Vijay Merchant

October 12: The birth of the legendary Indian batsman, Vijay Merchant


Raju Bharatan recollected a conversation he had with Merchant which sheds light on the man.

"When I asked Merchant how he felt about rating second only to Bradman in the world at 71.64, there was a gleam in Vijay's eye. But only fleetingly. In the very next minute, Vijay Merchant came back with: ``Please never again mention my name in the same breath as Sir Donald Bradman, it's sacrilege to do so! It's your runs in Test matches that really count. And, here, from 18 innings in 10 Tests, I fell short of even 1000 by as many as 141 runs! Our own Sunil Gavaskar is miles ahead of me by now, so where is there any question of your equating me
with Sir Donald Bradman?'' '

John Arlott wrote about Merchant when India toured England in 1946.

+++ Arlott

His 148 at Lord's was not Vijay Merchant's highest innings of the tour, but it was his richest. The air held rain and little of the sun, yet, English as the setting was, this Indian batsman showed
us there his best. I knew how anxious he was to make a hundred that day and I was amazed to see his stroke-play flowering under his anxiety.

Merchant's physical quality is neither the massive might nor the whipcord leanness of other great batsmen. There is something softly feline about him -- at the wicket, shirt and sweater heavy to wrists, thick white muffler at his throat, blue-capped, he moves pad-footed -- but the stroke, for all its control, is flash-fast because, ignoring the bowler's hand, he plays every ball strictly "off the pitch." An innings by Merchant grows; it sprouts no exotic blooms but its construction is perfect to the last detail. No chance, no ball which beats the bat, no brutishness of the wicket, no pace or spin or swing can disconcert him.

Like Herbert Sutcliffe, until he is finally and definitely out, Merchant is the batsman in possession, intent upon tending his, and his team's, score. Day after day, season-long, I watched
him, notching off each hour with thirty runs and marking the meal intervals with his cap -- when the peak is directly over his right ear, it is time for lunch or tea or close of play. Not only was he the mainstay of the team's batting in terms of the runs he made himself, but often he nursed the start of a big innings by Modi or Mankad or Hazare, each of whom batted better in his company. Merchant's batting technique is never violent, he seems to have an unvarying system of ball-evaluation which controls his batting reflexes. Bowl an over of balls two feet short of a
length and he will hit you for six certain fours to mid-wicket on the leg side; bowl a good-length over on the middle stump and he will play you back a maiden, and this holds good whether his
score is 0 or 100. But it is not to say that he cannot, or does not, adjust his batting to the state of the game. If the state of the wicket reasonably permits it, he will start to cut when he
has made about 50, and his cut is the finest in first-class cricket today. More rarely he will use a whip-lash cover-drive.

Merchant's soundness is vividly illustrated by his methods of dismissal during the tour. He was most frequently dismissed LBW, the in-swinger which straightened off the pitch. That ball was
the one for which the seam bowler prays -- he can but pray, for no man alive can bowl it at will; that rare, providential delivery came to be regarded as Merchant's weakness -- since no
deliberately contrived ball could be relied upon consistently to worry him. Merchant, as batsman, captain and man, is well pictured in an incident in the match against the South of England at the Hastings Festival. He was captain of the side, in the absence of Pataudi. On the third day he was in considerable pain from strained stomach-muscles. Believing that changes in the batting order often unsettle batsmen, he decided to go in first as usual, but to get out fairly quickly. Once at the crease he scored at twice his usual pace, but by the same strokes. His
deeply absorbed batting-sense allowed him to take a risk only in making the ball into a punishable one, but not in playing it. On his dismissal he returned to the pavillion in increased pain to shake his head sadly at his inability to sacrifice his wicket.

Soft-footed at the crease, Merchant appears heavy-footed in the outfield, but he always chases the ball to the last hope; often over-anxious about a catch, he was yet safer than many of the
team in the deep field. As the tour wore on he improved as a close-to-the-wicket field and, if not in the first class there, his short-leg catch to dismiss T.N. Pierce at Southend was memorable. As a captain he took few risks; he maintained discipline by his good manners, unaffected dignity and genuine consideration for his players.

It is impossible not to like Vijay Merchant; his manners are polished to the last degree, his consideration for others impeccable -- and he looks you in the face when he talks to you.
His honesty is unmistakable -- he speaks out the truth, but never crudely. His charm, like his cricket, has its roots in a tranquility which runs deeper than the level of "temperament."

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Extract from:
INDIAN SUMMER
An Account of the Cricket Tour in England 1946

by John Arlott