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The Nawab
The book is not a compilation but a thoroughly researched volume, portraying a candid biography of two nawabs with detailed inputs of their family members. It is inter-injected with apt and amusing anecdotes with an indepth foreword by Abbas Ali Baig, who was Mansur's cricketing pal in England and also in Hyderabad. The details reveal interesting facts. When Iftikhar captained India, he was 36 and was not in the best of his health, while Mansur became captain when he was only 21 years and 77 days old and devoid of vision in one eye, owing to a road accident in England. According to leading international sports authorities, he would have scored more than six centuries and 2,793 runs (average 34.91), if he had the benefit of vision in both eyes. There is another major difference between two nawabs. Iftikhar was an aristrocrat and Mansur was more of a commoner. This made captaining the country easy. His most valuable contribution to the team was that he made players realise that they were inferior to none and no star of any other zone was superior to them. He infused self-belief into them, impressing upon them that they were playing for the country and were not a state team. The manner in which he did so was unmatched. He was instrumental for the quartet of spinners winning matches for the team. No wonder all spinners, particularly Bishan Bedi and AES Prasanna ,speak volumes of his encouragement. Mansur's supreme athleticism saw him field like a tiger. He had to devote longer spells at the nets to develop his batting. In fact, he even changed his stance from usual one to "two-eyed". When asked, Mansur had gone on record to say that later stance helped him sight the ball better. Mansur was widely known in this country, so the author has rightly chosen to highlight the doings of Iftikhar, who had played little cricket in this country. When asked, the author said: "The senior nawab was little known here and hence deserved a detailed research and mention". Young Mansur possessed a captivating personality, though he was a sober star. Only after one got acquainted with him, he was discovered to be a storehouse of anecdotes. He possessed as much wry humour as his father. Whenever he spoke, he did so precisely, showing deep knowledge of the game. Wadhwaney, 84, had met Iftikhar twice in 1951 at the Roshanara Club and Mansur well enough to write a biography with many intimate details. The book hit the stands about 15 months after his sudden demise. In the words of Mansur, it was his mother, Sajeda, who was a tower of strength and helped him to return to the competitive game after a tragic accident. In typical Mansur-like humour, he used to say: "In the land of the blind, a one-eyed young man was the king."
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