The 1932 Indian Test Cricket team that toured England. Janardan Navle is seen standing last in the first row of the team captained by Maharaja of Porbandar.
Janardan Gyanoba Navlepronunciationⓘ (pronounced Nuw-lay) (7 December 1902 – 7 September 1979) was an early Indian Test cricketer.[1]
Career
Navle faced the historic first delivery of India's first Test innings in 1932. He opened in both innings at Lord's in 1932 and also kept wickets. A small man, Wisden called him "a first-rate wicket-keeper, very quick in all that he did". He played for Indians against Arthur Gilligan's MCC team in 1926–27 and Jack Ryder's Australians nine years later. For many years he kept wickets for Hindus in the Bombay Quadrangular and Pentangular tournaments. He made his debut for Hindus at the age of 16.[1]
Personal life
Navle hailed from a Marathi family.[2] In his later life he worked as a security guard in a sugar mill and lived in a two-room flat in Pune. He had his schooling at the Bhave School in Poona. He died in Poona on 7 September 1979.
^Cashman, Richard (1980). Patrons, Players and the Crowd: The Phenomenon of Indian Cricket. Orient Longman Limited. p. 81. ISBN978-0-8364-0630-6. Of the early Test cricketers from Bombay, Dattaram Hindlekar and Janardan Navle were the only Marathi speakers. Others – Sorabji Colah, Jenni Irani, Rustomji Jamshedji, Khershed Meherhomji, Rusi Modi, Phiroze Palia, Vijay Merchant, L. P. Jai and Ramesh Divecha – were all Gujarati Parsees or Gujarati Hindus.
