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A Yankee at Chepauk | |
| Frederick Fales Richardson | ||
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The American friend was unimpressed by the excitement levels offered by this strange ritual involving men in whites. I tried my best to educate the poor, deprived man, but none of the romance of cricket appealed to him. He gave me a pitying look when he found out I was a slow bowler. “Might as well play croquet or netball or something silly like that,” was his contemptuous remark. The only time his eyes showed some spark of interest was when one of the batsmen went out to bat wearing a helmet - those were the eighties and protective headgear was still a bit of a novelty, at least in local cricket. “That’s more like it!” he said with rather unseemly relish at the prospect of physical danger. |
| It was while assisting Mr S Muthiah in writing the history of the Madras Cricket Club that I first came across arguably the only instance of an American playing first class cricket, at least in India. Frederick Fales Richardson, born in the US on August 2, 1918, played for the Madras Cricket Club under the captaincy of C P Johnstone and along with players like Ward, Denniston, Reed, Dickinson, Stansfeld and Wensley. |
| Richardson learnt his cricket in England where his parents went in 1920. He played for Westminster School, but returned to the US and joined Princeton University. He came to India in 1941 and played soccer at Calcutta during the first three years of his stay in India. He resumed his cricket when he shifted to Madras in 1944. In the Ranji Trophy, he made 64 against Mysore and 62 against Bengal, but it was his fielding that made him stand out in the Madras team. |
| The left hander who won many hearts in Madras with his brave batting and “magnificent fielding” moved to Bombay after playing five Ranji Trophy matches. |
| Thus ended one of the most fascinating chapters of the colourful history of Madras cricket. |
| V Ramnarayan |
| Excerpted with permission from the city portal, ChennaiOnline. |
Years
ago, I took an American friend to a cricket match at the Nandanam
College of Arts. It was an office match among various units of the
TVS group, and not a particularly competitive one, especially as
my side had a number of state and former university cricketers and
the other contestants in the tournament were not so well endowed.
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