When 19-year-old Naba Kamal Bhuyan took guard at the crease for Assam in 1948 against the United Provinces team, he unwittingly entered the record books.
He became the batter to face the first ball for this Northeastern state in its maiden Ranji Trophy outing, playing at Garrison Field in the then state capital city of Shillong. The youngster was asked to face the first balls so that his opening partner, the more experienced B B Bose, could get an understanding of the pitch and the bowler before taking on them.
“I was asked to open but was also given the clear instruction – ‘don’t you dare take runs in the first three balls, let Bose read the pitch and the bowler’. It didn’t matter to me, for the team had chosen me over others to open the innings,” a lucid Bhuyan, now in his mid-90s, recounted here during an interactive programme with the veteran cricketer.
He recalled vividly how the first ball was an outswing, the second over a maiden and he was out on the third ball of the third over. “I had the courage but lacked experience. I was bowled out for one run in the third over,” Bhuyan said.
Born in 1929 in Dibrugarh, Bhuyan had made his debut in competitive cricket at the inter-school level and his years at Scottish Church College, Kolkata, further exposed him to the game.
“When I returned to Guwahati and enrolled in the Cotton College (now university) and later at Gauhati University for my further studies, the cricketing scene was nascent but there were people involved with the game who were determined to take it to heights,” Bhuyan said. There was not even a single cricket pitch in Guwahati in mid-40s, he said.
“We laid the first pitch at New Field combining knowledge from cricket books and our own innovations in the absence of required raw materials,” Bhuyan said.