Biography

Bhagwat Chandrashekhar or Chandra as he was fondly known as; was an unorthodox leg spinner who rarely turned the ball, but relied on his whizzing top spinners, googlies and flippers to prize the batsmen out. Afflicted by polio right from a very young age on his right hand, he converted this weakness into his strength. However, he could not throw with the same hand, and used his left for the throwing. Sometimes though, by his own admission, he himself did not know what was going to come out of his hand. There was an equal probability of an unplayable delivery as there was of a rank, long hop!

And yet, despite all these shortcomings, Chandra managed to capture 242 Test wickets at less than 30 per wicket. In 2002, he won the award for the best bowling performance of the century, for his spell of 6/38 at Oval in 1971. He was also instrumental in India’s first Test win in Australia in 1978 by picking 12 for104 at the MCG.

That said, his batting skills were as negligible as the amount of turn he obtained, scoring lesser number of runs than the wickets he picked, at an average of 4. To add to that, he had a record 23 ducks and four pairs to his name.