Hari Gidwani

कर्मण्ये वाधिका रस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।

मा कर्म फल हेतु र्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्व कर्मणि॥

Translation: You have a right to “Karma” (actions) but never to any Fruits thereof. You should never be motivated by the results of your actions, nor should there be any attachment in not doing your prescribed activities. 

There is a popular phrase in sports- "two/three/n horse derby", which basically means that the competition in that particular tournament is limited to a particular number of teams. When it comes to our premier domestic tournament ie "Ranji trophy", it is a four/five horse derby at max. During 1950- 1970s, there was no competition whatsoever. It was Bombay all the way, with Delhi, Tamilnadu and Karnataka striving to get better.

We have heard the tragic story of Rajinder Goel, who couldn't make the cut because of our lethal quartet, but what doesn't make sense is Hari Gidwani's story. He was a slick middle order batsman in the 1970s, which India was devoid of, yet he was never considered for the national team. We only had Gavaskar, Mohinder Amarnath and Gundappa Vishwanath, if we talk about good batsmen. Some of the batsmen who happened to debut during that decade failed miserably, for instance Kenia Jayantilal, Pochiah Krishnamurthy, who averaged in single digits and then there were players like Parthasarathi Sharma, Hemant Kanitkar, Ramnath Parkar, Sudhir Naik, Yajurvindra Singh etc who averaged between 18-27, yet Hari Gidwani's name never found a place in the selector's discussions.

Hari Gidwani is an alumnus of Hindu College, Delhi, who made his domestic debut in the 1972/73 season for Delhi. He served Delhi for six years and switched his allegiance to Bihar from the 1979/80 season and hung his boots after 1991/92 season. His best score was 229 which came against Karnataka in the 1989/90 season. He was on a roll in two Ranji seasons when he scored five centuries in five successive tests, not once, but twice in the 1986/87 and 1987/88 season.

The closest he came to getting the coveted India cap when he scored a 100 and 48 against the touring Sri Lankan team in 1975/76, but sadly he wasn't considered. Apart from being a dashing stroke maker, he had a mean googly. He has 29 wickets to his name. After calling it a day, he became a selector for the junior team and was a part of Delhi selection panel till October 2015.

Currently, he runs a sweet shop in Old Delhi. So if you are a fan of the man, you can drop by and get a photograph/autograph.