From Amar Singh to K S Bharat – 3: A pace bowler with a 'suspect' action!

History has a very real, even harsh way of showcasing people, their lives and times, their highs and lows. The 50th player selected to play for theIndian test team, NirodeRanjan "Putu" Chowdhury (1923-79) was one such sportsperson.Drafted into the team after an impressive career as a medium pacer in the Ranji Trophy tournament, the 26-year old who had taken 200 wickets in 58 first class matches must have raised a lot of expectations in the minds of the selectors, when they picked him up for the big league in 1949.

Yet, nothing substantial was seen from Chowdhury's tenure on the playgrounds. He ultimately ended up as a bowler with the worst bowling average of 205 and occasionally under the scanner for suspect action as he went about trying to speed up his bowling delivery. In an active test career which lasted close to three years from January 1949 to November 1951, he played just two tests with the later tour of England in 1952 seeing him warm the benches.

His debut was in the fourth test of the 5- test series of West Indies at Madras which they won by an innings and 193 runs. Rather notably, that was the only test the visitors won as the other four played at Bombay (two tests), Delhi and Calcutta ended in draws. It was India's 19th test in 17 years, and there was no win for them in any one of them, with 11 losses and 8 draws.It's a different story that the nation had to wait for a few months after Chowdhury exited the Test arenato register their first impressive Test win ( by an innings and 8 runs) against their old masters England in February 1952 at Madras, incidentally in the 25th match they played. 15 of these matches were against the British team.

One highlight of Chowdhury's career was how he ran out the legendary batsman Everton Weekes, part of the dreaded, yet admired 3Ws of West Indian cricket ( the other two Ws for information are Worrell and Walcott). This was when the ace batter was at 90 in the first innings of the Madras test,threatening to continue with his terrific form of scoring his sixth century on the trot. A sharp fielding move by Chowdhury saw him stranded when the wicket keeper ran him out. In the later phase of his life, Chowdhury was a coach at Durgapur Steel Plant where he died in December 1979 at the age of 56.

(Next: Baloo Gupte, 100th test player for India)