Shatrusalyasinhji
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | H H Maharaja Jam Saheb Sri Sataji III (Shatrusalyasinhji) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born |
20 March 1939 Jamnagar, Gujarat, India | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Batting style | Right-hand | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowling style | Right-arm off-spin | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Domestic team information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1958-59 to 1966-67 | Saurashtra | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1966-67 | Indian Starlets | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Career statistics | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Source: Cricket Archive, 27 March 2014 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Y.S. Shatrusalyasinhji (born 20 March 1939, Jamnagar, Gujarat) is a former first-class cricketer and the last person to hold the title of Maharaja of Nawanagar.
Family and education
His father, H H Jam Saheb Sri Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinhji, played one first-class match, captaining Western India against MCC in 1933-34, just after succeeding Ranjitsinhji to the title of Maharaja of Nawanagar.[1] Shatrusalyasinhji is also the nephew of Duleepsinhji.
Shatrusalyasinhji was educated at Malvern College in England, where he played for the First XI in 1957 and 1958. In 1957 he took 42 wickets at 15.11 and made 166 runs at 23.71, and in its schools report for the season Wisden (referring to him as "M.K.S. Shatrushalyasinhji") noted his "ability to bowl off-breaks at an unusually speedy pace".[2] In 1958 he was "not as effective as in the previous year", taking 22 wickets at 18.22.[3]
Cricket career
He made his first-class debut in the 1958-59 season, playing for Saurashtra against Bombay, scoring 15 not out and a duck and taking the wicket of Arvind Apte.[4] In 1959 he and his father visited England[5] and he played three matches for Sussex Second XI as an amateur, without much success.[6]
He played three matches for Saurashtra in 1959-60, four in 1961-62, and four in 1962-63, with a highest score of 65,[7] the top score of the match, in a victory over Baroda in 1961-62.[8] His highest career score came against Maharashtra in 1963-64, when batting at number three he scored 164 not out in seven and a half hours[9] out of a total of 382.[10]
In 1964 he brought his old Sussex team-mates Les Lenham and Tony Buss to India, Lenham to coach him, Buss to bowl to him. Lenham said Shatrusalyasinhji "wanted to be a Ranji and a Duleep, all rolled into one, but he played too exotically".[11] His batting yielded only 113 runs in four matches in 1964-65,[12] but he did take his best bowling figures, 4 for 101 against Baroda, in a Saurashtra team that also included two other members of the Jamnagar royal family, Kumar Indrajitsinhji and Chatrapalsinhji.[13]
In 1966-67, his final season of first-class cricket, he captained Saurashtra in the Ranji Trophy, and Indian Starlets to the final of the Moin-ud-Dowlah Gold Cup Tournament,[14] and was also selected for West Zone to play the touring West Indians.[15]
After cricket
He was head of the Saurashtra Cricket Association for some years until he was replaced in 1972 by Niranjan Shah, who has remained in charge since, and whose son Jaydev Shah has had a long career in the Saurashtra team.[16]
At one stage he kept around 8000 pets in his palaces. He has a 45-acre walled wildlife reserve opposite his house in Jamnagar.[17]
Personal life
He married a member of the Nepalese royal family,[18] and succeeded to the title of Maharaja Jam Saheb of Nawanagar in February 1966 on the death of his father. When the Twenty-sixth Amendment to the Constitution of India was passed in 1971, abolishing princely privy purses and entitlements, he became H H Jam Saheb Sri Shatrusalyasinhji.
References
- ↑ Western India v MCC 1933-34
- ↑ Wisden 1958, pp. 781-82.
- ↑ Wisden 1959, p. 751.
- ↑ Saurashtra v Bombay 1958-59
- ↑ James Astill, The Great Tamasha, Wisden Sports Writing, London, 2013, p. 31.
- ↑ Wisden 1960, p. 734.
- ↑ Shatrusalyasinhji batting by season
- ↑ Saurashtra v Baroda 1961-62
- ↑ Astill, p. 31.
- ↑ Maharashtra v Saurashtra 1963-64
- ↑ Stephen Chalke, The Way It Was, Fairfield, Bath, 2011, p. 217.
- ↑ Shatrusalyasinhji batting by season
- ↑ Baroda v Saurashtra 1964-65
- ↑ Indian Starlets v State Bank of India 1966-67
- ↑ West Zone v West Indians 1966-67
- ↑ Astill, pp. 93-94.
- ↑ Astill, p. 29.
- ↑ Nawanagar (princely state) Retrieved 25 March 2014.