Satvinder Singh@75

In 1987, AG Ram Singh, aged 77, walking with a stick, surprisingly picked up the red cherry one evening at the cricket nets on Habibullah Road, T. Nagar (he did not do that too often unless he really wanted to showcase to a youngster the art of spin bowling) and gave a glimpse to this writer of what the batters of the 1930s would have experienced. The ball went in with the arc towards the leg stump, dipped all of a sudden, spun across the face of the bat and knocked the top of the off stump. Just under 30 years earlier, his youngest son then all of 12years had pulled his leg in the nets at Salem as to what an almost 50 year old could do at the cricket nets. The next day Ram Singh's first ball to his son was almost similar to the one stated above and went straight into silly point. That was AG Satvinder Singh’s tough initiation into cricket and a life message had been instilled into him - NEVER to under estimate anyone in Life.

His father wanted him to become a left arm spinner but the young boy decided otherwise and played a dozen years of Ranji Trophy cricket for Madras / TN performing creditably in the middle order especially in the late 60s and early 70s before making a mark for himself in the corporate world rising to the post of Executive Director at Lucas TVS. Had it not been for a freak road accident, in a two wheeler, he may have gone on to higher levels in cricket. He was a happy go lucky personality and has enjoyed life to the full. Here’s the story of Chinda (or Sattu to those in the corporate world), who turns 75 on Monday (May 3).

Satvinder's grand father had moved to Madras from Amritsar. His legendary father AG Ram Singh ran a sports goods shop on Wallajah Road. The family was steeped into cricket. His father was an exceptional left arm spinner who spun many a team out in domestic cricket all on his own. Satvinder is proud to be part of a family where 10 cricketers played state cricket and recalls his father sharing with him the tale of a Ranji match against Mysore “In that famous Ranji match in 1934, the match ended on day one with Mysore playing not more than 30overs in both the innings. My father picked 11 wickets. When the upbeat Bangaloreans wanted an update on their team and reached the City station to pick the newspaper the next morning, they were greeted with the sad grim looking faces of Mysore Players who had returned squarely beaten by this young spinner.” 

Seated on the first floor of his plush independent house in Valsarvakkam, built on plots of land that he and his brother Milkha had purchased in the early 1980s, Satvinder rewinds to the early message from his father in his childhood years “My father was an introvert and a strict disciplinarian and rarely smiled. When he entered the house, there was a hush all around such was the respect we had for him. He wanted his sons to work hard. He himself would swim 250 meters every morning in the Marina. He would often say 'go and perform for the team – with the bat or ball'.”

(All the streets in this area are named after Saivite Saint Poets – Appar Street (Appar), Sundarar Street (Sundarar), Sambandar Street (Achalpuram Gnana Sambandar)!!!)

When Satvinder, the youngest of his sons, made his way into cricket, his father was keen to make him a left arm spinner. None of the other sons had listened to him and were all strong batsmen and Chinda remained the last of his bowling hopes. At a young age, he began teaching him the nuances of ‘left arm’ spin at the Government Estate nets near Chepauk where they lived as a joint family. Satvinder remembers the early days as a left arm spinner “My father would place a coin on good length and ask me to land on that. And he would count the number of times I landed on the right spot. To him, it was all about hard work and I had to keep bowling as many balls on that coin to get my line and length right.”

The bowling initiation of his father seemed to be having an impact in the early phase. As a young school boy, on a tour to Ceylon, he took three wickets in the first innings with left arm spin and then asked his captain to hand him the new ball in the second innings "With a beautiful breeze that day blowing across from the sea, I took seven wickets for a match haul of 10wickets."

His liking for the Lankans began right then and throughout his career, he registered a great deal of success against the cricketers from the island country for whom he always had a soft corner.

On the back of the early bowling success, Ram Singh tried his best to convert Chinda into a full fledged left arm spinner but much like National Swimming Champion Mayura Kumar (N Kumar's daughter) - Mayura Swimming Champ - who protested against being pushed into her appa's area of sporting interests, Satvinder too picked a bat and began belting the bowlers at a young age. Aged 11, he was roped into the St Bedes school team for the final of the schools tournament. Satvinder remembers his attire for that match “I had not yet sported the turban. My mother tied my hair and sent me to the ground almost with a lady’s kind of plait. It was after that match that I began to sport a turban.”

In 1958, father Ram Singh went on a summer coaching assignment to Salem along with his colleague Naani. He also took the young boy Chinda along. Even in those early years, he had taken a liking to play spin. In youthful enthusiasm, he made the remark (at his father) on what a 50 year old could do with the ball and that he could step out to hit him “The next day he asked me to pad up and brought Naani into Silly Point. The ball dipped on me all of a sudden and spun square to catch the edge and I was snapped by Naani.”

But this aggression against spinners was there to stay and continued throughout his career, an aspect that Ranji cricketer from the 1970s and former MD of The Hindu K Balaji (The Hindu K Balaji ) recalls “Satvindar’s batting style was elegant and side-on with an obvious preference for driving through the off-side. He excelled in using his feet to play spin bowling and adopted a positive approach, always looking for scoring opportunities. I remember his century for Alwarpet against Jolly Rovers on the Loyola College ground, an innings in which he rendered Salim Durrani completely ineffective.”

In his first year in league cricket, for Jai Hind, he played alongside swing bowler Engineer S Ram (TVS S Ram). While Ram had decided to quit cricket to pursue higher education in the UK, his in-swing remained lethal. Satvinder remembers taking a blinder at slip after a typical big in-swinger from Ram at the match in University Union caught the batsman napping. 

It was in that phase, that he (and The Hindu's N Ram) experienced the coaching of CK Nayudu "It was a once in a lifetime experience to be coached by Nayudu at the MCC School ground. He was a very practical man and taught me the way cricket was to be played."

His elder brother Kripal Singh was already playing for Alwarpet. Cricket enthusiast and Lucas TVS’ MD R Ratnam who promoted Alwarpet spotted the talent in Satvinder and asked him to join the first division team. He recalls an innings in that early phase against his to be roommate and spin legend that he cherishes to this day “We were playing against a strong SBI bowling attack at Marina. They had two really good spinners in Chandru (R Chandrasekaran) and the legendary VV Kumar.  There was a huge crowd at Marina and it was my first big match under real pressure – top spinners and a noisy crowd. I scored a half century and that gave me great confidence. In later years, VV was to be my roommate on tours and I had a great time standing at slip to his bowling.”

He joined the Guindy Engineering College and played under S Venkataraghavan. Madras University comprising of players such as KS Vaidhyanathan, BR Sekar and Ballal, among others, reached the finals twice during his time at the college. 

Strong performances in two big matches led him to his Ranji debut. In a high profile junior state match, he scored a century against BS Chandrasekar (Mysore) in Bangalore. And in a crucial City v Districts match, Kripal once again sent him at No.3 and he answered the call of his captain with a knock of 70. These two knocks earned him a place in the Madras Ranji squad and he made his debut, aged 17, alongside his elder brothers Milkha and Kripal Singh in 1963.

While he had a rather quiet first year, Satvinder had a fairy tale opening to the 1964-65 season, a once in a life time performance that he dedicates to his father Ram Singh. The early initiation into left arm spin by his legendary father paid dividends though it turned out to be a one off performance with the ball. Madras went to Hyderabad for the opening match of the Ranji season and found itself on the receiving end of some belligerent batting “Abbas Ali Baig and ML Jaisimha put us to the sword with beautiful centuries. They were 200+ for 2 and then Kripal handed me the ball. Much to everyone’s surprise, I took 5 wickets under the watchful eyes of my father and spin coach Ram Singh who came all the way to watch the match. It was the one time that I could see delight in my father’s eyes. Somehow, my father always liked it when I took wickets than when I scored runs. He wanted to see the ‘spinner’ in me. Unfortunately I did not meet his expectations on that front for my interest was in batting but this was a one off occasion when I pleased him with my performance with the ball.”

While the first year in Ranji was nothing home to write about, he failed miserably with the bat at the start of the next season against the two strongest sides in the Zone – Hyderabad and Mysore. Hence, though he had picked up five wickets against Hyderabad, he was not in great mood when he was chosen to play for the All India Universities team against the touring team from Ceylon in December 1964. He looks back at this match as a turning point for him in that phase and the half century against a strong bowling attack as his best innings in those teenage years “Ours was a strong team with Bedi as the 12th man!!! We were six down and in trouble when I went in. I put together a century partnership with Ambar Roy. The half century I struck gave me a lot of confidence. It was easily one of my best innings of the time and helped me get my confidence back after the poor batting start to the Ranji season.”

Balaji, who made his TN debut in the Gopalan Trophy match in 1974, vividly remembers his knock including the stumping, a mode of dismissal that was to become a regular feature in Satvinder's career “I watched a great deal of his batting from the time I was a schoolboy in league matches for Alwarpet CC and in the Ranji Trophy games. Among my earliest memories are his half-century against a Ceylon XI playing for the Indian Universities at Chepauk in 1964 before he was stumped brilliantly on the leg side by Dr H. I. K. Fernando.”

Later on in life, the habit of lifting the back leg (especially after his serious knee injury) continued and Satvinder was to be stumped on many occasions including once famously by KR Rajagopal keeping up to the stumps to George Thomas

He took a liking for Ceylon’s bowlers in later years and played many a big knock against them right till the end of his career. He considers the innings on a green top in Colombo as one of his favourites. While he scored 89 (once again stumped!!!) against them at Chepauk a year after his All India Universities performance, his 89 in Colombo remains etched in his memory “The Lankans played hard but were jolly good fellows. They were very likeable and a trip to that country was always enjoyable. My knock of 89 there in 1970 remains one of my favourite innings.”

After not such a good start to his Ranji career, Cricket turned around for Satvinder in the second half of the 1960s coinciding with the arrival of KR Rajagopal and Najam Hussain from Mysore. In the summer of 1967, he had a freak accident while riding a two wheeler as he skidded off the Wallajah Road near the Police Station. Medical treatment was not great in those days and recovery usually took a long time. The ever positive man that he was, Satvinder gathered himself and carried on in his typically cheerful style as if nothing had happened. It was in the coming years that the real impact of that accident began to tell on him.

As seen in the story last month on KR Rajagopal, Satvinder was to play a match winning knock against two legends in Bangalore, his first real big knock for Madras in Ranji Trophy. It was October of 1967 and the return of Rajagopal to Bangalore after his move to Madras the previous year and he was booed by the strong crowd even as he walked on to the ground. 

The now 80 year old Najam Hussain (Najam), who made a crucial contribution to TN’s comeback win in that match, recalls the events “For the first time in my life, I cried in that match. Raja got out for Zero. And then Prasanna got me plumb LBW for a nought. There were rumours floating around that the two old Mysore fellows were giving it away for their old mates. I was in serious tears and furious at the same time at these abusive comments. We were all determined to show as to how much we valued Madras. Raja came out firing on all cylinders and then Satvinder joined me for the match winning partnership. He played Chandra and Pras beautifully and he was all class that day.  After the winning shot, everyone came out running on to the field to hug us. While most called him as Chinda, I always addressed him as Partner for we shared a number of good partnerships and extricated the team from out of the woods on many occasions.”

In the next match, he scored his first Ranji century against Andhra.  A couple of months later, he was involved in that famous match winning partnership with Rajagopal against MP in the Ranji Quarters. With Madras in trouble in the second innings, Satvinder put on a big century stand to help the team recover and reach the Semi Final. Later in the year, he scored his second century in his Ranji career in a big partnership with Raja. And then he top scored for Madras in both innings in a really tough match against Hyderabad which Madras lost. At the start of the next Ranji season, he came up with two more classy knocks this time a century and 86, both unbeaten, against Kerala.

Towards the end of the decade, he had come back strongly and more than made up for his slow start to his Ranji career. He was in the peak form of his cricketing career. Several match winning knocks in those three years had made him a vital cog in Madras’ middle order. 

Opening bat and South Zone team mate KR Rajagopal (KR Rajagopal) remembers the Ranji century both scored against Kerala in 1968 after Madras got off to a shaky start losing three early wickets “He played some memorable knocks for Madras. And the one against Kerala where we both scored centuries was a terrific one. We were in big trouble early and then he joined me and we batted together the whole day. It was a delight to watch him bat. I had seen all three brothers bat. While Milkha was explosive, Chinda was fearless and a classy batsman and an enjoyable character in the game. His fearlessness and the great use of his feet was best symbolized in that knock at the central college ground in Bangalor, a year earlier, where he masterminded a comeback win for Madras against Chandra and Pras, one of the best counter attacking knocks.”

         KR Rajagopal

On the back of these strong performances, he earned the Zonal Call. In January 1969, he played his only Duleep Trophy match in Calcutta against East Zone and put on a half century partnership with Pataudi, a memorable occasion for him to bat with the legend. During the innings, he slipped and fell taking off for a run that led the great Nawab to remark “What kind of a shoe are you wearing for a Zone match.” Satvinder used to bat with Canvas shoes even in big matches. He found the turf boots to be heavy and uncomfortable, especially after his knee injury.

That injury which he had ignored for a while began to take a toll on him and had a big impact on his future prospects. When he came on to bowl, he suddenly found his knee giving him a different feel. He recalls that moment “While I just stood up after the skid and continued to ride and later played as normal, one day when I came on to bowl my first ball, I could not move my leg. The knee had swollen like a pumpkin. Today you can walk out of an operation and get back into action almost immediately. It was not so then. It took a long time to heal. After having performed really well in the previous couple of years, I missed the entire season in 70-71 recuperating from the knee surgery.”

In the years following his injury, his movements on the field, his running between the wickets and also the stepping down to the spinners became restricted. 25 years after this road accident, another legend of TN cricket, S Sharath (ATG Sharath), too met with a road accident in the youth of his life and as in the case of Satvinder, the accident played a dampening effect on Sharath too, especially his progress to the national level.

As a fall out of that injury, Satvinder became a close in fielder and he had some magical moments at slip that he recalls “I began to field at Slip and was posed with big challenges especially to the bowling of VV Kumar and Venkat. One had to watch their variations and be ever alert. I enjoyed taking some sharp catches of their bowling.”

 

He came back strong the next year after missing a full season and scored a match winning century against Chandra in Bangalore. 

The Ranji Trophy Semi Final against Maharashtra in 1973 was momentous for multiple reasons. It was Satvinder’s brilliant half century in the second innings that set up the match for TN, but he recalls two other incidents from that match “I took a blinder at slip of Venkat just after lunch for that crucial early breakthrough (Chauhan had been undone by Kalli before lunch). And then just before tea, I dropped a relative sitter off Venkat again. As we went into tea, my mind was all on that dropped catch and if that would prove crucial. Soon after tea, Venkat picked up the last wicket and there was Ramachandran, Kirloskar Cummins’ Chairman rushing on to the field to hug me on my match winning knock.”

Of course, Satvinder continues to be grounded between the highs and the lows in cricket. He says that there are days when things go your way and the 2nd innings knock against Maharashtra was one such “When I came in, I received a juicy full toss that I put away for four. Chetan (Chauhan) who was at first slip remarked ‘You lucky guy, to receive this (full toss) first ball.’ And that knock changed the course of the match. But it was the full toss that was the turning point in that knock. A boundary of the first ball makes a difference for a batsman.”

He has mixed feelings of the two Ranji finals against Bombay that he was part of in his decade long cricket career. In final at Bombay in 1968, he took that close in catch of VV Kumar’s bowling with Ashok Mankad just at the start of his innings “They had lost three early wickets and the wicket of Mankad would have changed the match in our favour. I had taken a good sharp catch but the umpire did not raise the finger. Mankad went on to score a century and the match slipped out of our hands.”

Michael Dalvi batted together on a number of occasions with Satvinder. Talking to this writer from his home in Dehradun, he recalls the role played by Chinda on and off the field “On the field, it always looked like the width of his bat was double (that of other batsmen). Off the field, he had a very equitable nature. In a dressing room that was a ‘hotspot’, Chinda was a calming influence on the team, the Cold Water and an ‘Ice Bucket’.”

In the final phase of his career, at the Ranji match against Hyderabad in Chepauk, a photograph was taken of TN cricketers who had played for India. Abbas Ali Baig, who stood next to Satvinder, asked him as to how he would have felt had he been there in the photograph “That was the one day in my life when I felt really bad about not having gone up the ladder in cricket to play for the country.”

His roommate on most Ranji tours, legendary leg spinner VV Kumar says that Satvinder was the best player of Spin after (Vijay) Manjrekar and Sunny (Sunil Gavaskar) “Had it not been for the accident, he would have risen to greater heights than Kripal and Milkha.”

Satvinder shared a 15 year cricketing association with Venkat and knew him very closely. He was seen to be so close to Venkat that B Kalyanasundaram (Kalli), who could not ask his captain directly, used to go up to Chinda and get him to influence Venkat to bring the fast bowler back into the attack to try and get the elusive breakthrough.

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He has high words of praise for Venkat's cricketing intelligence with whom he played right from the school days. Once when he played for Alwarpet against YMA, Venkat got him third ball “I had a tendency to play back the first few balls. Venkat had spotted that and castled me. He later came and told me that he had studied me and found this back foot movement early on.”

Sativinder counts Venkat as one in a league of his own “Venkat was a disciplinarian. He could not tolerate sloppiness on the cricket ground. He respected those that did well. The fact that he was a loner cannot be counted against him. With him, one had to be involved in intellectual discussions. I have often said this in speeches to youngsters ‘Mental Stability is the difference in cricket. Venkat had that, and it was that that made him a fine cricketer. He came up trumps against all odds.”

But  its not Venkat but MLJ that Satvinder counts as the best captain he played under. The Duleep Trophy Semi Final opened my eyes to what a captain can do to a team “Jaisimha understood the strengths and weaknesses of players and motivated them accordingly. It was a joy to watch him captain. The players reacted positively to his call. He was the best ‘captain’ never to have captained India.”

Former Ranji Trophy Winning captain and current Chairman of TN Selection Committee S Vasudevan (Ranji Captain Vasu) who began his career at Lucas TVS says  he was fortunate to play along with him for Alwarpet and TN “AGS had a stamp of class written all over him. He was one of the most stylish batsmen of that era and some of his knocks were exceptional. I particularly remember the knock against Mafatlal in the Buchi Babu tournament where he was at his scintillating best in his knock of 81 in the finals. His extra ordinary cover drives and elegant leg glance were a treat to watch.”

It was said of the West Indian Gordon Greenidge that when he limped off the field, the opposition were in for a thumping when he came into bat (he limped off in that famous Lord’s test of 1984 and came back to score 214 NO). Satvinder seemed to have a similar warning. 

Vasudevan recalls such days on the field “Whenever he played his favourite delicate leg glance to start his innings, everyone knew that he was in for a big score that day and more often than not he succeeded.”

Chairman of Sanmar Group and the one who began promoting cricket in a big way in Madras after his return from the US, N Sankar (Sanmar Sankar), says that Satvinder was one of the most promising batsmen of the 60's, and the best of the three brothers who played for the State “He was a batsman who used his feet beautifully but unfortunately, his career was affected by an accident where he hurt his knee badly.”

 

Nephew and match referee Arjan Kripal Singh, who scored a triple hundred in Ranji Cricket for Tamil Nadu, has a couple of things in common with Chinda Uncle “For starters, he is the most educated member in our family. You could say I followed in his footsteps (Arjan did his Engineering at Anna Univ) not just in education but also in terms of the knee injury!!!” 

He says that his uncle has been playing a great mentoring role to the members in the next generation “He is the lone surviving member among the brothers and has stepped in brilliantly into the role of the father figure of the family for the next gen. For a long time we have been a joint family. He has taken up that senior role and been playing the mantle greatly. All of us look up to him for advice. I have found him to be a gentle human being. He has no airs about him. Not once have I seen him lose his temper.  Even when there have been differences of opinion at home, he puts across his views in such a polite way that he usually manages to convince us."

Satvinder joined Lucas in June 1968 even before he had received the Engineering degree“I was grabbed by Ratnam. Even before the results, he had picked me for the Padi Plant. I had no time to think but they really took great care of me over the next five decades.” 

He worked under the Directorship of TK Balaji (Venu Srinivasan's brother in law), his college mate at GEC. Sattu travelled extensively around the world marketing their products globally. He saw steady growth in this career and never contemplated a move. One of his big achievements was to sign a big deal, a dozen years ago, with two major overseas customers in Germany and the USA. In 2014, he was elevated to the post of ED and retired from the firm in 2019 after over five decades.

Arjan points to the fact that he was one of those few Ranji cricketers, who after a long cricket career, rose to the top in the corporate world too “He was the only guy in the firm who could dictate terms to the Chinese, a unique feature. Like in cricket, where he was respected by his team members and the opposition alike, in the corporate world too, he managed to earn the respect of global customers.”

While he was a terrific team man on the field and a delight to watch especially against the spinners, Balaji points to the great human side “Satvinder was – and continues to be – a cheerful personality, always ready for a laugh “I have never known – or heard of – him throw his weight around as a senior player.”

Najam echoes the sentiment “His infectious smile had a healing effect on the team especially when the team was down. He was a happy go fellow, always came up with a good word for the team members and wanted to make others laugh. His song and dance in Colombo and extrovert easy going nature made him very popular there and the Lankans simply loved him.” 

Satvinder played a dozen years of Ranji cricket till 1976 and contributed till the end. He made lot of friends on and off the field. It was his love for his fellow cricketers in India and especially those he played with in the 60s and 70s that led him to reject a Canadian green card. His son, Jitendar, who also played a bit of cricket with WD Balaji Rao in Canada, works in a University in Vancouver, Canada. Over the last couple of years, ‘Sattu’ has been a Consultant to Ucal Fuel Systems and uses the cricketing and corporate network he has built over the last five decades to help the management connect with prospective customers.  When not consulting for Ucal, he listens to the good old Tamil and Hindi songs from the 1960s and 70s walking on the tread mill at home and on the sands of the Marina but IPL is No No for him. That is not something he has come to terms with, yet.