Bhupinder and Tarrant: players of the game

Abstract

Financier Maharaja Bhupinder Singh and tour manager Frank Tarrant are the two key protagonists of the inaugural Australian cricket tour to India in 1935/36 and the historical figures in this article. Their culturally atypical relationship was anomalous to the conventional imperialist paradigm and openly defied racist notions of Western supremacy and cultural incompatibility that informed and underpinned the initial expectations of the touring party. Despite their relationship being primarily driven by mutually beneficial professional and financial objectives, a genuine rapport that challenged the archetypal servant/master paradigm is evident. Press reportage from Australia, India and Britain supports the argument. The minute books of the Middlesex Cricket Club (1908–16) and the Melbourne Cricket Club (1907 and 1908) have been integral in locating information on Tarrant’s movements. Discovering the Tarrant scrapbooks (c.1918–51) at the Melbourne Cricket Club has answered many questions that have plagued previous research into the man who has remained an enigmatic mystery in cricket history. The post-colonial theories of Homi Bhabha (2012), specifically his analysis of mimicry, are employed to argue that the political agendas of the Indian royalty were evolving. Cricket, an English institution, was embraced and reconstructed by the Indian community. Indian society was rejecting the British template and opted to operate according to an increasingly nationalistic and indigenous ideology and through this process appropriated cricket, the bastion of Englishness, as its own. The Australians’ contribution to this process is interrogated, and the liberal influence of Tarrant and the Maharaja in minimizing the racial and social divide throughout the tour is evident.

Notes

1. To avoid any confusion in this article I have nominated to refer to the Melbourne Cricket Club and the Marylebone Cricket Club in their entirety.

2. Appearing in The Ballad of East and West, a poem by Rudyard Kipling first published in [1889] 1994.

3. In 1931 Patiala comprised 5932 square miles with a population of 1,625,520 (Cashman 1980, 165).

4. Longevity was uncommon throughout the line of Patiala rulers with eight out of eleven dying before they reached the age of forty. Sometimes natural causes were attributed however more frequently they expired from overindulgences and on the occasion of the death of Mohinder Singh (1852–1876), foul play was suspected.

5. Politics and ego were never far removed from Indian cricket business. Lobbying and personal acrimony enabled the emergence of Maharajkumar of Vizianagram, ‘Vizzy’, a new player in cricket administration who vied, in competition with the Maharaja of Patiala, for control of the Board of Control for Cricket (Majumdar 2006a, 897). Vizzy’s captaincy of the 1936 Test team was purely political, as his cricket ability did not warrant the position.

6. Both authored by Semmens suggesting that other sporting historians have ignored him.

7. Numerous government documents and press articles (Dundee Evening Telegraph June 3, 1914) and the Victorian digital register of Births, Deaths and Marriages nominate Tarrant’s birth as 1881 however subsequent press reports nominate it as 1880. Maritime records suggest that Tarrant was born around 1882.

8. Loris is sometimes referred to as Louis and the correct spelling of his name is impossible to determine. Semmens refers to him as Lawrence (most likely his correct full name). For the purpose of this article I will use Loris.

9. According to the Barrier Miner it was an ungainly black marble clock that weighed 40 lb (October 22, 1938).

10. Melbourne Cricket Club minute books have no record of Tarrant being a Ground Bowler.

11. It is unlikely an Australian authored the article as it contains overtly disparaging sentiments and presents an unfavourable portrayal of Tarrant. Possibly the article was syndicated from a British publication.

12. In gratitude, at the season’s end, Tarrant was gifted a gold watch and chain by an appreciative Victorian Cricket Association.

13. Correspondence between B. J Wardill, Melbourne Cricket Club secretary from 1879 to 1911, and his Middlesex Cricket Club counterpart, Mr A. J Webbe, complicates the narrative. Paperwork reveals that Webbe, on behalf of Middlesex, requested that Wardill compensate Tarrant £40 for not playing for Victoria. Middlesex reimbursed this amount into the Melbourne CC account. Logically this recompense of funds was due to the fact that the laws had been altered and Tarrant would not receive payment for the additional games he expected to play; however the compensation seems to be overly generous. The other inexplicable detail is why Wardill, and the Melbourne CC, were involved in negotiations considering during the 1907 season Tarrant was signed to play for Fitzroy (following the earlier Melbourne Cricket Club rejection of his services) and therefore the Melbourne CC should not have been involved in negotiations. Inevitably Webbe would have had many dealings with Wardill and possibly the Englishman felt that his Australian counterpart could be the most suitable conduit between Tarrant and Middlesex.

14. Coinciding with the start of the World War One.

15. English cricket great Jack Hobbs publically condoned the actions of Jardine.

16. Incorrect spelling: the bowler was Edward Winchester Clark, usually referred to by his nickname ‘Nobby’.

17. Lord Willingdon was the Viceroy of India from 1931 to 1936.

18. The Maharaja spent summers at Chail palace, which is famous for containing the highest cricket ground above sea level.

19. This quote should be analyzed in light of previous reservations of Hendry’s manuscript. It was written at least forty years following the tour and sometimes Hendry’s observations do not appear to comply with those of the other Australian cricketers; his perspective could possibly have been morphed by the benefit of hindsight.

20. This quote is verbatim.

21. Evaluating this observation, in light of Tarrant’s lack of orthodox paternalism and the fact that he was a decade younger than the Maharaja, encourages it to be viewed sceptically.

22. Andrew was a Hungarian refugee and his father rented a room in Frank’s Hawthorn East home from 1946 to 1948. Andrew, as a teenager, spent much time visiting the Tarrant household. He lived locally with a Hungarian family.

23. Andrew would have been delighted to see Lala score 228 not out.

24. The Colac Historical Society records reveal that Tarrant purchased the property in 1925 (then named Wilgul). Following the Tarrant family’s departure, the property returned to its original name and burnt down decades later.

25. Andrew Torok returned to board with Eva, following Frank’s demise, in 1956 until Eva’s death in 1960. Andrew surmised the rooms were rented out to implement the family income. He said there was nothing in the house that suggested wealth or excess. Possibly money was lost in the same way that it was acquired: on the racetrack.

26. Both subsidies were most likely paid by the Patiala family.

27. Both Eva and Frank were seemingly adept at reinvention in foreign countries and both found themselves in improved financial circumstances.

28. Eva’s sisters possibly felt indebted to Frank, as he had facilitated their immigration to Australia as a sponsor on documentation and most likely he provided financial assistance.

29. Journalists frequently used pen names in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Onlooker (Sam McMichael) wrote for the Referee and some articles appeared in the Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate.