Jaisimha was a stylist par excellence

One of the most elegant batsman that the country has produced, Jaisimha epitomised the sixties — cap worn slightly askew, hair tousled, collar up and a tall walk to the crease. He was a magnetic draw; even local league matches he played in attracted a large crowd, a great many women among them.

He was bracketed with the glamour boys of the game, among them his friend and fellow musketeer Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, Abbas Ali Baig, Salim Durrani, Buddhi Kunderan and Farokh Engineer.

Long years later, Jaisimha’s fireside chats at the club would invariably end up discussingcricket of the pre-Gavaskar days. Ask him about his collar-up days, and he’d guffaw — a rasping laughter that came from deep within. “It wasn’t style at all. It was the way I was.”

Moganahalli Lakshminarasu Jaisimha was a born into a progressive family. So MLJ’s avid interest in a variety of sports — cricket, tennis and badminton — was not seen askance. The days were a frenetic blur: morning tennis, afternoon cricket and evening badminton. Coaches in all the three disciplines began to see promise in him. It was the late Ghulam Ahmed who won. The then India captain put Jai on notice: full-time cricket or quits.

As with all cavaliers, statistics (2,056 runs in 39 Tests @ 30.68) do justice neither to his talent nor his influence on the game.

Once in a while he’d decide he had a point to make. Like the time he played on all five days of the Calcutta Test in the 1954 series against Richie Benaud’s Australians. They sent him in at No 9 on the first day. He soldiered on into the next day to be 20 notout. In the second innings on the third day, they sent the young dasher out at No 4. He batted out the rest of that day, the whole of the fourth and was eventually out at lunch on the fifth — all for a dogged 74. The 70,000 Eden Gardens crowd gave him a standing ovation.

He showed his frustration when he was not considered for the 1966-67 tour of Australia. But destiny proved otherwise with leg-spinner BS Chandrasekhar returning home with injury. A hurt Jaisimha went in as replacement and in the very first Test at Brisbane, he slammed 74 and 101 to silence his critics. The happiest man was then his closest friend and Indian skipper Tiger Pataudi.

It was poignant that Sunil Gavaskar visited him in the morning and three hours later his idol ML Jaisimha was no more. Though Gavaskar could not talk to him, he spent more than 90 minutes with his family.