Buchi Babu Naidu
Encyclopedia
Buchi Babu Nayudu was an India
n Cricket
er, known as the Father of Chennai
Cricket, who established the Madras Presidency Matches
.
Buchi Babu became a fine Cricketer and a Pillar of the Madras United Club(MUC)which he founded and to which Cricket playing Indians owed affiliation ,the Madras Cricket Club then being only for Whites.He not only gave several promising Cricketers who were playing members of his team –the MUC-all the equipment they needed ,like clothes ,boots ,pads and gloves,to make them look like Cricketers ,but he also arranged regular fixtures for them with the MCC.
It was Buchi Babu Nayudu ,known as the Father of Chennai Cricket ,who conceived the idea of the Presidency Match,angered by the apartheid practised by the Madras Cricket Club ,which required Indian players to sit under the tree and eat their lunch in the shade ,while The Europeans enjoyed the comfort of the club’s Pavilion .It was this democratic and Patriotic impulse that drove Buchi Babu to found the Madras United Club (MUC),and dream of an annual fixture between the rulers and the ruled .with the co-operation of Henry king and P.W.Partridge of the MCC,the match known as the Presidency
Match became the ‘Match of the Year’.but sadly ,Buchi Babu died a few months before the first ,rain –interrupted game in 1908 .He had been the greatest patron of Indian Cricket in Madras . He founded the Madras United Club ,and regularly achieved his ambition of defeating the white man at his own game. and admitted to its fold the conscientious desis with an unquenchable thirst and feel for the game and made them realize that their transition form mere onlookers to worthy wielders of the willow. Buchi, with the zeal of machinery trained them ironing out the rough edges and convinced the Europeans to pit their skills against the Natives. Thus was born the Presidency Match ,which was played during the harvest festival, earning the sobriquet “Pongal
match"
Buchi Babu patriotically founded the Madras United Club in the esplanade .Himself a fine cricketer ,he was responsible for getting prince Ranjitsinjhi to Madras ,he was also responsible for sending Chari
to England .This bowler ,who twisted and turned,earned tributes from English Cricketers .The first edition was opened in 1915. Thus the aspirants gained invaluable guidance to launch the career purposefully. Buchi’s contribution to Madras cricket did not cease with gaining recognition for the natives.The Buchi Babu Memorial Tournament has become a prestigious annual affair,involving India’s top teams.
.Cricket in Madras till Buchi Babu changed the scenario was an Englishman’s game .A few Indians tried to imitate what they got a glimpse of,watching from the outfield of the Madras Cricket Club’s hallowed ground at chepauk.but the real players were the british colonialists till Buchi Babu came along and offered them an Indian challenge .Not only did MUC-MCC cricket matches then become regular features and the Annual Pongal Week Indians vs Europeans presidency’s biggest fixture until the Ranji Trophy competition came along in the 1930s,but Buchi Babu tackled british custom head on and led his team in to the MCC’s ‘Whites Only’pavilion. As per the regulations, he could not enter the Club. It is said that Buchi Babu then staged a walkout in middle of the match with his team in tow. The Nayudu, ironically a descendant of Venkatadri Nayak of Chandragiri, who sold to British traders the land on which Fort St George is located, dared to question the discrimination that had been practised as an art form.”
Buchi Babu had a dream. In his days sports, including horse-racing and polo, were dominated — indeed appropriated — by the Europeans. The Madras Cricket Club was exclusively European. Buchi Babu’s dream of having a ground open to everyone to play was the trigger that later made it possible for the hallowed Chepauk grounds to escape the MCC monopoly, and ultimately prepared the ground for the TNCA (Tamil Nadu Cricket Association)leasing the place and making way for the MAC Stadium that we find today. Buchi Babu’s purchase and occupation of Luz House in Mylapore (Off Luz Church Road)meant that his family took cricket to the Brahmin aristocracy of the locality .In time ,the communities of Andhra men of leisure and Tamil intellectuals forged an unlikely combination that led to ‘unbridled talent finding joyous expression ‘on Cricket grounds.
He sired three progenies who in due course left their imprint on the game. The eldest of the siblings, Venkatramanujalu alias Bhatt was known for his pyrotechnics his immediate younger brother,M .Balliah, a stylish left hander who earned the tag “Madras Woolley” represented the Hindus in the Bombay quadrangular,led Madras against Bombay in the final of the second edition of the Ranji Trophy.C.Ramaswami the youngest son of Buchi Babu Naidu was one of the two Indian " Double Internationals". For three generations of the Buchi Babu family have played Ranji Trophy Cricket,Two of the family achieving Test Class as well .Besides cricket ,there have been members of the family in every generation who’ve made their mark in South India at the highest levels in Tennis and Table –Tennis ,Hockey and Golf,Polo and Equestianism ,Shooting and Bridge.
M.V.Bobjee ,A grandson of Buchi Babu Naidu ,the Father of Madras Cricket ,and the second son of M’Bhat’Venkataramanujulu,Bobjee was proficient in Tennis,Cricket and Golf,and represented Six different States in the Ranji Trophy .He played for Madras in the Forties ,and Mylapore Recreation Club in the local league.;M M Kumar,The late younger son of M.Baliah of the Buchi Babu family,kumar was a fine swing bowler who could also bat in an attacking mode.He opened the batting and bowling in the fifties and early sixties,making his Ranji Trophy Debut in 1959-60.;M V.Prakash,A member of the illustrious Buchi Babu Family, this Ranji Trophy Cricketer was also an avid Polo player and Golfer. He played for Mylapore Recreation Club in the fifties. M.Suryanarayan M Suryanarayan a versatile cricketer, who had also captained the Tamil Nadu State team. He scored admirably against bowlers like Frank Worrell, Fazal Mahmood, Khan Mohamed and Amir Elahi. There was so much more to this man who lived life in large and hearty doses! M.Suryanarayan led Madras and Mysore in cricket and is reputed to have made Three pre-Lunch Centuries! But he also partnered with Ramanathan Krishnan to win the All-India University Tennis doubles. And notched up several table-tennis and golf titles. ‘Suri ‘as he was popularly known,played 11 matches for the State in the Ranji Trophy and earned selection for the Indian team for the fifth and final’Test’against the SJOC team at lucknow in 1953-54.;P.Ramesh,When P.Ramesh,Tamilnadu’s debutant opening batsman made a hundred at the age of 19 in his Ranji Trophy debut,batting against internationally recognised spinners like prasanna and chandrasekhar.one does not have to be an expert cricket critic ,or cricketer ,to realise that any boy who can make a hundred against prasanna and chandrasekhar is made with nerves of steel, because ,in those days,the very names of prasanna and chandrasekhar would have unnerved any youngster. season most informed onlookers were thrilled by the newcomer’s brilliant start ,but not many of them were surprised .For not only had the left hander been among the runs at the school and university levels ,batting consistently in the run-up to Madras University’s second triumph in the Rohinton Baria championship under Sushil Haridas’ Captaincy in 1972-1973 and in the following season ,he enjoyed an outstanding pedigree in Cricket.He was the grandson of M.Baliah ,one of the bhatt brothers to set the chepauk on fire decades ago,and the great grandson of Buchi Babu Naidu ,the Father of Madras Cricket.he established a fantastic scoring record in all babu branches of cricket in south india..Old timers who watched him that day were reminded of his grandfather Baliah for the sweet timing and elegance of his strokes as well as baliah’s brother C.Ramaswami for sheer power,for Ramesh combined the attributes of both great left handers from the past.he capped a splendid season with a fifty in a tour game against the touring west indies ,a performance that should have convinced the national selectors that he had the potential to be test opener.
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n Cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
er, known as the Father of Chennai
Chennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
Cricket, who established the Madras Presidency Matches
Madras Presidency Matches
The Madras Presidency Matches were annual first-class cricket matches played in Madras from the 1915-16 season to 1951-52 between the cricket teams of Indians and the Europeans . The matches were played in the Chepauk Grounds usually in mid-January around the time of Pongal festival...
.
Early life
“Buchi Babu” Nayudu was the eldest of the Family of Five Brothers .He was adopted by his Maternal GrandFather , Modhavarappu Dera Venkataswami Nayudu, the patriarch,was – Dubash of Parry & Company (whose HQ was Dare House )in the 19th Century. M.Dera.Venkataswami Nayudu , set very high standards of living,.Buchi Babu and his brothers were brought up in the best English Tradition and inherited all good habits and manners of an English country squire .In time Buchi Babu Nayudu brought up as a Westernized ,sports loving young man with the confidence to rub shoulders as an equal with the English ruling classes of his time .He was often described in his time as the greatest sportsman of Madras (Presently Chennai),The Father of Chennai Cricket ,fired by the desire to take on the Englishman of the Madras Cricket Club .Buchi Babu became a fine Cricketer and a Pillar of the Madras United Club(MUC)which he founded and to which Cricket playing Indians owed affiliation ,the Madras Cricket Club then being only for Whites.He not only gave several promising Cricketers who were playing members of his team –the MUC-all the equipment they needed ,like clothes ,boots ,pads and gloves,to make them look like Cricketers ,but he also arranged regular fixtures for them with the MCC.
The Pongal Match
Madras Cricket in its formative years was dominated by the Europeans. The Madras Cricket Club was their exclusive preserve. No Non European was allowed to enter its portals. The Indians were peeved at this treatment, but could not correct this injustice as it was the heady days of the RAJ. It took the temerity and gumption of a gutsy Desi to mount a challenge to the imperialists and show them that the natives of this sacred land could also excel in this game.The Presidency Match of Madras ,played at Chepauk between 1915 and 1952 was born of one Indian’s desire to meet the Englishman on equal terms on the Cricket ground ,and try to vanquish him.as it turned out,the Indians won substantially more matches than the Europeans ,and these were the two protagonista of this Pongal Festival of Cricket that drew large,enthusiastic audiences,in the days before Test matches.It was Buchi Babu Nayudu ,known as the Father of Chennai Cricket ,who conceived the idea of the Presidency Match,angered by the apartheid practised by the Madras Cricket Club ,which required Indian players to sit under the tree and eat their lunch in the shade ,while The Europeans enjoyed the comfort of the club’s Pavilion .It was this democratic and Patriotic impulse that drove Buchi Babu to found the Madras United Club (MUC),and dream of an annual fixture between the rulers and the ruled .with the co-operation of Henry king and P.W.Partridge of the MCC,the match known as the Presidency
Presidency
The word presidency is often used to describe the administration or the executive, the collective administrative and governmental entity that exists around an office of president of a state or nation...
Match became the ‘Match of the Year’.but sadly ,Buchi Babu died a few months before the first ,rain –interrupted game in 1908 .He had been the greatest patron of Indian Cricket in Madras . He founded the Madras United Club ,and regularly achieved his ambition of defeating the white man at his own game. and admitted to its fold the conscientious desis with an unquenchable thirst and feel for the game and made them realize that their transition form mere onlookers to worthy wielders of the willow. Buchi, with the zeal of machinery trained them ironing out the rough edges and convinced the Europeans to pit their skills against the Natives. Thus was born the Presidency Match ,which was played during the harvest festival, earning the sobriquet “Pongal
Pongal
Thai Ponggal is a harvest festival celebrated by Tamils in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Indian Union Territory of Pondicherry and in Sri Lanka. Pongal coincides with the festival Makara Sankranthi celebrated throughout India. Pongal in Tamil means "boiling over" or "spill over". The boiling...
match"
Buchi Babu patriotically founded the Madras United Club in the esplanade .Himself a fine cricketer ,he was responsible for getting prince Ranjitsinjhi to Madras ,he was also responsible for sending Chari
Chari
Chari may refer to:* Chari, South India* C. T. K. Chari, Indian-born professor of Philosophy* V. V. Chari, Indian-born professor of Economics* One of two regions/prefectures in Chad:** Chari-Baguirmi...
to England .This bowler ,who twisted and turned,earned tributes from English Cricketers .The first edition was opened in 1915. Thus the aspirants gained invaluable guidance to launch the career purposefully. Buchi’s contribution to Madras cricket did not cease with gaining recognition for the natives.The Buchi Babu Memorial Tournament has become a prestigious annual affair,involving India’s top teams.
Buchi Babu " Father Of Chennai Cricket "
Every cricketer playing competitively in Chennai today is heir to what he created on the rugged wickets of his Madras United Club (MUC)and the lush turf of the ChepaukChepauk
Chepauk is a locality in Chennai , in India. The name Chepauk is popularly used to refer to the M. A. Chidambaram International Cricket Stadium also known as Chepauk Stadium. It is also home to the Chepauk palace, built in the Indo-Saracenic style...
.Cricket in Madras till Buchi Babu changed the scenario was an Englishman’s game .A few Indians tried to imitate what they got a glimpse of,watching from the outfield of the Madras Cricket Club’s hallowed ground at chepauk.but the real players were the british colonialists till Buchi Babu came along and offered them an Indian challenge .Not only did MUC-MCC cricket matches then become regular features and the Annual Pongal Week Indians vs Europeans presidency’s biggest fixture until the Ranji Trophy competition came along in the 1930s,but Buchi Babu tackled british custom head on and led his team in to the MCC’s ‘Whites Only’pavilion. As per the regulations, he could not enter the Club. It is said that Buchi Babu then staged a walkout in middle of the match with his team in tow. The Nayudu, ironically a descendant of Venkatadri Nayak of Chandragiri, who sold to British traders the land on which Fort St George is located, dared to question the discrimination that had been practised as an art form.”
Buchi Babu had a dream. In his days sports, including horse-racing and polo, were dominated — indeed appropriated — by the Europeans. The Madras Cricket Club was exclusively European. Buchi Babu’s dream of having a ground open to everyone to play was the trigger that later made it possible for the hallowed Chepauk grounds to escape the MCC monopoly, and ultimately prepared the ground for the TNCA (Tamil Nadu Cricket Association)leasing the place and making way for the MAC Stadium that we find today. Buchi Babu’s purchase and occupation of Luz House in Mylapore (Off Luz Church Road)meant that his family took cricket to the Brahmin aristocracy of the locality .In time ,the communities of Andhra men of leisure and Tamil intellectuals forged an unlikely combination that led to ‘unbridled talent finding joyous expression ‘on Cricket grounds.
He sired three progenies who in due course left their imprint on the game. The eldest of the siblings, Venkatramanujalu alias Bhatt was known for his pyrotechnics his immediate younger brother,M .Balliah, a stylish left hander who earned the tag “Madras Woolley” represented the Hindus in the Bombay quadrangular,led Madras against Bombay in the final of the second edition of the Ranji Trophy.C.Ramaswami the youngest son of Buchi Babu Naidu was one of the two Indian " Double Internationals". For three generations of the Buchi Babu family have played Ranji Trophy Cricket,Two of the family achieving Test Class as well .Besides cricket ,there have been members of the family in every generation who’ve made their mark in South India at the highest levels in Tennis and Table –Tennis ,Hockey and Golf,Polo and Equestianism ,Shooting and Bridge.
The Torch Bearers of Buchi Babu clan
The Torch bearers of the Buchi Babu clan in a later generation were;M.V.Bobjee ,A grandson of Buchi Babu Naidu ,the Father of Madras Cricket ,and the second son of M’Bhat’Venkataramanujulu,Bobjee was proficient in Tennis,Cricket and Golf,and represented Six different States in the Ranji Trophy .He played for Madras in the Forties ,and Mylapore Recreation Club in the local league.;M M Kumar,The late younger son of M.Baliah of the Buchi Babu family,kumar was a fine swing bowler who could also bat in an attacking mode.He opened the batting and bowling in the fifties and early sixties,making his Ranji Trophy Debut in 1959-60.;M V.Prakash,A member of the illustrious Buchi Babu Family, this Ranji Trophy Cricketer was also an avid Polo player and Golfer. He played for Mylapore Recreation Club in the fifties. M.Suryanarayan M Suryanarayan a versatile cricketer, who had also captained the Tamil Nadu State team. He scored admirably against bowlers like Frank Worrell, Fazal Mahmood, Khan Mohamed and Amir Elahi. There was so much more to this man who lived life in large and hearty doses! M.Suryanarayan led Madras and Mysore in cricket and is reputed to have made Three pre-Lunch Centuries! But he also partnered with Ramanathan Krishnan to win the All-India University Tennis doubles. And notched up several table-tennis and golf titles. ‘Suri ‘as he was popularly known,played 11 matches for the State in the Ranji Trophy and earned selection for the Indian team for the fifth and final’Test’against the SJOC team at lucknow in 1953-54.;P.Ramesh,When P.Ramesh,Tamilnadu’s debutant opening batsman made a hundred at the age of 19 in his Ranji Trophy debut,batting against internationally recognised spinners like prasanna and chandrasekhar.one does not have to be an expert cricket critic ,or cricketer ,to realise that any boy who can make a hundred against prasanna and chandrasekhar is made with nerves of steel, because ,in those days,the very names of prasanna and chandrasekhar would have unnerved any youngster. season most informed onlookers were thrilled by the newcomer’s brilliant start ,but not many of them were surprised .For not only had the left hander been among the runs at the school and university levels ,batting consistently in the run-up to Madras University’s second triumph in the Rohinton Baria championship under Sushil Haridas’ Captaincy in 1972-1973 and in the following season ,he enjoyed an outstanding pedigree in Cricket.He was the grandson of M.Baliah ,one of the bhatt brothers to set the chepauk on fire decades ago,and the great grandson of Buchi Babu Naidu ,the Father of Madras Cricket.he established a fantastic scoring record in all babu branches of cricket in south india..Old timers who watched him that day were reminded of his grandfather Baliah for the sweet timing and elegance of his strokes as well as baliah’s brother C.Ramaswami for sheer power,for Ramesh combined the attributes of both great left handers from the past.he capped a splendid season with a fifty in a tour game against the touring west indies ,a performance that should have convinced the national selectors that he had the potential to be test opener.