handed, right from day one. That was the only way he thought to negate Bhat’s influence. Bhat went on to take 13 wickets in the match.

Milind Rege, the former Ranji player who played alongside Gavaskar said “Sunil might have been rankled by the pitch. It takes guts to bat left-handed in a Ranji final. And it was indeed innovative”. Bhat’s stellar show earned him a national call-up. Gavaskar after the match patted on Bhat’s back. Bhat says,”That was enough for me.”

Sunil Gavaskar was surprised about this feat himself. Gavaskar says, “Now, so many years later, it is hard to believe that I survived 60-odd minutes batting left-handed. Left-handers are generally very elegant, but I must have been the only ugly left handed batsman ever.”

References:

www.openthemagazine.com by Akshay Sawai. All the quotes are taken from there.