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Gentleman Jai!

Motganhally Lakshminarsu Jaisimha once scored 49 runs in one complete day's play in a Test. You look at that figure, and you wonder why a young Sunil Gavaskar, yet to break into the Indian team, said that his ambition was to be another Jaisimha.

But then, the elegant, aristocratic cricketer has always been a bit of an enigma, capable alike of sublime heights and sudden lows. One of the few Test stars to have ever played wearing a cravat, Jaisimha first made his mark at school, assisting Marredpalli Cricket Club in the Hyderabad A Division league.

His performance at that level caught the eye of the selectors, and Jaisihma was then chosen to play for Hyderabad Combined Schools in the South Zone inter school tournament. This in turn led to selection for South Zone, in the All India Cooch Behar Trophy tournament.

Jaisihma debuted at the first class level in 1954, when he was picked to play Ranji Trophy for Hyderabad against Andhra. Opening the innings, he scored a classic 90 and from that point on, he was in the selectors' sights.

In the 1958-'59 season, Jaisimha turned out for Hyderabad against the touring West Indians, and produced a masterly half century against bowlers of the calibre of Hall, Ramadhin and Gibbs. This earned him a berth for the England tour of 1959, and Jaisimha in fact went on to make his debut at Lord's in the second Test.

A rather flashy batsman, he was deemed too flamboyant to open, and pushed down into the middle order. Somewhere along the line, he learnt the value of discretion, and began staying at the wicket for longer periods, with noticeable results. A medium pace bowler, he was handy with his ability to swing the ball both ways -- and once the shine went off, he came back with good quality off spin.

An example of his new found obduracy came in the Kanpur Test of 1960-'61, when Jai scored a sedate 99, occupying the crease for over 500 minutes before being run out. During that innings, he played just five scoring strokes in course of an entire session.

He went back to opening, a year later, against the touring England team, and came up with scores of 56, 51, 70 and 127 in the series, averaging 49.87 -- a high point for him. England in fact seemed to be his favourite opponent -- in the 1963-'64 series, he again was amongst the runs, totalling 444 at 44.4 average/

The most famous moment of his Test career came when he was summoned, as replacement, to Australia during the 1967-'68 tour. Still fighting jet lag, Jai stepped onto the field almost immediately after he stepped off the plane, and produced scores of 74 and 101, nearly helping his side to pull off an improbable win.

The stylish batsman, celebrated for his straight drives, played his last Test series in 1971, helping India pull off its first win against the mighty West Indies, led at the time by Sir Garfield Sobers.

In all, he played 39 Tests and scored 2056 runs, with an average of 30.68 runs, the highest being 129 against England in 1963-64. He also claimed nine Test wickets, giving away 829 runs.

UNI adds: Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar may rank July 7 as one of the darkest days of his life. Not only did he lose a friend who he loved and respected most, but missed meeting him by couple of hours.

Yesterday, Gavaskar was to fly to Hyderabad to meet an ailing M L Jaisimha, but postponed the trip. He, however, left immediately on hearing the sad news.

Gavaskar had idolized Jaisimha the same way as he did West Indian Rohan Kanhai during his fledgling days in Test cricket. Perhaps, it was in the fitness of things that Star Sports featured him in a documentary to celebrate the 'Little Master's' 50th birthday, which falls on Saturday, July 10. That was to be a final shot of Jaisimha.

The episode will be telecast on Sunday.