Ritesh Misra, Mumbai, 28 March 2026
India has given the world several batting superstars, and the names of Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, and Virat Kohli are likely to come to mind first. However, even before Sunil Gavaskar, we had Polly Umrigar, who was a batting hero for quite an extended period of time, and also had the distinction of captaining team India.
Let us reminisce about the life and career of this great cricketer.
Polly Umrigar was popularly known as Polly Kaka, and for the purpose of this article, I will fondly and respectfully refer to him as Polly Kaka.
In the words of Milind Rege, the great friend of Sunil Gavaskar, “the word ‘khadoos’ only means one who never gives up, one who is stubborn, one who challenges the opposition, one who is gutsy.” Rege himself missed greatness since he had a heart attack at 26, but still returned to the game and also captained team Mumbai. The word ‘khadoos’, as per Milind Rege, applied to a long list of Mumbai players, and right at the top was none other than Polly Kaka.
Polly Kaka played international cricket for 14 years, from 1948 to 1962. As I have pointed out in my earlier articles on greats such as Bishan Singh Bedi and Erapalli Prasanna, there was not much cricket back then, and he played just 59 Test matches, in which he scored 3,631 runs at 42.44. He had as many as 12 centuries, and as many as 14 fifties. When he retired from test cricket, he was the Indian batsman who had scored the most runs and centuries, and had played the most tests for Team India.
Sunil Gavaskar broke these records, and currently, the same are held by Sachin Tendulkar.
Records currently held by Sachin Tendulkar, and earlier by Sunil Gavaskar, provide us with a perspective on how great a batsman Polly Umrigar was when he played for the Indian team.
Could we talk about a few of his important knocks for Team India? In India’s first ever test win, which was versus England at Chennai in the 1952 series, Polly Kaka played an important role. Batting first, England scored 266, with the incomparable Vinoo Mankad taking 8 for 55 in 38.5 overs. Pankaj Roy scored 111, but India were potentially in a spot of bother at 216-5 when Polly Kaka walked in. His 130 along with Dattu Phadkar’s 61, and C Gopinath’s 35 took India to what proved a match winning 1st innings total of 467-9 declared. England were bowled out for 183, and Vinoo Mankad took 4 more wickets to finish with 12 for the match, and Ghulam Ahmed also took 4 wickets. India won by an innings and 8 runs!
Interestingly, Polly Kaka was supposed to be dropped for the test match due to failures in 4 consecutive tests but an injury to Hemu Adhikari gave him a chance, and he seized the opportunity.
Polly Kaka was also the first Indian batsman to score a 200. This was versus New Zealand at Hyderabad in the 1955 series. Overall he had 12 hundreds and had the reputation of a gutsy player who did not allow the occasion to get the better of him.
There is one negative story about Polly Kaka that he backed away to Freddy Trueman and was generally clueless. This is a bit strange considering that he had a century versus Trueman at Manchester, and he once hit Wes Hall for four boundaries in an over. One of his hundreds at Trinidad was rated as one of the best innings by any visiting team player to the West Indies. It was on West Indies tours that he got the nickname of “palm-tree hitter”!
Kaka was also a useful off spinner and had 27 test wickets, with one fiver, a 6-74 versus Pakistan. He himself was an excellent player of spin and had a terrific match-saving hundred, along with Chandu Borde, after Pakistan had scored a huge 448 on an underprepared wicket at Madras.
Polly Kaka led India in 8 test matches and he resigned from captaincy when his choice for a team player was overruled by the then BCCI chief. This shows his integrity and professionalism. Later on, as a selector for Bombay, he started the trend of selecting teams and then leaving the selection of playing 11 to the team management. He went on to become the Chairman of the Senior Selection Committee for four years. He was also a passionate curator.
Polly Kaka was a first class giant. He played Ranji Trophy for both Gujarat and Bombay, and scored 15 hundreds at an average of 70 plus. He was the captain of the Ranji Trophy-winning team of Bombay thrice. Later, he was a multiple-time manager of the Indian team, and was a sports administrator as well. For his services to the sport, he was honoured with the Padma Shri and also the C.K Nayudu Lifetime Achievement award. The BCCI cricketer of the year award is named after him, and the first recipient was none other than Sachin Tendulkar in 2007. Some multiple winners of this award being Tendulkar, Ashwin, and Shubman Gill (twice each), Bumrah (thrice), and Virat Kohli (five times). BCCI later extended the Polly Umrigar award to the best female cricketer in 2016-17, and multiple awardees are Deepti Sharma (twice), and Smriti Mandhana (five times).
This giant of a cricketer passed away in 2006. Today, 28th March 2026 is Polly Kaka’s 100th birth anniversary. He would have scored the century of his life today and moved on to the 101st year.
Happy Birthday Kaka, and we are sure that in the world where you are, you must be one of the best batsmen and a useful off-spinner as well!
You were and are a priceless Icon of India! We miss you, Polly Kaka!
