KR RAJAGOPAL

 

A king among openers

When I recently learnt that octogenarian KR Rajagopal‒on  a visit from Bengaluru to receive handsome cash awards from the TNPL and CSK‒was staying at the Crowne Plaza hotel, barely five minutes from my residence, I was eager to call on him before he left the city. As my driver was on leave, however, and my current level of fitness did not allow me to walk or drive to the hotel, I was unfortunately forced to be satisfied with a phone call. Raja was not to be put off. He dropped in at my flat almost immediately after my phone call, with his 24x7 caregiver Chandru in tow. Chandru, a find of Mr N Sankar, Chairman of the Sanmar Group, and my former boss (as he had been Raja's more than fifty years ago), is a product of Udavum Karangal, the well known NGO for destitute children.  Raja, who lost his wife a couple of years ago, lives alone in the erstwhile garden city, as his daughters are settled abroad; Chandru and he seem to take excellent care of each other.

It was an emotional reunion, especially for me, the recipient of Raja's  spontaneous warmth and kindness, and we inevitably relived our cricketing past in the conversation that ensued. I only played against Raja and marvelled at his batting genius from 22 yards a couple of times, but I watched his brilliant batsmanship and wicket keeping quite frequently from the safety of the gallery when he set the Marina on fire with his pyrotechnics. Raja was all praise for some of his seniors in domestic cricket. CD Gopinath came in for special mention. To Raja, it seemed, no batsman of the era was more complete than Gopi, who is now 91 and lives in Coonoor. He remembered two innings in particular˗both for Madras vs. Mysore˗the first a mammoth 234, and the second a hundred made in partnership with fellow centurymaker MK Balakrishnan rescuing Madras from a perilous five down for a paltry score. The first was at Central College, Bangalore, where Gopi cut and drove the likes of Deepak Dasgupta and LT Subbu with panache, and the second at Coimbatore.  Balakrishnan, AG Kripal Singh and his lefthanded brother Milkha Singh were some of the  other batsmen he admired. "Milkha was all class," Raja reminisced. "So was the wrist spinner VV Kumar, a wizard with his leg breaks, googlies and top spinners, all delivered with utmost guile, accuracy and economy, a rare combination." Like others of his era, Raja rates Kumar higher than most contemporary tweakers.

Here is what I wrote on Rajagopal some years ago, and I see no reason to take any of it back today:

 

K R Rajagopal came like a breath of fresh air to Madras cricket from Bangalore, when he joined the star-studded Jolly Rovers team of the 1960s. He quickly established himself as one of the most entertaining batsmen in the state, an opener crowds went miles to watch.

 “Rajagopal was one of the most aggressive opening batsmen around. He played his shots from the word go, shots based on a straight bat, free downswing and follow-through. With his keen eye, swift footwork, perfect balance and steely wrists, all buttressed by a sound technique, he looked for scoring opportunities all the time, and for a few years culminating in the 1967-68 season, he electrified both local and national matches played at Madras.

 In an era of swing bowling, Raja had an equally delightful answer to the outswinger and the inswinger. He cover drove imperiously, but he also played a gorgeous ondrive. He was equally fond of hooking and cutting.

 Raja struck a fine partnership with his teammate and captain Belliappa. Both were openers and wicket keepers, and as state captain, Belliappa was the first choice behind the stumps, though Raja was brilliant in that department. When Raja was a strong contender for a place in the Indian team touring Australia in 1967-1968 after a magnificent domestic season as a batsman, another wicket keeper Indrajitsinhji was preferred to him on the pretext that Raja did not keep for his own state.

 Raja is a simple man. For most of his playing days in Madras (he earlier played for Mysore), he worked at Sankarnagar, Tirunelveli, and took the night train to Madras to play league matches on the morrow for Jolly Rovers, the highly successful team sponsored by his employers. He brought as luggage a ridiculously small bag and went straight to the house of another "Raja", P N Sundaresan, The Hindu's cricket correspondent and the father of his teammate P S Narayanan. On the morning of the match, Raja would jump on to the pillion of Narayanan's Lambretta, tousled hair, stubble on his chin, crumpled shirt and trousers and all, with his cricket shoes wrapped in an old copy of The Hindu.

 (My brother Sivaramakrishnan, the left hander, recalls a ludicrous incident when Raja, playing for the opponents, had to borrow Siva’s trousers after realizing after the toss he had forgotten to pack his flannels. My brother is some six inches taller, so Raja had to use many pins and clips and string as well as sheer willpower to keep his pants on while making a bright half century, adjusting his wardrobe every ball).

 Such was Raja's pre-match preparation, but once he put on his pads and settled down to face the first ball of the innings, the change in him was electric. Slight of build and short in stature, he was a picture of poise as the bowler started his run towards him. Little notice did he give of the daring strokes he would soon play all round the wicket.  Few batsmen in the history of Tamil Nadu cricket have given as much pleasure to so many.”