The tale of an unlucky Indian keeper

Name a batsman who was out hit wicket in his first Test?

Name an Indian player who made his Test debut before playing for his Ranji Trophy team?

Name a cricketer who opened the batting and the bowling in his last Test match?

Name an Indian cricketer who represented Scotland in the 1980s?

Although I am not an expert on cricket history, I would guess that multiple answers are possible if the questions are asked separately. But if we combine the four questions together, then there is only one answer: Budhi Kunderan.

His name is not familiar. And the fact that he mostly fought for the wicketkeeping duty of India with Farokh Engineer, the hugely popular Brylcreem boy, reduced his popularity further.

But to many cricket experts in India at the time, he was at least as good as Farokh as a keeper. His Test average of 32.70 is better than Farokh’s 31.08. More importantly, in his 18-Test career, Budhi opened 21 times and averaged 41, a highly impressive figure.

His short but eventful Test career started in Mumbai in 1960 and ended at Edgbaston in 1967. There was glory, despair, confusion, conspiracy and even a touch of love in his career.

(Wiki Creative Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Although he was born at Mangalore, Karnataka, in a fishing community, he grew up in Bombay. Despite his promise in school cricket, it was almost impossible for him to get in to the state team, because Naren Tamhane of Bombay was at the time the number one keeper in India.

He decided to play for the Railways team. But before making his Ranji Trophy debut he made his first-class debut playing for the Cricket Club of India (CCI) team against the touring West Indies in 1958-59. He impressed the selectors and he made his debut in Mumbai against Australia in January 1960. He scored 19 and two and was dismissed hit wicket off the bowling of Ian Meckiff in the second innings.

However, he made it a memorable season. He scored 71 opening the innings in the next Test in Madras, and then scored a double hundred in his Ranji Trophy debut with the Railways.

However, he struggled in the home series against Pakistan the next season. Meanwhile, Farokh had displaced Tamhane as the Bombay keeper and was soon fighting for a place in the national team.

Farokh and Budhi shared the wicketkeeping duties during the difficult tour to the West Indies in 1962, but then Budhi took the pole position during the 1963-64 home series against England.

The five-Test series eventually ended 0-0. Both the captains, MAK Pataudi and Mike Smith, came for harsh criticism for their safety-first approach.

In fact, in the first Test in Madras, Bapu Nadkarni created all kinds of world records during his bowling spell of 32-27-5-0. Yet those present at the Chepauk stadium on the opening day saw attacking batting at its very best.

India finished the opening day at 2-272 and their hero of the day was their wicketkeeper-batsman Kunderan, who compiled 170 not out. In the morning he treated the England new-ball bowlers like just some park bowlers. Fours flowed from his bat, one after the other. EAS Prasanna, India’s champion offie, said at that time that “He took batting into a different dimension”. It was like Kris Srikkanth was batting almost two decades before Srikkanth arrived on the scene.

The second-day crowd came hoping to see him become the first Indian wicketkeeper to score a Test double hundred. They were disappointed when Fred Titmus bowled him for 192. Still, it was the record for the best score by an Indian keeper for almost half a century. MS Dhoni bettered it at the same venue against Australia in 2013.

And just to show that his effort in Madras was no fluke, Budhi added 100 in Delhi. Overall, he scored 525 runs (at that time a record for a keeper) at an average of 52.50. Yet, despite all his success, the presence of Farokh meant that he was never fully secured of his place.

And the Calcutta Test against the West Indies in the 1966-67 series was his last in home soil, and it was his last as a wicketkeeper. India were beaten by the far superior West Indies team in both Bombay and Calcutta, but it wasn’t Budhi’s fault.

In fact, with scores of 6, 79, 39 and 4, he was one of India’s better batsmen. And then he scored a fine hundred against Wes Hall playing for the South Zone team prior to the third Test in Madras. But he was dropped, Farokh opened and smashed a century.

(Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)

Although Budhi never kept wickets for India again, he was selected as the second wicketkeeper for the England tour in the summer of 1967. He didn’t feature in the first Test in Leeds, but this Test was memorable for him for another reason explained below. He featured in the remaining two Tests mainly as a batsman.

But in the third Test at Edgbaston, in what would be his Test appearance, he was given the dual duty of opening both the batting and the bowling. The wicket was expected to provide turn, and both the teams packed their teams with spinners, and it was the only time the four great Indian spinners played together in a Test. Budhi bowled four overs for 13 runs on the opening day, but he wasn’t used in the second innings as Bishan Bedi took the new ball.

Also, Farokh and Budhi opened together in this Test. Given time this could have developed in to a highly entertaining and effective opening pair. It would have been an Aamer Sohail-Saeed Anwar-like partnership decades earlier. Sadly, on a slow, turning wicket at Edgbaston, the partnership didn’t work. Budhi scored 2 and 33 in his final Test.

Why didn’t he play more? Well, Farokh was certainly a factor. Also, for some reason, he was never a favourite of the captain Pataudi. Finally, the quota system could have been a factor.

Late in his career, Budhi returned to play for his home state of Karnataka, known also as Mysore. Karnataka was fast emerging as a power in Indian cricket, and would end Bombay’s dominance in 1973-74. However, for Budhi, staying at the Railways team possibly would have been better. With Prasanna and BS Chandrasekhar regulars with the Indian team, and Gundappa Viswanath emerging in 1969-70, the quota for Karnataka – still a relatively small power in Indian cricket – seemed full.

Now, what made that Leeds Test memorable outside of cricket? The answer is a love affair. At Headingley, in the first Test of the 1967 series, Budhi wasn’t in the playing XI, although I guess that he spent a fair bit of time in the field as a substitute during the long England first innings as two bowlers went off injured.

At the team hotel, he met Linda Puller, a receptionist working at the hotel. After 18 months of exchanging letters, the couple married in Bombay in February 1969. Initially they stayed in Bombay, but things weren’t going in favour of Budhi. It was clear that his India prospects were bleak. In fact, he was facing challenge for his Ranji Trophy place from a young keeper named Syed Kirmani.

So the couple moved to the UK. First, they spent a winter in Yorkshire, where Linda’s family had a business. Eventually they settled in Scotland where Budhi found a job and also played club cricket.

During the early 1970s, Budhi gave an interview to an Indian journalist where he spoke freely about the irregularities and the politics inside Indian cricket in the 1960s. The BCCI wasn’t pleased about it, and despite Budhi’s unconditional apology, he wasn’t invited during the Golden Jubilee Test in 1980 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the formation of BCCI. This gesture hurt him greatly.

At least his adopted country honoured him well. As Scotland became a part of the England’s one-day cup from 1980, Budhi represented the Scotland team. Budhi Kunderan later died in Scotland in 2006.