A.G. Ram Singh family of Madras
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Madras's cricketing sardars
The A.G. Ram Singh family had been to Madras cricket what the Straceys had been to public service in India.
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A.G. Ram Singh
Of Amritsar Govind Singh Ram Singh it has been said, “(He) bore the burden of Madras Cricket on his shoulders as very few had done before and none after him. Centuries flowed from his bat while with his left-handed spinners he sent many a batsman to his doom.” Yet, this beturbaned and bearded cricketer, who would figure in any all-time Madras/Tamil Nadu XI, is a forgotten figure among so-called cricket fans.
It was not Madras, however, that produced him; it was the baghs of Amritsar, including Jallianwala Bagh, that did. It was there that as a boy he learnt his cricket watching the Tommies play. And what he learnt he improved on further by himself when he came to Madras with his father, Jwala Singh, an electrician, who worked with Spencer's for many years. In Madras, encouraged by T. Vasu Naidu, then by V.R. Lakshmi Ratan at the Rajah of Ramnad-backed Minerva Cricket Club, and eventually by the Sussex professional A.F. Wensley coaching Madras, Ram Singh honed his skills to a degree that Denis Compton and Lindsay Hassett, both of whom played against him, went overboard assessing him: the former compared him to Wilfred Rhodes, the latter thought if he had been in Australia he would have been in the running for an Australian Test berth.
Certainly he was in the running for a place in the Indian team in the mid-1930s and was thought to be a sure bet for the team that toured England in 1946 after scoring over 3000 runs and taking 230 wickets in all games during the lead-up season. But he had no godfathers and, so, in 1946 turned to coaching and during his thirty years and more as a coach turned out scores of Ranji Trophy players and at least four Test cricketers: Salim Durrani, C.D.Gopinath and his sons Kripal and Milkha Singh. Ram Singh's youngest son, Satvinder Singh, was also of Test class, but a knee injury after a road accident affected his career. Two other sons, Kulwant and Satwant, like their three brothers played for the University of Madras. All that taken together is some record!
Kripal Singh
Kripal Singh, the eldest of Ram Singh's sons, was a right-hand batsman who scored a century on his Test debut against New Zealand in 1955. But thereafter he was in and out of the Indian team, playing his last Test in 1965. As his batting career waned he improved as an off-spin bowler. But it was as a batsman that he helped Madras win its first Ranji Trophy in 1954-55. His sons Swaran and Arjan both played for the State, the latter's greater promise cut short by injury.
Milkha Singh
If Kripal Singh was considered one of the finest right-hand batsmen produced by Madras, brother Milkha Singh had a similar rating as a left-hand batsman. But he, too, was in and out of the Test team, the heavy scoring he did in Ranji Trophy matches not being repeated in the few Tests he played in the 1960s. Was he blooded too young, many wonder; was barely18 when he made his Test debut.
TN cricket’s beloved sons
The ‘Singhs of Madras’ were a close-knit unit. Migrating from Amritsar in the early 20th century, the Singhs made the city their home and to many they represent “first family of Chennai cricket”.
There’s a reason for that. AG Milkha Singh was the second brother from the family to play for India. While their father AG Ram Singh played first-class cricket for TN, Milkha’s elder brother, AG Kripal Singh made one century and twohalf centuries in 14 Tests for India. While Milkha played four Tests, his younger brother and two nephews, AG Satwender Singh, S Kripal Singh and Arjan Kripal Singh, also represented TN with distinction while current national selector Sarandeep Singh is a close relative.
The most famous of the lot, of course, were Kripal and Milkha. The two Sikhs were Tamil Nadu stalwarts, playing through the 1950 and 60s, and enteratining crowds wherever they played. While Kripal was a right-hander and a fluent stroke player who got a debut Test hundred, Milkha was the flamboyant left-hander who loved to entertain.
It was their off-field camarederie that used to have a major impact on the field as well. Milkha, during a chat with TOI a couple of years back, spoke about the way he and Kripal used strategize while batting. “When Kripal and I batted together, we often made the opposition believe that we found a mediocre bowler difficult to handle.
The trick was to hit the bowler for a boundary every over, and purposely play and miss a few deliveries just to give the rival skipper a wrong idea that his bowler would get us out.”
A.G.Harjinder Singh
One other member of the family had a brief first class career — and that was A.G.Harjinder Singh, a nephew of Ram Singh. While faring well in First Division club cricket as a left-hand batsman, he did not repeat that form at the Ranji Trophy level. But he, like his cousins and hundreds of other Madras cricketers over three generations, had benefitted from the cricketer described by V. Ramnarayan as “arguably the greatest cricketer never to have played for his country” and a coach who believed in no frills coaching and long hours at the nets — A.G.Ram Singh.
Will there be a cricketing family like this again in Madras, nay, India?
