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.
