THERE was a time after the Second World War when Vijay Hazare was India’s most dependable batsman. With a batting method as neat as his moustache, and inexhaustible patience, he scored hugely in domestic first-class cricket in India, and a batting average of 47.65 from his 30 Test matches is a fair reflection of a fine talent. The highlight of his Test career came at Adelaide in 1948 when he scored two separate 100s — 116 and 145 — on successive days of the fourth Test match between Australia and India, albeit in a losing cause.

Statistically, though, he held, indeed still holds, two much more remarkable records than that. The 577 which he added with Gul Mahomed, playing for Baroda against Holkar in the final of the Ranji Trophy at Baroda in 1947, has yet to be beaten for any wicket in first-class cricket. It remains, in fact, a world record. They came together when Baroda were 91 for three in reply to Holkar’s first innings of 202 (Hazare six for 85) and their partnership lasted for just under nine hours, Hazare eventually being out for 288 and Mahomed for 319. Until then the record partnership for any wicket had been the 574 which Frank Worrell and Clyde Walcott had put on for Barbados against Trinidad at Port of Spain the year before.

The other record of Hazare’s that will take some beating is the extraordinary extent to which he monopolised a sixth wicket partnership of 300 with his brother, Vivekananda, playing for the Rest against the Hindus at Bombay in 1943. While they were at the wicket together — the Rest were 62 for five in their second innings when Vivekananda came in, the Rest having followed on 448 behind, Vijay scored 266 to his brother’s 21 — or 88.6 per cent of their partnership. That they were playing for the Rest in what was then the Pentangular Tournament (Hindus, Muslims, Parsees, Europeans and the Rest), was because they belonged to India’s small Christian community, Vijay being one of perhaps a dozen Christians who have played Test cricket for India.

Despite what all this may suggest, and although he led India to their first ever Test victory, against England at Madras in 1952, nearly 20 years after they were granted Test status, Vijay Hazare was not an imposing personality. He was not really suited by the Test captaincy, which he held for 14 matches between 1951 and 1953. “His shy, retiring disposition did not lend itself to forceful authority,” wrote Wisden after India’s tour to England in 1952, one made all the more difficult for them by a combination of uncovered pitches, a wettish English summer and the fact that when England were in the field the new ball was in the hands of Alec Bedser, still somewhere near his best, and a fiery young Fred Trueman.

Although a doughty partnership between Hazare (89) and Vijay Manjrekar (133), gave substance to India’s first innings of the first Test match at Headingley, in their second innings they lost their first four wickets before putting a run on the board, three to Trueman, who was making his Test debut, and the other to Bedser. Hazare and D.G. Phadkar briefly stopped the rot with half centuries, but India’s calamitous start had done last ing damage to their confidence. Their tour of West Indies later that year, again under Hazare, was also one of hard, mostly unrewarding work.

Of Hazare’s seven Test 100s the two highest were against England in India in 1951-52 — 164 not out in Delhi and 155 in Bombay. The sides which England sent to India in those days were never strictly representative, though Brian Statham, Roy Tattersall and Derek Shackleton were all high in the bowling averages when the selection for the tour was made.

Of Hazare’s ten double 100s, six were scored during the Second World War, India being the only country where first-class cricket continued with any regularity while hostilities lasted; his best score in England was his 244 not out against Yorkshire in 1946, on the first of his two tours of England. His highest score of all was 316 not out for Maharashtra against Poona in 1939-40. All told he scored 18,740 runs in first-class cricket at the unusually high average of 58.38, hit 60 hundreds, and took 595 wickets at a gentle but well-informed medium pace.

In retirement Hazare became a Test selector, but not for long. It was a responsibility he was happier without. Instead, he was glad to preserve the family link with Baroda by becoming ADC to that state’s last cricket-loving Maharaja, who managed the Indian team in England in 1959. Hazare had a son, RV, who played for Baroda in the Ranji Trophy and two nephews who did the same.

Vijay Hazare, cricketer, was born on March 11, 1915. He died on December 18, 2004, aged 89.