Gautam Gambhir - The Solitary Grandiose Egotist

Finally exactly after 507 days of being appointed as Head Coach of India's Senior Cricket Team, do I gather the time , willingness and intensity to write about a megalomaniac idiot ( seldom am I so harsh in social media about some one whom I dont like or I chose to use unforgiving words).  I have tweeted, written on FB and other places - even an online article for a leading Bengali Portal , many a time about Gautam Gambhir and vented my frustration, but a full blog dedicated - perhaps for the first time. Probably the frustration that he has survived and not being AXED even after such a shameful debacle leads me to write about him - a rare species of a grandiose which we have seldom witnessed in 93 years of Indian Cricket even when it was ruled by the Rulers. 

The nail in the coffin was driven on July 09,2024 when the CAC ( Cricket advisory committee ) comprising of  Mr. Ashok Malhotra, Mr. Jatin Paranjpe & Ms. Sulakshana Naik unanimously recommended Gautam Gambhir as the Head Coach of Team India ( Senior Men). 

The BCCI had invited applications for the said position on May 13 2024 to appoint Rahul Dravid's successor, whose term got over post ICC T20 World Cup, 2024.

Initially Gambhir had no chance or design to replace Rahul as the contenders were : VVS Laxman, Ricky Ponting, Stephen Fleming and Mahela Jayawardene .  Laxman was reluctant to stay away from home for a long period as would be the case with Head Coach role  and we dont know the reason why Ponting was not selected and discussions fell apart with Fleming and Jayawardene midway through, probably financial conditions being the primary constraint but whatever may be the reasons , one persons' miss was another person's gain and hereby started one of the most dark phases of Indian Cricket.

  

                                

                   A cursory glance at Gambhir's career tells us he was a very average player .  His away record in SENA countries specially in AUSTRALIA & ENGLAND is shocking - hardly inspires any confidence !!

4154 runs from 58 matches @ 41.95 doesnt instil great confidence. However there have been many succesful coaches with far less credentials than Gambhir - Dave Whatmore, Late Bob Woolmer. Hence Gambhir's success with Indian Senior team like his predecessors - Dravid & Shastri should have happened , specially when the team was slowly moving into a transition phase. 

The main problem that has stemmed in the last 507 days has been the man's horrible megalomaniacness and his singular obstinacy to do what he feels right. Test match cricket is not ODI /T20 that you can get away making mistakes one after another - it examines skill sets at the highest level - patience , endurance , temperament and last but not the least slogging for endless overs - a quality which Gambhir surprisingly had when he played for India .

The little success Gambhir has had as a captain/mentor has been at the IPL level with KKR. They say - " little learning is dangerous learning ." Similarly Gambhir's head tilted badly when he achieved those successes and set about doing an encore with a much tougher assignment.

The important question here is - why Gambhir was selected as Coach when people at the helm knew he was more of a white ball champ ? with no tested credential in red ball and with a volatile temperament , why was he given this monumental job ? Here in lies the inherent sickness of Indian Cricket. Since Independence , Indian Sports have always been dominated by Politics - more so by the ruling party at Centre . Cricket being more than a religion and the mother of all sports in India and the one which makes maximum money has always bowed down and succumbed to the red eyes of the snollygoster politicians . This is a history of Indian Cricket.

BCCI ( The Board of Cricket for Control In India ) has always been one way or the other a function of the party at the Centre  - a branch or an artery of whats happening at the Loksabha / Rajyasabha . Little then is the surprise that Gambhir a BJP MP from 2019-2024 was given this mighty post ahead of many deserving others. I have not an iota of doubt and have been saying in many social forums that GG is not a red ball coach - his coaching credentials alone are not enough to garner him this prize post. Its only his linkage with the current political system prevalent in India that has landed him this high profile job no two ways about it .

Now lets look at the mistakes Gautam Gambhir has been making since he took over as Head Coach of India - am looking only at his gaping red ball mistakes. My article is also about why he is not at all  a RED BALL coach material.

Lets look at Gambhir's record in Tests as coach since taking over in July 2024 :

Against Bangladesh at Home - 2-0                     Against Australia Away 1-3 ( 1 draw)

Against New Zealand at Home 0-3                    Against England Away 2-2    (1 draw)

Against  West Indies at Home  2-0                          

Against South Africa at Home  0-2

Gambhir's overall record since taking over :

Not withstanding Minnows Bangladesh and West Indies - Gambhir as coach has swallowed many undigestable pills 

• First Indian Coach to lose 5 home tests
• India's 408 run loss is their biggest in the history of their longest format
• In their 93 years long history of Test Cricket , only 3 times have India lost all the matches of a series at home - two out of the three times under Gambhir as coach - Nov '24 against NZ 0-3 and Nov'25 against Sa 0-2. Some shame indeed !!

 

Gambhirs' record overseas has been equally shoddy - a dismal 1-3 against Australia at the beginning of  the year and by the scruff of the neck 2-2 against England where it was the bowlers' and not Gambhir who brought back India from losing the series .

 

So lets look at what are the mistakes this over arrogant megalomaniac humbug is committing which has taken Indian cricket to such an all time low :

• The first and overwhelming weakness that he has is his dictatorial approach to the game which is destroying Indian Cricket - systematic elimination of seniors from the side in order to clamp his superiority and Hitler like approach .  The way he treated /forced Ravi Ashwin to retire midway through BGT and then forced Kohli and Rohit to retire in the longer version without getting involved in the scene speaks volumes of his calibre as a politician and not as a Cricket Strategist.

• The continous sidelining of Shreyas Iyer, Mohmd Shami, Sarfraz Khan from the side when the team is suffering from lack of specialist is pointing to a major weakness in his armoury as a Coach.

•  - The over dependence on make shift players like Nitish Reddy , Harshit Rana and Sai Sudarshan at No.3 ( whose not ready for Test Cricket yet ) time and again thereby paving way for big losses certainly speaks volumes about his inability to coach Indian side at the highest level with acumen and strategy . 

When you are a Coach of a transitioning side , the most important part is to phase out seniors in such a systematic manner that it doesnt affect the balance of the side neither diminish its winning capability. However , the former MP turned coach has jeopardised the team in such a way by forceful elimination of the seniors just to satisfy his ego and stamp his authority on the team that , this ploy has backfired very badly. Red Ball cricket is the highest format of the game where personal wish and stupidity doesnt go hand in hand. Massaging own ego has no place in the toughest format of the game and more so in a side which is undergoing major changes .

Playing according to conditions , opposition team , their strengths are few of the attributes a coach must have at this level . Unfortunately Gambhir lacks in all of them - Agreed that Kohli and Rohit were almost spent forces in Red Ball but arm twisting them to retire hasnt gone well neither with fans nor with India's dismal performance post him taking over. As I reiterated a little while ago , phasing out has to be in a way that doesnt create problems for the team's performance and thats exactly where India has been hurt most . Clearly Gambhir isnt the man for the job.

However , Gambhir being an important member of the current ruling dispensation at the top knows very well that he will never be questioned for his failures and thats exactly whats happening even after such gaping and harrowing losses. BJP rules India and BCCI in such a way that a mere opposition or a voice will soon be lost or buried or suppressed in such a horrifying manner that no one would ever dare to resurface again and the same carries in Cricket as well. This all time cushion helps Gambhir to spread his lunacy and madness in a way thats totally unacceptable for Test Cricket and the sufferer is Indian Cricket. Already in 11 months Gambhir has taken the team to such a new low which we are ashamed to think off. 

All lost ?  - All is hopefully not lost but will soon be. Gambhir's ego , his bewildering stubbornness , his one track singular stupidity , his inability to understand the game at the highest level , all of these are taking Indian senior men's team to annihilation soon - we didnt qualify for 2023-2025 WTC finals and chances are that we will not qualify for the 2025-27 cycle as well. At the time of writing this article , India is languishing at the 5th position in the cycle and with 2 away matches against WI and NZ to go middle of 2026 and then a full 5 match against the runners up of WTC Australia at home - India will have to win 8/9 matches or 7/9 matches to be in the finals - PTC wise. That looks a very tall rather impossible order. 

BCCI either doesnt pay much attention to Test Cricket but only says so , or gets their losses covered in the longer format by garnering uncouth amount of money from IPL and overseas T20 series' which more than makes up for the paltry crowds at the grounds. Sooner or later BCCI will have to realise that once the sponsors will turn themselves away it will be very difficult even for the power hungry dirty BJP to prevent the slide thats started - the signs are ominous in Test Cricket with Gambhir taking the system for a ride - and the end is not far. One hopes that good senses will prevail sooner so that the mighty and haughty be replaced else its not far away that India will face the same fate which befell the mighty West Indies in 1995. Arrogance doesn't pay in SPORTS neither does madness.

Charulata - An Intricate Tale of Sophistication & Simplicity - Where Calmness and passion ignite silently - Probably Ray's Numero Uno

 To talk about a film which finds itself in the annals of the greatest films ever made is not easy . More so for a novice like me with no formal training of a film critic or journalist. Yet the visual delight that CHARULATA brings to human eyes  and the calmness to human sensitivity  is no less than  a soft morning breeze on a Hot Kolkata  Summer  otherwise laden with excessive humidity and perspiration. Charulata to human mind is all about its perceived softness which can be felt but not seen - through out the movie. RAY was at his best in Charulata - and the film when he was pressed to speak he commented, was his best movie with FEWEST flaws.

Ray speaks about the movie in SIGHT & SOUND in 1982 - " Early on in the film Charulata is shown picking out a volume from a bookshelf . As she walks away idly turning its pages , she is heard to sing softly. Only a Bengali will know that she has turned the name of the author - the most popular Bengali novelist of the period - into a musical motif. Later, her brother in law Amal makes a dramatic entrance during  a storm reciting a well known line from the same author. There is no way that subtitles can convey this affinity of fact between the two characters so crucial to what happens later. Charulata  has been much admired in the WEST... but this admiration has been based on aspects to which response has been possible; the other aspects being left out of the reckoning."

Charulata ( 1964) - is adapted from Tagore's 1901 novel Nastanirh ( The Broken Nest). It's widely believed that the story was inspired by Tagore's relation with his sister -in-law Kadambari Devi who committed suicide in 1884 for reasons that have never been fully explained. Kadambari like Charulata was beautiful, intelligent and a gifted writer, and towards the end of his life , Tagore admitted that the hundreds of haunting portraits of women that he painted in his later years were inspired by memories of her.

Right from the outset of his career with Pather Panchali (1955) , Ray had shown himself to be exceptionally skilled at conveying a whole world within a microcosm , focusing on a small social group while still relating it to the wider picture. Virtually all of his finest films - The Apu Trilogy ,The Music  Room, Days and Nights in the Forest,  Distant Thunder , The Middleman  - achieve this double perspective. But all of his chamber dramas, Charulata is perhaps the subtlest and most delicate. The setting, as with so many of Ray’s movies, is his native Kolkata. It’s around 1880, and the intellectual ferment of the Bengali Renaissance is at its height. Among the educated middle classes, there’s talk of self-determination for India within the British Empire—perhaps even complete independence. Such ideas are often aired in the Sentinel, the liberal English-language weekly of which Bhupatinath Dutta (Shailen Mukherjee) is the owner and editor. A kindly man, but distracted by his all-absorbing political interests, he largely leaves his wife, the graceful and intelligent Charulata (Madhabi Mukherjee), to her own resources.

    Charulata finds itself in list of fifty/hundred best films ever made. It has the most complete fusion of eastern and western sensibility in Cinema - which is exactly why difficulties arise. The film conceals almost as much from the Bengali who is unfamiliar with western civilisation , as it does, in other ways, from the westerner who does not know Bengal. To the London Times reviewer in 1965, ' this stratum of Indian Life', seemed oddly more English than England itself. But to the cultured Bengali it presents a quite different, quintessentially Bengali face. He could never find it slow; rather he requires three or four viewings to absorb it to the full. It is Ray's most allusive, fully realised film, the one which if pressed, he chose as his best.

For Example , consider the way in which Bankim Chandra Chattopaddhyay , ' the most popular Bengali novelist of the period' , is woven into the film. He is the bond that helps to draw the lonely and childless Charu , wife of a somewhat earnest newspaper owner and Editor , Bhupati, towards her nonchalant Brother In Law Amal . After dropping her embroidery at the beginning of the film to wander aimlessly through the house , Charu embroiders Bankim's name in the air by humming it while she is taking one of his novels from the bookshelf. Later as Amal arrives during a violent storm of a kind that Bengal experiences during month of Baisakh ( Mid April to Mid May ) , he shouts out , in a theatrical manner , a line from Bankim and asks his pleased sister in law : " Have you read Bankim's latest ?"

A little later Amal is seen debating with Bhupati on the relative value of literature and politics. With some disgust, Bhupati tells him that his friend and assistant on the newspaper lost three nights' sleep after reading one of Bankim's books, and comments that he finds absurd ; when one has real issues and people to address , why read novels ? Bhupati's view is as unacceptable to Amal as Amal's to him , but that does not mean that Amal and Charu at least are agreed ; though Amal admires Bankim , he feels that his own taste has moved beyond him, as he somewhat condescendingly informs Charu during a languid afternoon discussion in her bedroom. She is unmoved by this boasting just as she is unmoved by politics , for she has read the new writers admired by Amal and finds them spurious.

Like her husband, Charu thinks that Amal should get married , and it  is when the three of them come to talk this over that Bankim is invoked again. When Bhupati tries to entice Amal with visions of a trip to England promised by his prospective father in law , Amal finally rejects his overture with some well-known words from the novel Anandamath , ' Bankim's latest,' - taken from ' Bande Mataram', a rousing patriotic song in the novel that later became the anthem of Bengal and the rallying - cry of Bengal nationalists ( as Ray showed later in The Home and The Home the World) . 

The final reference to Bankim in the film occurs at another crucial psychological moment, when Charulata tries to persuade Amal to stay , ostensibly to help her husband run the newspaper. This is the alliterative conversation Ray refers to above , in the course of which Amal mentions Bankim as one of the compelling reasons why he must return to Bengal , if and when he goes to England.

What is the significance of all these references ? At the moment in modern Bengali in which Charulata is set, around 1880, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee was at the height of his fame , a leading light of the Bengal Renaissance of the generation preceding Rabindranath Tagore. Born in 1838, he joined govt service in Bengal in 1858 and remained in it till his retirement in 1891. While serving as a magistrate and revenue official he persued a parallel career as a novelist, essayist and editor, and by 1880 had written 9 novels in Bengali;  a further five were to follow before his death in 1894. He was known popularly as the " Scott of Bengal", and some of his novels were translated into English. ' In respect of love of the romantic variety , he was the pioneer ' in Bengal , says noted author Nirad C. Chaudhuri.  'His depictions of love rivalled the effervescence of the great romantic exponents of love in Europe. This seemed so strange to traditional Bengalis, and yet took such a strong hold on the young, that Chatterjee was accused of corrupting the youth of Bengal .'

The visual elegance and fluidity that Ray achieves in Charulata are immediately evident in the long, all-but-wordless sequence that follows the credits and shows us Charu, trapped in the stuffy, brocaded cage of her house, trying to amuse herself. (At this period, no respectable middle-class Bengali wife could venture out into the city alone.) Having called to the servant to take Bhupati his tea, she leafs through a book lying on the bed, discards it, selects another from the bookshelf—then, hearing noises outside in the street, finds her opera glasses and flits birdlike from window to window, watching the passersby. A street musician with his monkey, a chanting group of porters trotting with a palanquin, a portly Brahman with his black umbrella, signifier of his dignified status—all these come under her scrutiny. When Bhupati wanders past, barely a couple of feet away but too engrossed in a book to notice her, she turns her glasses on him as well—just another strange specimen from the intriguing, unattainable outside world.

Throughout this sequence, Ray’s camera unobtrusively follows Charu as she roams restlessly around the house, framing and reframing her in a series of spaces—doorways, corridors, pillared galleries—that emphasize both the Victorian-Bengali luxury of her surroundings and her confinement within them. Though subjective shots are largely reserved for Charu’s glimpses of street life, the tracking shots that mirror her progress along the gallery, or move in behind her shoulder as she glides from window to window, likewise give us the sense of sharing her comfortable but trammeled life. The only deviation from this pattern comes after she’s retrieved the opera glasses. A fast lateral track keeps the glasses in close-up as she holds them by her side and hurries back to the windows, the camera sharing her impulsive eagerness.

Under the credits, we’ve seen Charu embroidering a wreathed B on a handkerchief as a gift for her husband. When she presents it to him, Bhupati is delighted but asks, “When do you find the time, Charu?” Evidently, it’s never occurred to him that she might feel herself at a loose end. But now, becoming vaguely aware of Charu’s discontent and fearing she may be lonely, he invites her ne’er-do-well brother Umapada and his wife, Mandakini, to stay, offering Umapada employment as manager of the Sentinel’s finances. Manda, a featherheaded chatterbox, proves poor company for her sister-in-law. Then Bhupati’s young cousin Amal (Soumitra Chatterjee) unexpectedly arrives for a visit. Lively, enthusiastic, cultured, an aspiring writer, he establishes an immediate rapport with Charu that on both sides drifts insensibly toward love.

“Calm Without, Fire Within,” the title of Ray’s essay on the Japanese cinema, could apply equally well to Charulata (as the Bengali critic Chidananda Das Gupta has noted). The emotional turbulence that underlies the film is conveyed in hints and sidelong gestures, in a fleeting glance or a snatch of song, often betraying feelings only half recognized by the person experiencing them. In a key scene set in the sunlit garden (with more than a nod to Fragonard), Amal lies on his back on a mat, seeking inspiration, while Charu swings herself high above him, reveling in the ecstasy of her newfound intellectual and erotic stimulation. Ray, as the critic Robin Wood observed, “is one of the cinema’s great masters of interrelatedness.”

This garden scene, which runs some ten minutes, finds Ray at his most intimately lyrical. It’s the first time the action has escaped from the house, and the sense of freedom and release is infectious. From internal evidence, it’s clear that the scene involves more than one occasion (Charu promises Amal a personally designed notebook for his writings, she presents it to him, he declares that he’s filled it), but it’s cut together to give the impression of a single, continuous event, a seamless emotional crescendo. Two moments in particular attain a level of rapt intensity rarely equaled in Ray’s work, both underscored by music. The first is when Charu, having just exhorted Amal to write, swings back and forth, singing softly; Ray’s camera swings with her, holding her face in close-up, for nearly a minute. Then, when Amal finds inspiration, we get a montage of the Bengali writing filling his notebook, line superimposed upon line in a series of cross-fades, while sitar and shehnai gently hail his creativity.

In an article in Sight & Sound in 1982, Ray suggested that, to Western audiences, Charulata, with its triangle plot and Europeanized, Victorian ambience, might seem familiar territory, but that “beneath the veneer of familiarity, the film is chockablock with details to which [the Western viewer] has no access. Snatches of song, literary allusions, domestic details, an entire scene where Charu and her beloved Amal talk in alliterations . . . all give the film a density missed by the Western viewer in his preoccupation with plot, character, the moral and philosophical aspects of the story, and the apparent meaning of the images.”

 

                                  

Among the details that might elude the average Western viewer are the recurrent allusions to the nineteenth-century novelist Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838–94). A key figure of Bengali literature in the generation before Tagore, Bankim Chandra (sometimes referred to as “the Scott of Bengal”) wrote a series of romantic, nationalistic novels and actively fostered the young Tagore’s career. In the opening sequence, it’s one of Bankim Chandra’s novels that Charu takes down from the bookshelf, while singing his name to herself; and when, not long afterward, Amal makes his dramatic first entry, arriving damp-haired and windblown on the wings of a summer storm, he’s declaiming a well-known line of the writer’s. The coincidence points up the affinity between them; by contrast, when Bhupati recalls incredulously that a friend couldn’t sleep for three nights after reading a Bankim Chandra novel (“I told him, ‘You must be crazy!’”), it emphasizes the empathetic gulf between him and his wife.

 Music, too, is used to express underlying sympathies: Both Charu and Amal are given to breaking spontaneously into song, and two of Tagore’s compositions act as leitmotifs. We hear the tune of one of them, “Mama cite” (“Who dances in my heart?”), played over the opening images, and Amal sings another, “Phule phule” (“Every bud and every blossom sways and nods in the gentle breeze”), that Charu later takes up in the garden scene as they grow ever closer emotionally. (Manda, who has observed the pair together in the garden, afterward slyly sings a line of this song to Amal.) Ray weaves variations on both songs into his score. Another that Amal sings for Charu was composed by Tagore’s older brother Jyotirindranath, the husband of Kadambari Devi.

The film’s underlying theme of pent-up emotions trembling on the verge of expression is counterpointed both on a political level—Bhupati and his friends see in the Liberal victory at Westminster in April 1880 the chance of greater self-determination for India—and in the situation of Charulata herself, a gifted, sensitive woman yearning toward emancipation but slipping unconsciously toward a betrayal of her husband. To Western eyes, all three members of the triangle might seem willfully obtuse or impossibly naive. This again would be a misapprehension born of unfamiliarity with Bengali society, where, as Ray pointed out, a husband’s younger brother—in this case, a close cousin, which is much the same in Bengali custom and terms—is traditionally entitled to a privileged relationship with his sister-in-law. This relationship, playfully flirtatious, “sweet but chaste,” between a wife and her debar, is accepted and even encouraged. Charu and Amal simply stray, half unknowingly, across an ill-defined social border.

Ray was always known as a skilled and sympathetic director of actors. Saeed Jaffrey, who starred in The Chess Players (1977), bracketed him and John Huston as “gardener directors, who have selected the flowers, know exactly how much light and sun and water the flowers need, and then let them grow.” Soumitra Chatterjee, who made his screen debut when Ray cast him in the title role of the third film of The Apu Trilogy, The World of Apu (1959), gives perhaps the finest of his  fourteen  performances in Ray’s films as Amal—young, impulsive, a touch ridiculous in his irrepressible showing off, bursting with the joy of exploring life in its fullness after his release from the drab confines of a student hostel. He’s superbly matched by the graceful Madhabi Mukherjee as Charu, her expressive features alive with the ever-changing play of unaccustomed emotions that she scarcely knows how to identify, let alone deal with. She had starred in Ray’s previous film, The Big City (1963); he described her as “a wonderfully sensitive actress who made my work very easy for me.”

In order to mould Tagore's story into a film, Ray had to solve some knotty problems. First, there was the right balance to be struck between Western and Bengali elements. ' Nastanirh is a story which may not be deeply rooted in Bengali tradition,' Ray explained to Andrew Robinson in INNER EYE. ' It has a western quality to it and the film obviously shares that quality. That's why I can speak of Mozart in connection with  Charulata quite validly , I think. But the whole idea of DEVAR and wife's relationship is very Bengali, deeply rooted in convention. But what happens , the denouement, is more western than Indian , I think.' There's a strong western element in the telling of the story.'

Secondly, Ray had to settle on an exact period for the story. Tagore is vague about this but various clues, not least its probable autobiographical origin , led Ray to the very early 1880's rather than to 1901 , the publication date ( and the period preferred by the translators of the English Edition). He fixes it at 1879-80 in the film by the date on Bhupati's newspaper  and by various references to the British Election in which Galdstone was returned to power.  Other references , to the war in Afghanistan , to the Press Act and to the various taxes , reinforce this. Ray enjoyed the background research in the National Library In Kolkata and elsewhere and felt that the film gained considerably from the additional details such as Disraeli's nickname ( which Bhupati relishes using on Amal, to his utter confusion ).

Thirdly , there were psychological weaknesses in the story, with which Ray had to wrestle. He explained his solutions at length in a remarkable article in Bengali written in reply to a critic who had queried , ' What is the difficulty in incorporating in the script the story from beginning to end without any change ? ' ' I dont think an article like that has been written by any other director ever,' said Ray. There were two principal faults in Tagore's story he identified : the lack of build-up to the treachery of Bhupati's manager Umapada , Charu's brother, who embezzles a large sum of money from the newspaper , and the prolonged incomprehension on the part of  Bhupati of his wife's love for Amal. Ray's solutions are elegant , economical and subtle, depending on a much fuller rounding-out of the character of Umapada than Tagore allowed, an intensification of Charu's loneliness, and the portrayal of Bhupati as a somewhat more sensitive figure. The story is also compressed in time, into a span of two months - something that Ray more and more liked to do with his screenplays. And where Tagore's story makes reference to early years of Bhupati's newspaper and marriage to Charu, in Charulata all that is implied in words and actions, rather than spelt out in actual scenes.

Ray rarely used locations for interiors, preferring whenever possible to create them in the studio, though so subtly are the sets constructed and lit that we’re rarely aware of the artifice. Charulata includes few exterior scenes; almost all the action takes place in the lavishly furnished setting of Bhupati’s house. As always, Ray worked closely with his regular art director, Bansi Chandragupta, providing him with an exact layout of the rooms and detailed sketches of the main setups, and accompanying him on trips to the bazaars to find suitable furniture, decorations, and props. The result feels convincingly authentic, evoking a strong sense of period and of a class that ordered their lives, as critic Penelope Houston has put it, by “a conscious compromise between Eastern grace and Western decorum.”

Though he readily acknowledged the contributions of his collaborators, Ray came as close as any director within mainstream cinema to being a complete auteur. Besides scripting, storyboarding, casting, and directing his films, he composed the scores (from Three Daughters on) and even designed the credit titles and publicity posters. Starting with Charulata, he took control of yet another filmmaking function by operating his own camera. “I realized,” he explained, “that working with new actors, they are more confident if they don’t see me; they are less tense. I remain behind the camera. And I see better and get the exact frame.”

Charulata was the best received of all Ray’s films to date, both in Bengal and abroad. In Bengal, it was generally agreed that he had done full justice to the revered Tagore—even if some people still harbored reservations about the implicitly adulterous subject matter. After seeing the film at the 1965 Berlin Film Festival, where it won the Silver Bear for best director, Richard Roud noted that it was “distinguished by a degree of technical invention that one hasn’t encountered before in Ray’s films,” but that “all the same, it is not for his technique that one admires Ray so much: no enumeration of gems of mise-en-scène would convey the richness of characterization and that breathless grace and radiance he manages to draw from his actors.”

From its lyrical high point in the garden scene, the mood of Charulata gradually if imperceptibly darkens, moving toward emotional conflict and, eventually, desolation—a process reflected in the restriction of camera movement and in the lighting, which grows more shadowy and somber as Bhupati sees his trust betrayed and Charu realizes what she’s lost. Inspired, as he readily admitted, by the final shot of Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, Ray ends the film on a freeze-frame—or rather, a series of freeze-frames. Two hands, Charu’s and Bhupati’s, reaching tentatively out to each other, close but not yet joined. Ray’s tanpura score rises in a plangent crescendo. On the screen appears the title of Tagore’s story: “The Broken Nest.” Irretrievably broken? Ray, subtle and unprescriptive as ever, leaves that for us to decide.

Bloodbath at Sabina Park ,1976 - The Test match that changed the nature of the game - India vs West Indies

Test cricket has always been revered as the ultimate examination of skill, patience, and endurance. Yet, there have been moments in history when the game transformed into something far more primal—a contest not just of runs and wickets, but of survival itself. The fourth Test between India and West Indies at Kingston, Jamaica, in 1976, was one such battle, where cricket became a war, the pitch became a battlefield, and bowlers turned into executioners. It was a match where the spirit of competition was overshadowed by a ruthless display of hostility, and where the scoreboard told only part of the story. 

India arrived at Kingston high on confidence, having levelled the four-match series 1-1 dramatically. Just days earlier, they had pulled off the unimaginable—chasing down a world-record target of 406 runs in the fourth innings at Port of Spain, Trinidad. It was a feat that shook the cricketing world, an act of defiance against the fearsome West Indian fast bowlers, and a moment that bruised the pride of the Caribbean giants. To make matters worse, Clive Lloyd’s men were still reeling from a humiliating 5-1 series defeat in Australia just months prior. Their aggressive, pace-driven strategy had been dismantled by the Australians, and now, on their home turf, they were desperate to restore their dominance. The wounds of Port of Spain made their hunger for vengeance even fiercer. 

As the teams lined up for the series decider at Sabina Park, it was clear that this was not just another cricket match. It was a test of physical and mental endurance, and India would soon find itself on the receiving end of one of the most brutal fast-bowling assaults in the game’s history. 

The Relentless West Indian Onslaught Begins

The Sabina Park pitch was fresh, re-laid just before the match, and its unpredictable bounce turned it into an unpredictable monster. For the West Indies, it was a gift—a perfect ally for their four-pronged pace attack, led by the fearsome Michael Holding and supported by Wayne Daniel, Bernard Julien, and Vanburn Holder. This was an era before helmets, before strict bouncer regulations, before limits on intimidation. And - Intimidation was precisely what West Indies planned to unleash. 

India, however, was undeterred. Opening batsmen Sunil Gavaskar and Anshuman Gaekwad walked to the crease with steely resolve, determined to weather the early storm. They did more than just survive—they flourished. With a century partnership, they defied the venomous spells hurled at them, playing with control and skill, silencing the crowd that had come expecting an Indian collapse. 

But then the tone of the match changed. The West Indies bowlers, sensing that their conventional approach was failing, resorted to a more sinister tactic—short-pitched bodyline bowling. The deliveries were fast, short, and aimed at the body rather than the stumps. It was no longer a battle of skill but one of physical punishment. 

The first real casualty was Anshuman Gaekwad. Batting with immense concentration, he had reached 81 when a Michael Holding bouncer crashed into his left ear. He collapsed, dazed and bleeding, and had to be carried off the field. He would later spend two days in the hospital. Soon after, Brijesh Patel suffered a brutal blow to the face that required stitches in his mouth. Gundappa Viswanath, another key batsman, had his fingers broken by a rising delivery. 

India, once in control at 237/3, suddenly found itself crippled—not just in terms of wickets but in terms of manpower. With multiple players seriously injured and the West Indian pacers showing no signs of relenting, captain Bishan Singh Bedi made an unprecedented decision: he declared the innings at 306/6, not for tactical reasons, but to protect his remaining batsmen from further injury.

 It was an extraordinary moment in cricket history—a captain effectively surrendering his innings to safeguard his team’s physical well-being. 

An Unlikely Indian Fightback Amidst the Carnage

Despite their injuries, India’s bowlers showed remarkable resolve when West Indies came out to bat. The spin trio of Bhagwant Chandrasekhar, Bishan Singh Bedi, and Srinivas Venkataraghavan made the hosts work hard for their runs. They took full advantage of the worn-out pitch, extracting sharp turn and bounce to trouble the West Indian batsmen. Their efforts paid off as they restricted the mighty West Indies to 391—a lead of 85, but not the outright dominance the hosts had expected. 

Yet, even as India fought back with the ball, the toll of their injuries grew heavier. Several players, including Bedi himself, sustained further injuries while fielding. By the time India prepared to bat again, they were running on fumes—exhausted, bruised, and dangerously short on able-bodied players. 

A Collapse Born of Injuries, Not Just Skill

As the second innings began, it was clear that India was no longer in a contest; they were in survival mode. Sunil Gavaskar, who had played so well in the first innings, fell cheaply for just 2 runs. Dilip Vengsarkar and Mohinder Amarnath momentarily provided resistance, with Amarnath scoring a gritty 60, but the relentless West Indian pace attack was unyielding. 

At 97/2, India still had some hope of salvaging a respectable total. But then, in a span of a few overs, they were reduced to 97/5. The lower order was in no shape to continue—three batsmen were already in the hospital, and two others, including Bedi, were physically incapable of holding a bat. 

With his team broken in body and spirit, Bedi made a controversial but unavoidable decision: he refused to send out the last five batsmen, effectively conceding the match. India’s second innings ended at 97 all out, even though they had only technically lost five wickets. With a paltry target of just 13 runs, West Indies chased it down in a mere 1.5 overs, winning by 10 wickets and securing a 2-1 series victory. 

The Aftermath: A Match That Changed the Course of Cricket

The Kingston Test was more than just a game; it was an unforgettable display of cricket at its most ruthless. By the end of the match, all 17 members of India’s touring squad had taken the field at some point. In an eerie twist, even Surinder Amarnath, a non-playing member of the squad, had to be rushed to the hospital mid-match for an appendix operation. The entire Indian team was battered, both physically and mentally. 

This Test became a defining moment in cricket history, igniting a debate about the limits of intimidation and fast bowling. Over the years, such brutal bowling tactics led to significant reforms, including the introduction of helmets and restrictions on the number of bouncers per over. 

For West Indies, this match marked a turning point—they doubled down on their aggressive, pace-heavy approach, which would go on to define their two decades of global dominance. For India, it was a harsh lesson in resilience, one that would inspire a new generation of cricketers to rise above their past struggles and ultimately rewrite their nation’s cricketing history. 

Even today, the Kingston Test stands as one of the most harrowing and controversial matches ever played—a stark reminder of an era where cricket was not just about skill, but also about sheer survival.

  

GONE TOO SOON XI - my fav 11 cricketers' who could have stayed a little longer

 

On the occasion of 8 years of my BLOG ( my first blog was on March 29,2017) I was thinking for quite some time to select a team that would present - raw uniqueness . A list of talented and controverisal bunch who under normal circumtances may not have made into Wisden or any other all time TEST XI ( my list has only 2 ) but because they died early it presents me an opportunity to analyse those who if they had lived more would have contributed more meaningfully to the world of cricket. I then got down to check a list of handful cricketers who died early,  some very prematurely and some a little later but still young , much younger than others  and after quite a bit of research came up with 13 names . It could have been 16  but I decided to stick to 11 plus two subs. My team has  one  serious flaw- it is devoid of a world class wicket keeper and a world class allrounder  - I couldn't find either  of them who died early. My indepth research couldn't produce satisfactory result. The youngest in my team died at 25 and the oldest died at 57 - sufficing it to say its a team which can be called GONE TOO SOON . And of course , any all time XI always leaves room for debate and am sure mine will too. I am happy to select my 13 who died young but left quite a bit of impression even at such an age - just makes me think what would have happened if they lived well past 75.  

Lets get down to the business of the selection . I have 4 Australians, 3 Carribeans, 3 Englishman, 1 each  from Newzealand , South Africa and Zimbabwe. 

Openers : My openar with whom I will open the discussion is one of the 2 in my team who died while he was still a player ( the other one was technically not a player but well within his playing age ) .  

Seldom in the history of Sports has any player raked up so much emotion like Phillip Joel Hughes upon his fateful passing away , 3 days short of his 26 th birthday . The Cricketing and the Sporting world came to a standstill with his tragic and untimely demise.  The late Phil Hughes is my openar in this team.

 

Phil Hughes was quite a talent destined to play long for Australia , till fate decided otherwise brutally.  Making his debut for Australia in March 2009, aged 20, he scored his first test century in his second test match opening the batting and hitting 115 in the 1st innings at Durban against the Proteas. This made him the youngest test centurion for the Aussies since Doug Walters in 1965. In the second innings of the same match , he scored 160, becoming the youngest cricketer to score centuries in both innings of a test . On January 11,2013 he became the the first Aussie batsman to score a century on debut in an ODI - against Srilanka in MCG.

During the 2009 Ashes campaign , Hughes was exploited badly by English bowlers who targetted his upper body and avoided bowling wide outside off stump , restricting his opportunity to play through offside - thereby limiting his scoring shots. He was dropped from the 3rd test at Edgbaston in favour of Shane Watson who opened the batting in his place and provided the Aussies with an extra bowling option. Hughes was a fringe player for  the next year playing here and there as injury replacements.  He played 2 home test against Pakistan covering for injured Ricky Ponting and then for Simon Katich. He was then called up to replace Shane Watson in the first test vs Newzealand in Newzealand.

Hughes was dropped from the 2010 -11 Ashes squad but was called for the 3rd test as replacement to Katich who was injured. He was a regular in the team for the following year playing in the last 3 ashes test, tours of Srilanka & South Africa and then a home series against the Kiwis. His weakness outside the off stump was badly exposed now , and apart from a 126 in Colombo & and 88in Jo'berg he failed miserably. He came under heavy criticism for his performance in the home series against the Kiwis and was dismissed the same way in all 4 innings. He was dropped from the Australian team following the series.

Hughes was determined to make it big and make a big comeback and in a stint with Worcestershire he made huge adjustments to his technique resulting in a more expansive range of strokes with more stress on legside play. Once he returned to Australia he moved to South Australia from his home state of NSW. This resulted in a much desired return to form and runs and an eventual recall to TEST side to face Srilanka in Hobert in Dec 2012. Coming back to the side after quite some time , he made an impressive 86 batting at 3. He had a great series against the Lankans , with a new-found confidence and much tighter technique. He was set to receive a $1 million contract with CA and was to be selected in Australia's ODI and T20 squads. Upon selection he scored a solid 112 (129 balls) in his ODI debut , becoming the first Aussie to do so. He scored his second ODI 100 - this time a 138* off  154 balls in the 5th ODI of the same series. 

Following his succesful summer in Australia in 2012/13 , he was selected to play in the test series in India but he struggled in the dustbowls scoring only a paltry 147 in 8 innings. Further he played the first two tests of the 2013 Ashes, but was dropped for the 3rd test. He never played in tests  for Australia again. He did play an ODI series in India in Oct 2013, against Zimbabwe and South Africa in Zimbabwe in Sept 2014 & against Pakistan in UAE in Oct 2014.

On 25th November 2014, in a Sheffield Shield Match against NSW at the SCG , while batting on 63, he was struck in the neck by the ball after missing an attempted hook to a bouncer from NSW pacer Sean Abbott. Hughes was wearing a helmet but the ball struck an unprotected area  just below the left ear. He collapsed on the ground immediately and received mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital Sydney where he underwent surgery and was placed in an induced coma. He never came out of the coma again and died on Thursday , November 27 ,2014  succumbing to the injury that he had sustained 2 days earlier.

Hughes played 26 tests and 25 ODI's for Australia  scoring 1535 and 826 runs respectively at an average of 32.66 and 35.91  . He scored 3 hundreds in test and 2 in ODI's.

Thus ended tragically and very prematurely one of the most promising career in Australian and World Cricket - that he was being groomed for all 3 formats was not unknown. One of the most sad events ever to have happened on a sporting field.

Partnering Hughes in this GONE TOO SOON XI, is another great openar - the Late Roy Fredericks. Fredericks who died of Cancer in 2000 at the age of 57  only ,was a pillar of West Indian batting from 1968-1977. 

He made 4334 test runs from 59 matches @42.49 and 311 ODI runs from 12 matches @25.91 . He scored 8 test hundreds and 1 ODI hundred.

He had a number of opening partners in his test team before settling down with Gordon Greenidge in the mid 70's.  He was an aggressive batsman who liked to counter attack the fast bowlers , but also could accumulate runs traditionally.

His Highest test score was 169 against Australia at Perth which was a swashbuckling counter attacking innings against the fearsome Lillee and Thomson.

In the inaugural ICC CWC in 1975 , Fredericks became the 1st player in ODI history to be dismissed for being hit wicket and also became the first player to be dismissed for being hit wicket in WC history.

A gutsy cricketer who never lost his way in the madness of Carribean legends at their peak.

The middle order probably is the strongest in my XI - starting with a legend who died way too young.  

Kenneth Frank Barrington - or Ken Barrington the first of my four middle order batters died at the age of 51 , in Barbados where he was touring with the visiting English side as Manager. Of Players with completed career only Sir Don had an better average than Ken with more than Ken's 6806 test runs. Barrington twice made centuries in 4 successive tests & was the first England batsman to make hundreds on all 6 test grounds : Old Trafford, Edgbaston, Headingley,Lords, Trentbridge and Oval.

Making his debut against South Africa in 1955 , he made a duck.  He was kept in the second test at Lords where he made 34 and 18. He was dropped after that. After 4 years he made a come back to the England side against a very weak touring  Indian side , scoring 56 at Trentbridge , 80 at Lords & Headingley and 87 at Old Trafford. He scored 8 in the final test at Oval but England completed a 5-0 whitewash. Barrington made 357 runs in the series , more than anybody else and was an automatic choice for the tour of West Indies in 1959-60.

At Kensington Oval, Barrington scored his maiden test hundred against a fiery Wes Hall and Chester Watson - 128 out of England's 482. The second test at Queens Park Oval was a very fiery affair with Hall & Watson bouncing all English batsmen, but Barrington using his skills scored his second consecutive hundred . 

The last 3 tests were drawn and Barrington didn't do much of note & he was targeted by Hall for his seeming discomfort against short balls. England won the series 1-0 and Barrington's 420 runs @ 46.66 was an important part of this victory.

Against South Africa and Australia , the next two series he returned 227 @ 37.83 and 364 @45.5 which were enough to consolidate his position as one of England's premier batsman of the late 50 to late 60's.

Barrington had to curtail his flourishing career in 1968 with several years ahead of him , due to his failing heart conditions and one heart attack already taking place. 

He died from a second heart attack while he was touring with the English team in West Indies as Manager.

Kenneth Frank Barrington - one of the greatest English batsmen of all times scored 6806 runs from 82 test matches at an astonishing average of 58.67 with 20 hundreds. His FC career was equally brilliant , scoring 31000+ runs from 573 matches @ 45.63 with 76 hundreds.

My next batsmen in this team is a maverick - had he been alive , he would have spelt magic in the world of cricket - one of the early masters of world Cricket -  Victor Thomas Trumper.

A surreal genius who died prematurely at the age of 37, had captivated one and sundry with his imaginative , stylish and classical versatility . Trumper scored 3163 runs from 48 test matches @39.04 with 8 test hundreds - but his numbers are not a judge of the enromous influence he had on world cricket and his contemporaries.

His ability as a batsman is not valued by his average or the number of runs he scored . His craftsmanship was shown on bad wickets where he was able to time the ball and execute strokes all around.

His greatest season was against England in 1902 - where he scored 2570 runs in one of the wettest summers  when pitches were not covered and no helmets around. That called for tremendous skill and deftness . Clearly Trumper was the greatest batsmen of his era without an iota of doubt. In 1902 , he became the first player to achieve the rare feat of making a century on the first morning of a test match , scoring 103 before lunch against England at Old Trafford.

Trumper died of Bright's disease at a very young age of 37 - a monumental loss to Cricket.

At no 5, Cricket's eternal philanthropist - the great Sir Frank Mortimer Maglinne Worrell . Known world wide ,  for saving Indian Captain Nari Contractor's life in 1962 when Nari was hit on the head  by a life threatening bouncer from  famed quickie Charlie Griffith.

Sir Frank Worrell played 51 tests scoring 3860 runs @ 49.48. - 9 hundreds and 22  fifties. He also picked 69 test wickets . But Sir Worrell one of the 3 W's was famous for his articulate captaincy and shrewd tactical skills - he was the worthy predecessor to Clive Lloyd.

Worrell made his debut in 1948 against England. He made his highest test score of 261 against England in 1950 and was a Wisden Cricketer of the year in 1951. Following a succesful campaign by famous scribe CLR James , the period of white captaincy came to an end in West Indies and Worrell became the first Black Cricketer to captain West Indies for an entire series. Regarded often as the NELSON MANDELLA of Cricket, Sir Frank Worrell was associated with some watershed events of cricket. The first TIED TEST played ever , he was a part of it.

On February 3, 1962 - Nari Contractor the captain of the visiting Indian team received a career ending head injury from a bouncer bowled by West Indian quickie Charlie Griffith. Worrell was the first player from both sides to donate blood ,which saved Contractor's life. This was one of the great events of World Cricket - a camaradarie never heard before. Contractor survived never to play for India again.

Worrell retired after the 1963 tour of England. He was knighted for his services to cricket in 1964. While serving as tour manager in India in 1967 he was disgnosed of Leukaemia and died shortly after returning to West Indies in 1967 March.

At the pivotal no.6 , one of my personal favorites and whose passing away really shocked me - one of the stylish batsmen of the mid 80's to early 90's - a visionary , a supreme commander of classy batting and a great innovator, probably the father of future T20 - Martin Crowe.

According to the legendary Wasim Akram, Crowe was the most difficult batsman he bowled to and not any one else - high praise considering it came from the SULTAN OF SWING.

Crowe gathered 5444 runs from 77 tests @ 45.36 scoring 17 hundreds. In ODI where his skills were spectacular for the day, from 143 ODI's he scored 4704 runs @ 38.55 with 4 hundreds - remember this was during late 80's . In first class arena , he was equally flashy - from 247 matches he scored 19608 runs @56.02 with 71 hundreds.

Crowe made his international debut well below the age of  20 , and was one of the youngest KIWI to do so - a measure of his precocious talent. He scored his first test century against England in 1984. The next year he made two scores of 188 - one against the West Indies and the second one against Australia.

He was the second highest run scorer for NZ  in the 1983 world cup and the highest run scorer  for NZ in the 1987 World Cup  - that was staged for the first time outside England . In both the tourney's Crowe left indelible impression of his unbelievable strokeplay and his wonderful ability to rotate the strike. 

The highpoint of Crowe's career was the 1992 world cup where Newzealand surprised everyone by reaching the SF as a darkhorse before narrowly losing to the eventual winner Pakistan. His revolutionary idea of sending Mark Greatbatch to open the innings , asking Deepak Patel to open the bowling - ideas which later was applied by captains like Arjuna Ranatunga in 1996 and Steve Waugh in 1999 - Crowe was the flag bearer of innovative ideas and quite likely is now called the Father of T20 thinking. He was a brilliant tactical captain.  Crowe finished as the highest run scorer of the tourney and was declared MAN OF THE TOURNAMENT.

Martin Crowe was an immensely gifted batsman - one of the most elegant the world ever saw. He was upright, orthodox and had a tremendous head position. His grace of footwork made him very eyecatching.

Martin Crowe died from Lymphoma after battling it for 4 years - a massive and irreparable loss to the Cricketing world. There would never be another Martin Crowe.

At  no.7 - a position earmarked for allrounders /wicketkeepers , my choice is the lone warrior from a team that was rising in the late 90's and early 2000. Heath Hilton Streak who died of Cancer very prematurely at the age of 49 in 2023, fits the bill here . 

Streak played 65 test matches and scored 1990 runs  with  1 test hundred and took 216 test wickets - in the  shorter  format he scored 2942 runs from 189 matches and took 239 wickets - he didnt score a hundred in the ODI's.

Streak represented a country which was still a rising force in cricket and that which was marred by political instability and issues - as a result the growth he would have envisaged for himself and his team didnt happen. 

One of Zimbabwe's greatest cricketers' - he was the first Zimbo to claim 100 wickets in both test and ODI. He is also the only cricketer to complete the double of 100 wickets and 1000 test runs and the only one from the country to score 2000 runs and claim 200 wickets in ODIs.

Streak made his ODI debut in 1993 Nov and test debut in Dec 1993 .  In 1996 January, he became the fastest Zimbabwean to take 50 scalps in tests. In a test match in 2000 at Lords , he picked up 6/87 against England and became the 1st from his country to take a fifer at Lords - and till date is the only Zimbabwean to be on the Lords' honours board.

Streak was appointed captain for both Test and ODI in 2000.   However he had to contend with a major issue as soon as he became captain. 

 According to an interview given in THE OBSERVER , this is what Streak had said at that time  : " I was fed up telling top players that they didnt deserve to be in the team which was a lie. The real trouble began in March when we were told that the team will play in Bangladesh and it was announced in the Press.The then Director of Integration, Ozias Bvute ,under pressure from one of the provinces ordered the reselection of the team. There were only two players in the side and he wanted 5. I demanded action from ZCU ( Zimbabwe Cricket Union ) . I was fed up telling quality players that they didnt deserve to be in the team when we all knew that was false. Selection policy was inconsistent and discriminatory. Selectors were not even bothered to go to matches,it wasn't just racial , it was beyond that.  Two weeks later I was fired."

After a heroic fight with Cancer for couple of years , Streak finally succumbed to it in Sept 2023 - one of the greats of a developing cricket nation eclipsed way too early.

My no.8 and no.9 are two of the greatest bowlers ever to have graced the game and both unfortunately died very early. Both left an indelible impression on the game and both were  seminal, mercurial craftman of their times . I wont discuss much about them since I am not qualified enough .  Both part of Wisden's all time Test XI - Malcom Denzil Marshall and Shane Keith Warne - cricket is incomplete without them. I will not dwell much about them here since the essence of this discussion is GONE TOO SOON and these two are indeed superstars of the game (irrespective of their premature death) which cannot be said may be about the other 9 in the team except Trumper and Worrell.

Malcolm Denzil Marshall - 81 tests , 1810 runs @18.85 - no hundreds , 376 wickets @20.94 ( second best bowling average of anyone more than 200 test wickets). 136 ODI , 955 runs @14.92 - no hundreds, 157 wickets@26.96.

Colon Cancer took him away only at 41 and he had much to offer .. A Loss still not fathomed across the world even after 26 years .

Shane Keith Warne -  145 tests , 3154 runs @17.32 - no hundreds, 708 wickets@25.41 . 194 ODI, 1018 runs @13.05, 293 wickets@25.73 .

A Sudden death while on vacationing took away the life of the Maestro only at 52 , but his legacy lives on and on. He was a true magician and one of its kind.

As I said in the beginning of this blog , my team suffers from one serious blow - a super allrounder and a champion wicketkeeper. Unfortunately or fortunately as you would put it , neither of the two we have any instances where we find someone passing away so young . Good for cricket !

At no. 10 my choice of wicketkeeper is one gentleman who played for Australia long back. 

Arthur Theodore Wallace Grout or Wally Grout as he was popularly  called was one of the finest keepers in the world in the 50's. He played 51 test matches between 1957 & 1966. 

He died suddenly from a heart attack at the age of 41 , 3 years after ending his career.  Let us now look at ATW Grout as to how he merits a place in this side.

Due to DON TALLON & LEN MADDOCKS , Grout had to wait till 30 years when he made his test debut at the Wanderers against the Proteas. He got off to a bad start giving 8 byes in the first innings but made up for this in the second innings with a  then record 6 catches behind the stumps. Grout played his first home test in Dec 1958. In that Ashes Series he picked up 20 dismissals which was a joint record then for the Ashes series.

Although his career was a start and stop career due to Tallon , Maddocks and Barry Jorman all of whom played in turn to deny him higher returns ( else Grout would have finished playing 80 tests)  , he was a very nimble footed player and earned admiration from Sir Don Bradman and Neil Harvey both of whom liked his keeping prowess.

Wally Grout : 51 tests , 890 runs @ 15.08,  163/24 ( catches/stumpings).

My 11 gets completed with a very skilled and resourceful bowler.  He lived for only 38 years but by then had established himself as one of the premier left hand bowlers of all times. He was Wisden cricketer of the year 1932. Of all bowlers of all times , he had the best record against the DON !!!

You got it right , we are talking of the one and only Hedley Verity.

Verity played 40 tests for England taking 144 wickets @24.37 and scored 669 runs @20.9 ,66* being his highest. His FC record is unbelievable : 378 matches ,1956 wickets @ 14.90. He was also a lower order handy batsman scoring 5603 runs @ 18.07

Verity after an year of impressive FC , made his test debut in 1931 against the touring Kiwis and immediately picked up 4 wickets. In the next test he was not required to bowl as the match was rained off when it came to his bowling.

Next he was selected to play for England in the famous Bodyline series . In the first test he bowled 17 overs and failed to take a wicket. Dropped for the second test , he was brought back for the 3rd. He took one wicket in the 3rd test - that of Sir Don Bradman. In the 4th test he took 2 wickets , and saved his best for the last where he took 8 wickets inclding his first five-for - he dismissed Bradman again.

In this infamous series Verity took 11 wickets @ 24.65 . He then went onto play against West Indies , India , Australia , South Africa and again Australia.

As a bowler Verity bowled faster than a spinner , almost at medium pace.  His greatest strength was bowling straight and with great accuracy. His most effective ball was one that curved in air, pitched on middle and leg and spun away from the batsmen , causing them to nick in the slips.  On rain affected pitches he was unplayable and deadly. He in general, never spun the ball very far and concentrated on bowling a good length and restricting the batsmen. However critics thought he never posed any threat to the batsmen and inffective on good batting pitches. Thats why he was dropped some times from the team.

Verity earned the respect of Bradman many a time, regarded as the greatest batsmen of all times and enjoyed bowling at him. During the 17 tests they faced each other , Verity dismissed Bradman eight times, more than any other bowler. Verity is often cited as one of the best slow left armers to play the game. Bradman spoke highly of him , " Undoubtedly he was one of the greatest slow lefthanded spinners of all time . His record testifies to that. "

Verity had enlisted in the army and served it with great tenacity and pugnaciousness from 1940 till his death in Italy in 1943 . Cricket lost another of its great sons unexpectedly and prematurely.

So my final team stands as follows :

1. Phil Hughes          age 25 at the time of death , reason of death - hit by ball while batting

2. Roy Fredericks     age 57 at the time of death  , reason of death - Cancer 

3. Ken Barrington     age 50 at the time of death , reason of death - Heart Attack

4.  Victor Trumper    age 37 at the time of death , reason of death - Bright's disease

5.  Frank Worrell       age 42 at  the time of death , reason of death  - Cancer 

6.  Martin Crowe       age  53 at the time of death , reason of death - Cancer

7.  Heath Streak         age 49 at the time of death  ,  reason of death  - Cancer 

8.  Malcolm Marshall age 41 at the time of death , reason of death -   Cancer

9.  Shane Warne          age 52 at the time of death , reason of death -  Heart Attack

10.  Wally Grout          age 41 at the time of death , reason of death - Heart Attack

11. Hedley Verity         age 38 at the time of death  , reason of death - Killed in War 

The two subs are : Graham Thorpe ( age 55 at the time of death , Suicide ) and Hansie Cronje ( age 32 at the time of death , killed in a aircrash).

The team comprises of 4 Australians, 3 Englishmen , 3 West Indians , 1 Newzealand , 1 South Africa & 1 Zimbabwe. Frank Worrell leads the team without any doubt with Martin Crowe as the Vice Captain.

I have tried to do justice to the GONE TOO SOON XI with players per position , after a lot of research. The weak area in the team has been absence of a quality wicket keeper and a quality all rounder - I couldn't find any player from the above category who died young and who had made an impact in the test arena !! Do let me know if you know anyone .