Ashok Vinoo Mankad (1946- 2008), A Retrospect.
They say like father, like son and true to its words Ashok Mankad was as talented as his father Vinoo Mankad, who had represented India in the mid 40’s till the late 50’s
As for Vinoo Mankad, we know him as an outstanding cricketer and one of the greatest all-rounders to have played for India, but, unlike his father Mankad never really shot to those highest recognition levels of superstardom, perhaps overlooked by the selectors or perhaps short of anyone’s favourite word luck.
Mankad was truly a gifted player and an aggressive captain who lifted Bombay (now Mumbai) to its sky-scraping heights, when it annexed the Ranji Trophy twice in the 1974-75, 1975-76 seasons and then to make Bombay a cricketing superpower of the nation.
Early days and the road to success:
Mankad first came to notice in the Harris shield, an inter-school cricket tournament and a tournament that is supposed to have hand picked several teen cricketers and convert them to legends and stalwarts. As if by prophecy, all these special players would mysteriously score heavily in this tournament and eventually end up playing for India one day. This was the same tournament where a young Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli ran amock against their opposition to set a world record partnership of 664 runs for the third wicket.
Perhaps Mankad also belonged to that elite group and had scored 348, 325 and 258 in that tournament. The result was that he was selected to represent Bombay and the West zone for the under-19 tournaments.
A half century against MCC for West Zone and a string of successive scores in various domestic tournaments displayed his class and thus gave him a name of a consistent scorer. That earned him a call for national duty, when he was selected to play against New Zealand in the 1969-70 season.
At the highest level:
Although Mankad was selected, but, his career at the highest level always saw a constant shuffling of his batting position in the final squad, where he found himself sliding up and down the order to suit the team needs. In his debut test match against New Zealand, he played as a lower middle order batsmen.
Mankad was selected to play against Australia and in the first match he batted at number three. The team management dropped Dileep Sardesai and Mankad was asked to open for the rest of the series. Despite being shuffled, Mankad played well in the series and had a sequel of good scores (74, 8, 64, 68 and 97).
In the 1970-71 West Indies series, Mankad opened again with Sunil Gavaskar and had a decent run with the bat, sharing opening partnerships of 68, 74, 72 and 123 not out. Mankad played poorly in the 1971 England series and this possibly led to the loss of faith in selectors on him, that eventually cost him a place in the team. The result, he was not considered for the 1972-73 England series.
The slide:
Although Mankad was recalled for the 1974 England series, he played only once and this followed with another single test appearance against the West Indies in 1974-75.
He was forgotten for the tours of West Indies and New Zealand but was recalled again for the home series against New Zealand in 1976-77. Mankad played well in that series but was found left out, only to be recalled once more and to play a single match against England the same year.
Mankad reverted back to domestic cricket to improvise his batting and concentrated more on playing in the middle order. In the Ranji Trophy 1976-77 season, he scored 827 runs with a whopping average of 206. Mankad scored heavily that season and had successive scores of 203 not out against Maharashtra and 208 not out against Haryana. This performance reposed the selectors’ faith in him, which earned him a spot for the 1977-78 Australian series. Mankad played well in the tour matches, but, poor performances in the test matches failed to make any impression on the selectors and he was not selected later.
Mankad continued to play domestic cricket and in the 1981 Ranji finals, he scored 265 against Delhi. Later in his career, he worked as a coach and had successively coached Mumbai, Madhya Pradesh, Railways and Baroda. Like a good captain that he was, he was also an inspirational coach.
His family:
Mankad married Nirupama Mankad, a former Asian tennis champion. Both their children are tennis players, especially, his younger son Harsh Mankad, who represented India in the Davis cup.
Mankad passed away in his sleep on 1st August, 2008. Cricket surely lost one of its stalwarts and a great admirer of the game whose contribution as a player, captain or a coach will remain forever to be remembered.
In the 22 test matches that he played, Mankad scored 991 runs with six half-centuries.
