C.D. Gopinath, India’s oldest Test cricketer, recently celebrated his 95th birthday. He made his Test debut in 1951 against England and scored a creditable 50 not out and 42 in his first Test match. The unbeaten half century was a classy knock full of flowing strokes while the second was a fighting effort, scored when Indian wickets were falling rapidly.
He was a member of the Indian team that recorded its historic first-ever victory in Test cricket, defeating England by an innings and 8 runs in 1952. He played for India until 1960. His last match was against Australia that year.
Gopinath played against and alongside some of the greatest cricket legends in the 1950s. These included Englishmen like Brian Statham and Tom Graveney and Australians such as Richie Benaud, Neil Harvey, Ray Lindwall, Alan Davidson, and others. Gopinath’s teammates included the most illustrious names in the history of Indian cricket, such as Vinoo Mankad, Nari Contractor, M.L. Jaisimha, Bapu Nadkarni, and many more.
Has watched cricket evolve
In the course of his lifetime, he has seen cricket evolve and transform itself. He has many interesting stories to tell.
On one occasion he told ESPN: “Today when a fellow takes a catch, the whole team runs there – carries him, kisses him, hugs him – not only in cricket, in every other game. Those days, it was not good manners to express your inner feelings without restraint. If you hold a brilliant catch, someone may say: ‘Well taken.’ That’s it. You didn’t go running around the ground or carrying people. It was considered vulgar to show your feelings to the outside world.”
Ramadhin could not fool him
In 1950 during a series of matches against the visiting Commonwealth team, he was the only batsman who could not be fooled by Sonny Ramadhin, the mystery spinner from the West Indies. That year the West Indies toured England and secured its first ever victory on English soil. The English batsmen failed to counter the guile of Ramadhin and Alf Valentine.
However, back in those days not many Test matches were played every year and Gopinath was not selected for every match. In all, he played only 8 Test matches. But in the Ranji Trophy, Gopinath was a heavy scorer, finishing with 2349 runs (average of 51.06) with a highest score of 234 against Mysore. One of his finest innings was 175 for South Zone against the visiting New Zealanders in 1955-56. He captained Madras for several years.
In the 1970s he was appointed chairman of the national selection committee and in 1979 he was the manager of the Indian team which toured England.
Faced challenge as a selector
In 1971 he faced a major challenge in his role as selector. The Indian team to tour the West Indies was being selected and the Chairman of the Selection committee, Vijay Merchant, wanted to replace captain MAK Pataudi with Ajit Wadekar.
But Gopinath, along with another selector M.M. Jagdale, were in favour of retaining Pataudi. A long and heated debate ensued. Although Gopinath was far junior to Merchant, he stood up for what he felt was right. Ultimately the votes were split evenly at 2-2. The deadlock was broken when Merchant himself cast his vote in favour of Wadekar and that was why the Mumbai player led the team to the West Indies.
Book about his life and career
Former Hyderabad cricketer Ramnarayan Venkatraman has co-authored a book with Gopinath titled: Beyond Cricket, A Life In Many Worlds. Ramnarayan has written that Gopinath was considered the aristocrat of the Madras team. His father was C.P. Doraikannu, Chief Accounting Officer of the Imperial Bank of India (now known as the State Bank of India).
Later Gopinath became the chairman of Gordon Woodroffe & Co and was the first Indian citizen to hold that post. Thereafter he was also appointed India’s honorary consul for Norway.
He now lives in Coonoor, Tamil Nadu with his wife Comala who used to be a champion tennis player. When they were young, Gopinath and Comala used to frequently take part in tennis championships as a mixed doubles pair. Even now Gopinath is mentally and physically fit and can recall many of the incidents that occurred during his playing days.
Here’s wishing him a century in life too.
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