Nariman Jamshedji "Nari" Contractor (7 March 1934 Godhra

Godhra

Godhra is a town and originally the name came from "Gou" which means "Cow" and "Dhara" which has two meanings: one in Sanskrit which means "Hold or Land" and the other in Hindi which means Flow. So, identically it means The Land of the Cow, a municipality in Panchmahal district in Indian state of...

, Gujarat) is a former cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

 player. He was left-handed opening batsman whose international career was ended abruptly by a serious injury.

He had a fortuitous beginning to his first-class

First-class cricket

First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...

 career, when he was called up to replace the Gujarat captain who got injured on the morning of the match. Contractor scored hundreds in both innings of his debut, becoming the second man after Arthur Morris

Arthur Morris

Arthur Robert Morris MBE is a former Australian cricketer who played 46 Test matches between 1946 and 1955. An opener, Morris is regarded as one of Australia's greatest left-handed batsmen. He is best known for his key role in Don Bradman's Invincibles side, which made an undefeated tour of...

 to do so.

At Lord's

Lord's Cricket Ground

Lord's Cricket Ground is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board , the European Cricket Council and, until August 2005, the...

 in 1959, he had two ribs broken early in the first innings by Brian Statham

Brian Statham

John Brian "George" Statham, CBE was one of the leading English fast bowlers in 20th-century English cricket. Initially a bowler of a brisk fast-medium pace, Statham was able to remodel his action to generate enough speed to become genuinely fast...

, despite which he scored 81. Later in the year, his 74 in the second innings at Kanpur was crucial in India winning its first Test against Australia. This innings ended when he pulled Alan Davidson

Alan Davidson (cricketer)

Alan Keith Davidson, AM, MBE is a former Australian cricketer of the 1950s and 1960s. He was an all rounder: a hard-hitting lower-order left-handed batsman, and an outstanding left-arm fast-medium opening bowler...

 who was bowling left arm spin at the time. Neil Harvey

Neil Harvey

Robert Neil Harvey MBE is a former Australian cricketer who represented the Australian cricket team between 1948 and 1963, playing in 79 Test matches. He was the vice-captain of the team from 1957 until his retirement...

 at short leg ducked and turned, but the ball got stuck between his legs.

Contractor led India to a series win against England in 1961-62 and captained the side to West Indies the same season. There, in the match against Barbados, he ducked to a short ball from Charlie Griffith

Charlie Griffith

Charles Christopher Griffith is a former West Indian cricketer who played in 28 Tests from 1960 to 1969. He formed a lethal fast bowling partnership with Wes Hall during the 1960s...

 which failed to come up. Contractor took a blow at the back of his skull and was unconscious for six days. That ended his international career. In a recent interview, he mentioned it as his only regret that he wanted play just one Test after the injury, but people didn't want him to.

Contractor now lives in Mumbai where he coaches at the Cricket Club of India Academy. He is a Parsi-Zoroastrian.

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