Brave Hearts

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

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Courage Personified and yet he did not heed that advice. The Australian pace bowler Graham Mackenzie was at the top of his game. India had lost 5 top batsmen in a row one after the other in just 25 runs. Pataudi came to the crease almost limping. He scored 75 runs and showed the grit of his bat. Pataudi was suffering from severe pain in his leg in the second innings. The leg was almost out of action. Yet Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi with only one leg intact, Pataudi scored 85 runs. Seeing him play that day everybody wondered how magical would have been his spell if both of his eyes and legs had been in perfect working order!
Next, the Indian team toured New Zealand, it recorded a convincing win of the series. The credit for winning the series, the first of its kind on a foreign soil, lay squarely with Pataudi.
In 1969, the New Zealand team came to India. In the first test played in Bombay, the visitors scored 229 runs in reply to India's score of 156. Thus India was playing the second innings with 73 runs in arrears. The top Indian batting side consisting of Abid Ali, Chetan Chauhan, Ajit Wadekar, Rusi Surti, Hanumantsingh and Farookh Engineer was already backing in the pavilion. By that time India had registered a surplus of 92 runs only. Coming to bat at such a critical juncture, Pataudi scored 67 valuable runs in 282 minutes. He played with great caution. A single mistake or a lapse on the part of Pataudi would have cost the Indian team heavily. Defeat stared in the eyes of India. But Pataudi turned the tables and registered a 60 run victory over the visitors. It was because of this victory that
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