Six days after Charlie Griffith's bouncer fractured Nari Contractor's skull, India promoted the 21-year-old vice-captain Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi to lead the side in the third Test at Bridgetown on 23 March 1962. At 21 years and 77 days he became the youngest Test captain in history — a record he held for 42 years. Pataudi had lost the use of his right eye in a car crash in Hove eight months earlier.
He had played seven Tests by March 1962 and was vice-captain to Contractor on the West Indies tour. Nobody, including Pataudi, expected the Bridgetown promotion to come so soon.
The Hove accident, in July 1961, had been a near career-ender. Pataudi was a passenger in a car driven by his Sussex teammate Robin Waters when it collided with a vehicle outside the Old Ship Hotel. A shard of windscreen glass penetrated his right eye, leaving him with permanent double vision in that eye. He was 20. Surgeons told him he would never play first-class cricket again.
He was back in the nets at Lord's within weeks, learning to play with one eye effectively closed at the moment of release. He made his Test debut against Ted Dexter's England at Delhi in December 1961, less than six months after the accident. He scored 13 and 28. Three Tests later, in his fourth Test, he made 103 against the same attack at Madras.
Then came the West Indies tour. Contractor was struck down on 17 March 1962. The Indian board cabled Bombay; Pataudi was the obvious choice as vice-captain. The third Test began at Bridgetown on 23 March. Pataudi's first match in charge ended in defeat by an innings and 30 runs. India lost the next two as well. The series finished 5-0 to West Indies.
The captaincy itself, though, transformed Indian cricket. Pataudi held the job until 1970 with one short break, captained in 40 Tests, won nine, drew nineteen, and oversaw the emergence of the spin quartet of Bedi, Chandrasekhar, Prasanna and Venkataraghavan. Most significantly, in February 1968 he led India to its first overseas Test series win — 3-1 in New Zealand. The youngest Test captain in history would also become the first to win abroad.
1 Jul 1961: Car accident at Hove; Pataudi loses sight in right eye.
Dec 1961: Test debut against England at Delhi.
Jan 1962: Maiden Test century, 103 v England at Madras.
17 Mar 1962: Contractor struck down at Kensington Oval.
23 Mar 1962: Pataudi captains India aged 21 years 77 days.
Feb 1968: Leads India to first overseas series win, 3-1 in New Zealand.
May 2004: Pataudi's youngest-captain record finally broken by Tatenda Taibu of Zimbabwe.
1 Jul 1961
Hove accident; Pataudi loses sight in right eye.
Dec 1961
Test debut v England at Delhi.
17 Mar 1962
Contractor injured at Bridgetown.
23 Mar 1962
Pataudi captains India aged 21 years 77 days.
Feb 1968
First overseas Test series win, in New Zealand.
1975
Final Test as captain.
May 2004
Record broken by Tatenda Taibu.
“I had to learn to bat with one eye. The captaincy was not the hardest part of my year.”
India lost all three Tests Pataudi captained on the 1962 tour by an innings. He came home, kept the job, learned. By 1964 he was an established captain; by 1968 a successful one. He retained the captaincy with one short interruption (Wadekar replaced him in 1970-71) until 1975.
Pataudi's accidental elevation in March 1962 was one of the most consequential captaincy decisions any Indian board has made. He gave the side an aristocratic self-confidence it had not previously had and laid the foundations for the 1971 series wins under Wadekar.
Pataudi's record as the youngest Test captain stood for 42 years until Tatenda Taibu broke it in 2004. The other Pataudi legacy — the assertion that an Indian captain need not defer to anyone — outlasted the record. Sourav Ganguly, M.S. Dhoni and Virat Kohli have all named him as a forerunner.
Yorkshire v Essex
1932-06-16
On 15-16 June 1932 Herbert Sutcliffe (313) and Percy Holmes (224*) put on 555 for the first wicket against Essex at Leyton, breaking the world first-class record for any wicket and adding a layer of folklore — including a scoreboard that read 554 for several minutes and a hastily reversed declaration — that has clung to the partnership ever since.
Australia v England
1933-02-14
With the fate of the Bodyline series in the balance and England 216 for 6 chasing 340, Eddie Paynter checked himself out of a Brisbane hospital where he was being treated for acute tonsillitis, taxied to the Gabba in pyjamas and a dressing gown, and batted for nearly four hours to score 83. England drew level on first innings, won the Test by six wickets and the series 4-1.
Australia
1934-09-25
Days after the 1934 Oval Test, Bradman fell seriously ill with appendicitis that progressed to peritonitis. With antibiotics not yet available, he was given little chance of survival; his wife Jessie left Adelaide on a sea voyage to England prepared for the worst. He recovered after weeks of intensive nursing in a London nursing home and returned to first-class cricket the following Australian summer.