 A solid batsman
According to a recent newspaper report, the talented young Hyderabad batsman Ambati Rayudu has been coached by former Hyderabad and South Zone batsman Vijay Paul. While it hardly surprises me that such a quality player has emerged from Paul’s stable, I am struck by how different Rayudu is from the type of batsman his coach was. In his nascent career, Rayudu has frequently electrified cricket followers by the brilliance of his strokeplay, often launching breathtaking assaults on the bowling. He has of late even come in for criticism for his impetuosity and lack of moderation. Vijay Paul, in contrast, was a player known for the orthodoxy of his ways and ability to pace innings. He was, in short, a big innings player in the old-fashioned mould.
T Vijaya Paul, for that was his full name, was the sheet anchor of the Hyderabad batting line-up of the seventies and early eighties. He was a solid middle-order batsman, who, along with the more enterprising M Narasimha Rao, lent great stability to the Hyderabad batting. His batting was founded on rock-solid defence and sound technique. He was no strokeless wonder, though—he could cut and drive with power and precision. Some of his assaults against top class spin bowling of the calibre of Venkataraghavan and Prasanna and medium pace bowling by the likes of Madanlal and Kapil Dev were quite impressive, and on occasion match-winning.
Paul was also a studious, intelligent captain, his tactics based on some serious thinking and theories, though occasionally tending towards too much thinking and theorising, his friends and teammates would tease him. His extreme precision in field-setting was often the butt of jokes and mimicry. His colleagues would elaborately imitate the way he would walk up to the wicket from his wicket keeping position and cupping his eyes, peer at the fielder like a deckhand at sea, and make the minutest adjustments to the field placement.
I had the pleasure of playing for the same team as Paul for a number of years. He was a loyal friend and pleasant company on and off the field. His openly expressed admiration for his teammates often served to encourage them when they were down, even if it was occasionally exaggerated.
I remember two humorous moments from our interactions, one of them at his expense. Finding him anxiously scouring the pages of Economic Times one morning, I was quite impressed, as I hadn’t suspected any interest in economics or commerce in him earlier. He quickly disabused me, however, of any notion that he was a budding financial expert, by asking me in all innocence: “Where on earth is the sports page in this paper?”
The other story involved his boss, the Chief Accountant of the Andhra Bank Central Office, who once asked him querulously what the bank gained from his frequent disappearances from work to play cricket. When Paul told him that every time the Bank won a match its name was splashed across banner headlines, the Chief Accountant was not impressed. “Where does it say ‘Accounts Department?’ he demanded.
V Ramnarayan
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