KUMAR SHRI RANJITSINHJI.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1290, 19 November 1896, Page 8

KUMAR SHRI RANJITSINHJI.

Ho who visits Prince Ranjitsinhji thinking to light on a storehouse of cricket lore and cricket-treasure would leave grievously disappointed were it not j for the geniality of his host, whose cheeriness of manner makes up for any absence of such extraneous circumstances; for Prince Ranjitsinhji’s interest in cricket is in the game itself, the living present. With another Prince, he would say, “ The play’s the thing," What’s he to Fuller Pilch, or Fuller Pilch to him? Nothing. On the other hand, to-day’s weather forecast is everything. Everyone knows also the brisk step with which he descends the pavilion steps, and his lunging, rolling gait to the wicket. Once there it is not so easy to follow him, so swift are some of his strokes. The Indian has the eye of the hawk and wrists like Toledo steel, and the finest of the batsman’s arts is his —the art of timing the ball. Other men can hit harder, for the Prince is too slight to put, say, Frank Sugg’s “beef" into the stroke ; but the ball leaves his blade^ with the swiftness of thought, as old Nyren says of Beldhatn’s cutting. Pie hits at the right moment. He is great, too, at placing, and may come to equal Dr Grace at his best in this exquisite accomplishment. A ball that a dozen first-class batsmen will cut direct to cover-point, our Feudatory will coerce to take a line a foot out of his reach, oven if the fieldsman be Briggs himself, or the admirable Vernon Boyle of sacred memory. Possibly ho ic indebted for these subtleties to his Oriental framework. Prince Ranjitsinhji was born, he tells you, on September iO, lb/“2, at Sarodar, in Gujrat, and has therefore only just celebrated his twenty-fourth birthday, Ho is the son of Jiwansinhji, but was adopted by the late Jam of Nawanagar, his father’s cousin. The intricacies of the Hindoo law promise difficulties if any further particulars aro mentioned, and your host therefore jumps at once to his schooldays, which were passed at Rajkurnar College at Rajkote, where the late Mr Chester Macnaghten was a master. At the age of sixteen the Prince left the school and came to England, and after spending six months in London in preparing for his entrance examination he went up to Trinity in 1889. The name of Ranjitsinhji was, however, too much for his companions, and Cambridge wit being put to it evolved “ Smith" as a way out of the difficulty. Thenceforward he was 'known as “Smith" until, on leaving

Cambridge, he appealed to a wider public, and is now “Ranji" and nothing else throughout the land. A visit to Brighton with the Cambridge eleven in 1893 convinced Prince Ranjitsinhji that there was never a more habitable place, or one containing more charming people, and he decided to make the town his summer home and throw in his lot with Sussex, who were then badly enough wanting new blood. There are some who say that in his choice of a county the Prince was influenced by the amount of batting likely to be needed during the season, and therefore selected one of the weakest; but this he will deny, albeit ho denies it with a smile. He played his first match for Sussex at the beginning of the 1895 season, and probably nothing that he has ever done has given him greater satisfaction. The match was against a strong M.C.C. team, and the new importation made 77 not out and 150, and took six wickets. Luck is, he thinks, a greater friend to the cricketer than merit. —From “ Celebrities at Home," in the World.