A Corner of a Foreign Field: Read an excerpt on Dalit cricketer Palwankar Baloo

In England the Indian captain was not often to be found with his team. Patiala [Bhupinder Singh, the then Maharaja of Patiala] played a match at Lord’s, and one or two more, but for the most part he was active on the London social circuit, partying and going to the races (there were many parties to attend that summer, for a new King had just ascended the throne).

The captain’s absence was a blow in purely cricketing terms, for this particular Prince was a first-class batsman, and in social terms, for while he was away the side divided into Parsi and Hindu factions. Patiala also took his five servants with him wherever he went. This did not matter much, except that His Highness also insisted on having close at hand his secretary Keki Mistry, who at this time was perhaps the best of all Indian batsmen.
Without Patiala and Mistry the tourists’ batting was desperately ill-equipped to handle English wickets and English professional bowling. This showed in the results. Fourteen matches were played against the recognized English counties, of which two were won, ten lost and two drawn. Of the other matches, against such second-class teams as Ulster and the North of Scotland, the Indians won four and lost five. The singular success, from the Indian point of view, was the bowling of Palwankar Baloo. He took 114 wickets at an average of 18⋅84 runs per wicket, and would easily have claimed 150 wickets had he had more support in the field.
The scorecards of the tour tell a tale that is truly uplifting. Three early matches were played against Oxford University at the Parks, the Marylebone Cricket Club at Lord’s and Cambridge University at Fenner’s. On these three great grounds, redolent with cricket history, trod this Untouchable from Palwan who in terms of social background was as removed from the High Table as one could possibly be. But he could bowl. Against Oxford Baloo claimed 5 wickets for 87 runs, against the MCC he took 4 for 96 (his wickets including two county captains and an England Test player), whereas at Cambridge he returned the superb figures of 8 for 103. Baloo enjoyed success against all the top county sides. He claimed 7 for 83 against Lancashire, 4 for 127 against Yorkshire, 4 for 74 against Warwickshire, and 4 for 100 against Surrey. (In these matches the home team usually got to bat only once.) And when the Indians beat Leicestershire by 7 wickets, Baloo’s figures were 5 for 92 and 6 for 93.
He got a mere six victims in the only other victory, against Somerset, but made up somewhat with a strokeful 55 in his side’s second innings. The real match-winner on this occasion was younger brother Shivram, who scored 113 not out as the visitors scraped home with one wicket standing. For the tour as a whole, Shivram stood third in the batting averages, scoring 930 runs at an average of over 27 per innings. He was, said one observer, ‘the most promising of Hindu batsmen’.
Back in 1904, the Parsi patron Sir Dorab J. Tata had begun negotiations on Baloo’s behalf with the English county Surrey, who needed a left-arm bowler. That plan fell through, but when Baloo finally came to England he impressed more than one county. Indeed, he received several offers to stay in England and play as a professional.
(Excerpted with permission from A Corner of a Foreign Field by Ramachandra Guha, published by Penguin Random House India; 2002)