In India cricket is almost like a religion. A cricket match involving India is most of the time a family event. Not only for the fans, even for the cricketers cricket flows through generations and that’s why there are many instances of cricket being played by both father and son. Recently the elder son of India’s legendary cricketer, Rahul Dravid, was named in the Under-19 Indian cricket team. With the father being one of the greatest cricketers, a former captain, and also a world-cup-winning coach, all eyes will be on the son. Fans have already started to find similarities between their shots and postures. However, apart from this new set of father-son pair of Indian cricket, there are a few special father-son duos as well, that Indian cricket has produced over the years.
Father – Lala Amarnath, Sons – Surinder & Mohinder Amarnath
The Amarnath family played a key role in different phases of Indian cricket. Lala, a very talented batter debuted in India’s first-ever Test match at home. Playing at Bombay Gymkhana ground, Amarnath also became the first-ever Indian batter to score a century on Test debut when he scored 118 against England in the second innings. He was India’s best batter of that era and went on to lead India. He was also involved with Indian cricket in various capacities after his retirement.
His elder son Surinder Amarnath also scored a Test century on debut and became the first-ever father-son pair to achieve this feat. However, Mohinder Amarnath had a much longer international career, who went on to achieve some special feats including the ‘Player-of-the-Match’ awards in both the Semi-final and Final of India’s victorious World Cup campaign in 1983.
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Father – Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi, Son – Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi
This is a very interesting combination as they became the first father-son pair to lead India in Test match cricket. However, Pataudi senior made his debut for England during the 1932 Bodyline series against Australia and scored a century on debut. He later led India in three Test matches during their 1946 tour of England. His son Mansur was an exceptional cricketer and could achieve much more but a fatal car accident damaged his right eye and he had to play with only one eye for the rest of his career. He became India’s youngest captain when he was given the responsibility after Nori Contractor was injured by a fast bouncer during the 1962 West Indies tour. Overall, Mansur scored 2,793 runs in Test cricket and 15,425 runs in First Class cricket.
Father – Vijay Manjarekar, Son – Sanjay Manjarekar
The Manjarekars were both very technically correct batters who served Indian cricket for long. Vijay was a mainstay of Indian batting during the 1950’s and played 55 Test matches between 1952 and 1965 scoring 3,208 runs with 7 centuries. Sanjay also started promisingly and scored a double century at Lahore during India’s 1989 tour. But he faded out quickly and especially struggled in ODI cricket. He could have a long specialist Test career like Cheteshwar Pujara but during that time such concepts were not there and he missed out. Later he has become a successful but somewhat controversial commentator.
Father – Vinoo Mankad, Son – Ashok Mankad
Vinoo Mankad is rated as one of the greatest all-rounders to play for India. Some of his performances are legendary including the ‘Mankad’s Test’ played at Lord’s when he scored a century and fifty in two innings and also picked up 5 wickets. He was also the first Indian to score two Test double-centuries and his 231 was the highest score by an Indian for a long time before Sunil Gavaskar scored 236. During that innings, Mankad also added 413 runs in the opening partnership with Pankaj Roy. This remained the record for the highest partnership in the 1st wicket in Test cricket for more than 50 years.
His son Ashok was a top order batter who had a long and distinguish career in the First Class cricket primarily playing for Mumbai. He has played 218 First Class Matches scoring more than 12,000 runs. In Test cricket however, his record was mediocre as he scored just 991 runs in 22 Test matches.
Father – Yograj Singh, Son – Yuvraj Singh
Here is example from recent years. Yograj Singh was a well-built fast bowler from Haryana who had a short International career as he played just one Test match and 6 ODI’s. His performance was not satisfactory and got dropped but he spent most of his later life to prepare his son Yuvraj to become a champion all-rounder for India. Yuvraj came to focus after leading India to their first ever Under-19 World Cup triumph. He went on to become one of the greatest match-winners for India and delivered some magical performances. His heroics in the Natwest Trophy final, his six sixes in an over against the same opposition and his ‘Player-of-the-tournament’ performance in the 2011 World Cup will remain forever in the heart of any Indian cricket fan.
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