Brave Hearts

Author(s): Kumarpal Desai
Publisher: Eye Care Foundation

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Courage Personified
This story dates back to 1946. The Indian cricket team was on a tour of England. The team was being captained by the senior Nawab of Pataudi, namely, Iftikhar Ali. He had asked a company manufacturing cricket bats in England to make a different type of bat for his son - a bat with which a six year old boy can play cricket easily and one which also carried the signatures of eminent cricket players of the time. The name of the company with whom the order was placed was Messrs. Gun & Moor Ltd., a company which used to prepare bats of various types but had never prepared a bat of such a small size and those too bearing signatures of leading cricketers. The company, however, prepared the bat as per order.
Iftikhar Ali, the skipper of the Indian team, wanted his son to step into his footsteps and to shine on the cricket field in the same manner in which he himself had done during his cricketing career. Unfortunately, he could not train his son Mansur Ali in achieving the prowess in the game because on the eleventh birth day of his son, namely, the 5th January 1951 Iftikhar Ali succumbed to a massive heart attack. In his death India had lost a good sportsman not only in cricket but in hockey and polo also.
Mansur Ali Khan, better known as Pataudi, went to England for studies. He had inherited the love of cricket from his father. While studying in the class room, his attention was
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