Cricket is related to the C.K. Naidu Cup. It is named after
C.K. Naidu, the f
irst Indian
cricket captain to play in a Test match. He continued to play
first-class
cricket until 1958, and at the
age of 68, he returned for the final time in
1963.
Cottari Kanakaiya Nayudu, better known as
CK, was the
first
captain of India's Test cricket team. He continued to play
first-class
cricket until 1958, and at the age of 68, he returned for the final time in 1963. In 1923, the monarch of
Holkar called him to Indore and promoted him to
captain in his army, with the title of
Colonel in Holkar's Army bestowed upon him.
In the
1926–27 season,
Arthur Gilligan led the first
MCC tour to India. At the
Bombay Gymkhana, Nayudu hit 153 runs in
116 minutes for the
Hindus, including
11 sixes. One of the sixes, thrown by
Bob Wyatt, landed on the
Gymkhana's roof. In honour of those innings, the
MCC honoured him with a silver bat. In 1941, he was the
first
Indian cricketer to promote a product (
Bathgate Liver Tonic). In
1956, the Indian government bestowed the third-highest (then second highest) civilian honour,
Padma Bhushan, to him.
Nayudu was born in Bara Bada Nagpur on October 31, 1895, to Cottari Surya Prakash Rao Nayudu, the
son of Rao Bahadur Cottari Narayana Swamy Nayudu, a wealthy Kapu Naidu from Machilipatnam, Andhra Pradesh, who was a lawyer and landowner with multiple villages and a large piece of
Nagpur.