Indian batting was rather inactive until Budhi Kunderan arrived on the scene.
Budhi Kunderan, who took over the keeper job, is full of gestures. There was a streak of the West Indian cricketer in him, whether he batted, fielded, or kept wicket. With his flamboyant manner, he was cast in a mold entirely different from that of his predecessors: the distinction stood out as he succeeded the unostentatious, self-effacing Naren Tamhane.
Budhi Kunderan was born in Mangalore on October 2, 1939. He played his early cricket in Bombay. He was coached by Homi Vajifdar. Budhi Kunderan was a batsman foremost and only a wicketkeeper next, and he deserved his place in any team for his skill with the willow. Right from his schooldays, he played for Bombay and West Zone in the Cooch Behar Trophy championship and the Inter-University championship. This facet of Budhi Kunderan emerged distinctly in both competitions, he scored freely and notched up centuries.
These achievements, and the style of Budhi Kunderan batting and wicketkeeping. particularly the former attracted Lala Amarnath, then chairman of the Indian Selection Committee, and he played the 20-year-old youngster straightaway in a Test against the Australians in the 1959-60 home series, even before he had played in the Ranji Trophy. After a quiet debut in the third Test at Bombay,. Kunderan shot into fame in the next match at Madras when he opened the innings in place of Nari Contractor, who fell ill, and played an aggressive knock of 71 He revealed that the Mushtaq Ali touch his batting was very exciting.
Indian batting till Budhi Kunderan burst upon the scene was rather inactive, but he put to the sword the Australian bowling of Ian Meckiff and Alan Davidson, and as the ball repeatedly flew to the boundary,. The crowd roared in rediscovered delight. In the second inning, he made another 33 runs more than the runs. Therefore, it was the young man’s daring that aroused Indian batsmanship from its indolence the crowd lovingly put him on the pedestal In the only innings that the Australians played, he helped the dismissal of two batsmen from behind the stumps.
Courage was the foundation of Kunderan’s batting as well as his wicketkeeping. Nimble feet (he was also a good boxer) and quick eyesight were his strong attributes, which came out as he pounced on the ball on eager, questing feet in front of or behind the stumps. His sharp reflexes made up for any technical defect that his game suffered from.
The 1959–60 season in which he won the Test cap proved to be a very bright period in Kunderan’s career. A month after his Test debut, he made his first appearance for Railways in the Ranji Trophy championship against East Punjab, and in the final match of the North Zone against Jammu and Kashmir, he scored 205, including 4 sixes and 28 fours, and was concerned in a big 283 run stand for the second wicket with Vijay Mehra. Besides he took credit for 20 dismissals.
However, the cautious Indian selectors seemed more alive to his defects than to his gifts and dropped him for the first three Tests against Pakistan. Though, in the following season in preference to older orthodox stumpers. But after his fine performance on the Board President’s team against the tourists, when he caught five batsmen he was recalled and played in the next two matches at Madras and Delhi. He took credit for four dismissals. A point worthy of notice is that in all these Tests, except in the one in which he opened the innings following Contractor’s illness. Budhi Kunderan played mainly as a keeper while in batting he was one of the tail-enders.
Even for this position, challenges in Farokh Engineer of Bombay came up when the Englishmen were in the country in 1961–62. However, Budhi Kunderan played in the opening test at Bombay when the Farokh Engineer had to stand down due to an eye injury. He assisted in five dismissals (3c), and in the only innings he batted at number seven, he scored five runs. The only other match that Kunderan played against the touring team was for the board or president team. Budhi Kunderan was a member of the Indian team to the West Indies in 1962, along with Farokh Engineer with whom he shared the keeper’s job. Engineer kept wicket in the first three Tests and Budhi Kunderan in the last two and came up with five dismissals. In batting, he continued to be a tail-ender. His wicketkeeping was yet to reach Test class, according to one expert view.
The 1963-64 home series against England, captained by Mike Smith, proved an important landmark in Budhi Kunderan’s career, as it brought out fully his excellence as a batsman. Once again, it was an injury to Farokh Engineer that provided him a berth in the team on the morning of the opening test at Madras. He played a rousing innings of 192 runs; he would have gotten his second hundred, but, with Manjrekar managing most of the strike,. Budhi Kunderan got bogged down and lost his wicket.
John Woodcock’s comment in the London Times on this innings brought forth vividly Budhi Kunderan’s merits. He plays the ball uncommonly late, which is a sign of his class, and he times it beautifully. There is more to Kunderan than a passing look of Rohan Kanhai in. appearance as well as style. He has the same ability to make everyone sit up. with strokes of positive effrontery. It was in Larter’s second over, with a square drive off the backfoot as late as it was liquid, that he first showed us what was in him. As a natural player of the exotic stroke, with the front foot often, far from the pitch of the ball, the uninhibited Indian is the equal of any. By evening, Kunderan was playing like a man: His judgment never failed him, and judgment allied to youthful brilliance is an exciting combination.”
Budhi Kunderan also took credit for six dismissals; four of these out of five wickets that fell were in the second innings. After this resounding performance, he proved an automatic choice, for the rest of the series, not only keeping wicket but also opening the innings. He scored another century in the fourth Test at Delhi but was different from the Madras knock, “more controlled and more responsible while throughout the series he remained a most colorful batsman.” His aggregate was 525 runs, a record for an Indian wicketkeeper.
There were no two opinions about the caliber of Budhi Kunderan’s batsmanship, but doubts lingered about his wicket-keeping. S.K. Gurunathan, who 22 knew how to handle the gloves remarked Kunderan, no doubt, set up a record by claiming six wickets’ victims in the first Test, but his general work behind the wicket fell well below Test standard.” His record for the series- was seven victims (4c).
It was, perhaps, this dissatisfaction with his keeping that led the selectors to drop him in favor of K.S. Indrajitsinh of Saurashtra when the Australians broke their journey home from England to play a three-test series against India in the early 1964–65 season. But the surprise was that he was not chosen on his undoubted merits as a batsman. As it had happened to many a brilliant batsman, he was passed over in favor of safer wielders of the willow. Only when Dilip Sardesai had to stand down due to injury was Kunderan called in for the second Test at Calcutta against New Zealand, who visited the country at the end of the season. He scored 36 and 12 not out. But it was the Farokh Engineer who kept the wicket. As Budhi Kunderan was an excellent fielder, unlike many other keepers, the selectors had no problem choosing him in his batting events. However, Kunderan played in both capacities for the first two Tests of the three-match home series against the West Indies in 1966–67.
In the Indian second innings, when: runs were vitally needed, Kunderan with Venkatraghavan as his support played a brilliant innings that stood in comparison with any that the West Indians produced in the series: As Wisden commented: Kunderan meted out heavy punishment to every bowler he encountered and scored 79, in only 92 minutes with 15 fours. “An unforgettable inning indeed, in my experience.
In the next Test at Calcutta, which was intercepted by a riot, Budhi Kunderan scored a flashy 39 when play was resumed, and M.L Jaisimha provided a good start to the Indian first innings. But there was then a collapse. Behind the wicket, he took one catch, to dismiss Clive Lloyd and provide Bishan Singh Bedi with his second Test wicket. Kunderan was dropped for the final Test in favor of Farokh Engineer, a move that provoked strong criticism as Kunderan had scored a brilliant century playing for South Zone against the touring earlier in the week.
Established as one of the top batsmen in the country, Kunderan went with Engineer as a member of the Indian team to England in 1967. He played in the second and third Tests along with Engineer, in the second of which the two formed the opening pair. An unusual experience that Kunderan had in the later match was to open the bowling for India in England’s first innings. Wicketkeeper, opening batsman, and opening bowler—a unique experience indeed for Kunderan.
That was the last Test that Kunderan played. He was only 28 then and continued to entertain fans in the Ranji Trophy championship played for Railways and Mysore and other matches like the Irani and Duleep Trophy for some more time. He scored 2,260 runs in the Ranji Trophy championship, with his brilliant 205 against Jammu and Kashmir in his first season being the best. His wicketkeeping record was 102 victims (57c). When he was in Madras in 1964 for the opening Test of the series against England, he told me during a chat at his hotel that his name should be spelled as Kunderan and not as Kunderam, which correction was publicized through the Hindu Whether one attributed it or not to this minor correction, Budhi Kunderan blazed away next morning to register his highest score of 192 runs in Test cricket.
