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Vijay Samuel Hazarepronunciation^ⓘ (11 March 1915 – 18 December 2004) was an Indiancricketer. HecaptainedIndia in 14 matches between 1951 and 1953. In India's 25th Test match, nearly 20 years after India achieved Test status, he led India to its firstTest cricket win (and the only victory under his captaincy) in 1951–52 againstEngland atMadras, winning by an innings and eight runs in a match that began on the day that KingGeorge VI died. He received theC. K. Nayudu Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996, the highest honour bestowed byBCCI on a former player.^[1]

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Hazare was born inSangli, intoMarathi Christian family,^[2][3] in the thenBombay Presidency ofBritish India in 1916, one of eight children of a school teacher.

Primarily a right-handbatsman, Hazare was also a right-hand medium-pacebowler. A "shy, retiring" man (according toWisden in 1952), it was widely thought that he was not a natural captain and that his batting suffered as a result. His rival,Vijay Merchant said that the captaincy prevented Hazare from becoming India's finest batsman: "It was one of the tragedies of cricket."

Even so, Hazare's Test record is very respectable: he amassed 2,192 runs in 30 Test matches with abatting average of 47.65. His first-class record is even more impressive, with abatting average of 58.38 for his 18,740 runs. He scored 60 first-class centuries (including 7 in Tests), the fourth highest for an Indian player and 10 first-class double centuries (including six duringWorld War II, when India was the only Test cricket-playing country to continue holding its domestic first-class cricket competition without interruption).

His bowling record was more modest, and he took 595 first-classwickets (including 19 in Tests, andDonald Bradman's wicket three times) at abowling average of 24.61. On the Indian domestic circuit, Hazare played for theMaharashtra,Central India andBaroda teams.

Some of his notable achievements include:

• First Indian batsman to score a triple century in first-class cricket (consideringKS Duleepsinhji as an English cricketer)
• First Indian to score two triple centuries:
  • the first, his highest score, was 316 not out for Maharashtra against Poona in 1939–40
  • the second was 309 out of 387 forThe Rest againstThe Hindus atBombay in 1943–44. Despite his innings, The Rest lost the match by an innings. It included a partnership of 300 with his brother,Vivek Hazare. Vijay scored 266 (88.6% of the partnership) of the 300 runs while Vivek contributed 21. Hazare scored 79.84% of his team's score, then a world record, and it is the second highest individual score in a losing cause. The Rest's total is the smallest completed innings to contain a triple century.
• First Indian to score a century in eachinnings of a Test match (116 and 145 on successive days againstAustralia inAdelaide in 1947–48, which was the same team that became known asThe Invincibles)
• AgainstEngland atKanpur in 1951–52, Hazare also became the first Indian batsman to score a pair (a duck in both innings)
• First Indian player to score a century in three successive Test matches
• First Indian player to make fifty centuries in his first class career
• Highest partnership for anywicket infirst-class cricket (577runs withGul Mahomed for Baroda against Holkar in the final of theRanji Trophy at Baroda in 1947. This record stood for many years, and was only broken in 2006 byKumar Sangakkara andMahela Jayawardene who put on 624 forSri Lanka againstSouth Africa.
• First Indian player to complete 1000 Test Runs

In retirement, he was for a short while an Indian Test cricket selector. He has been honoured with a trophy in his name, theVijay Hazare Trophy, a zonal-cricket tournament in India. He died in December 2004 following prolonged illness caused byintestinalcancer.

He andJasu Patel were the first cricketers to be honoured with thePadma Shri.

Hazare was the leading run scorer of1939–40 Ranji Trophy season. His team Maharashtra won its first title in that season, they defeatedUnited Province cricket team in the final at Poona (Now Pune).^[4] In1940–41 Ranji trophy he made 100 in the final and took 2 wickets. Maharashtra won the that season by defeatingMadras cricket team in the final. Since that season Maharashtra not able to won Ranji trophy again.^[5]

• Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) named its primer one-day domestic cricket championship after Hazare as,Vijay Hazare Trophy.
• Received BCCI'sC. K. Nayudu Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996.^[1]

• Obituary,The Times, 20 December 2004, page 44
• Cricinfo Player Profile : Vijay Samuel Hazare
• rediff.com Factfile – Vijay Hazare
• Vijay Hazare photos and articles
• Former Indian captain Hazare dies (BBC, 18 December 2004)
• Obituary (The Hindu, 19 December 2004)
• Obituary (The Times, 20 December 2004)
• Obituary (The Guardian, 20 December 2004)

• India Test cricketers
• Indian cricketers
• India Test cricket captains
• Baroda cricketers
• Commonwealth XI cricketers
• Central India cricketers
• Maharashtra cricketers
• West Zone cricketers
• The Rest (Bombay) cricketers
• Marathi sportspeople
• Recipients of the Padma Shri in sports
• People from Sangli
• Deaths from colorectal cancer
• 1915 births
• 2004 deaths
• India national cricket team selectors

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