HANUMANT SINGH


🏏🏏

HANUMANT SINGH
(29 Mar 1939 - 29 Nov 2006)

The fifth Indian Test player to score a century on debut, the diminutive and elegant right-handed wristy willow-wielder Hanumant Singh was a scion of the royal Rajput family of Banswara, inheriting the cricketing legacies of his grand uncle, the immortal KS Ranjitsinhji, and his uncle KS Duleepsinhji...

Making his debut in February 1964 against England in Delhi, Hanumant Singh played 14 Tests, too few for one with talent in abundance, his last being the Bombay Test against New Zealand in 1969 which India had won...

He scored a total of 686 runs @31.18, the lone hundred on debut (105) being his highest along with five half centuries, and 11 catches...

His first class record is highly impressive, with 12338 runs @43.90 from 207 games, a top score of 213* with 29 hundreds and 63 fifties, 56 wickets and 110 catches...

Having begun his Test career well, Hanumant Singh's inclusion for the twin tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1967 was considered a foregone conclusion, especially, being in a purple patch he had just become the first batsman to achieve the rare feat of scoring a century and a double century in the Ranji Trophy final (109 and 213*). However, for some strange reason, his name did not figure in the list...

Dejected and disillusioned, the golden-hearted Hanumant Singh never really got over this exclusion, and though he was picked again in 1969 against New Zealand, he confessed that it was more like a selection being thrust upon him. He couldn't live up to expectations and India lost the delectable batting touch-artist maestro for good...

Nevertheless, Hanumant Singh continued to play first class cricket for Rajasthan and Central Zone, and ended his 22-year long career in 1979. He had begun his first class career in the 1956-57 season representing Madhya Bharat...

Though he couldn't win the Ranji Trophy for his side the way his contemporary Ajit Wadekar did for Bombay, Hanumant Singh led Central Zone to their first ever victory in Duleep Trophy in 1971-72...

Post retirement, he was the manager of the Indian team which toured the West Indies in 1982-83 under Kapil Dev. He was the coach of the Kenya cricket team for the 1996 Cricket World Cup, the Wills Trophy in India, which had shocked the strong West Indies in one of the matches...

He also served as an International Cricket Council Match Referee in 9 Test matches and 54 ODIs from 1995 to 2002. He was also the Chairman of the National Cricket Academy. A shrewd cricketing brain, he took on the mantle of a commentator as well. Outside of cricket, he was an executive with the State Bank of India...

Hanumant Singh passed away on the 29th of November, 2006  at Mumbai's Breach Candy hospital, from complications of Dengue and Hepatitis...

Cricket writer Kalyanbrata Bhattacharya had this to say -
"Indeed, Hanumant Singh’s batting had a silken touch and each and every shot was executed with an effortless ease. It was pristine and ethereal. It often seemed as if he was chosen Providentially to bat with a casual elegance and his signature strokes on the on side were a treat for the cricket aficionados and later batsmen like G. R. Viswanath carried the mantle of his artistry to delight us to heavenly ecstasy."

🙏🙏🌹🎂    🇮🇳

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