Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji

Ranji

Jamnagar, India

1888–1904, 1908, 1912, 1915, 1920

Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji was a cricketer for England and a Prince of Nawanagar State in India, known as 'Ranji' to his cricketing fans. As a child, he was chosen as heir to a distant relative, Vibhaji, the Jam Sahib of Navanagar, but then discarded. He studied at the Rajkumar College in Rajkot and then in 1888, aged 16, Ranjitsinhji went to Britain. He joined Trinity College, Cambridge in 1889. It was not until 1893, having played in the meantime for local clubs on Parker's Piece, that Ranji gained a place in the Cambridge University cricket team. He was the first Indian to win a cricket blue. In 1895 Ranji began to play regularly for Sussex. Having faced opposition to his inclusion in the university side, there was now a growing public debate as to whether Ranji should be allowed to play for the England national side. In 1896 Ranji made his debut for England against Australia at Old Trafford. In 1897 Ranjitsinhji produced a book on the evolution of cricket in England called The Jubilee Book of Cricket. In the winter of 1897–8, Ranji toured Australia with the England team.

In 1904 Ranji returned to India as he was no longer playing for England and could not financially support himself in Britain. However, he continued to return to England at regular intervals and play for Sussex. In 1906 the new Jam Sahib of Navanagar, the son of Vibhaji, died and, there being no other formal heir, Ranjitsinhji assumed the throne. When war broke out in 1914, Ranji helped the imperial effort by converting his house in Staines into a hospital for wounded soldiers, donating troops from Navanagar and going to the Western Front himself. Ranji also had a lakeside castle at Ballynahinch, on the west coast of Ireland. In August 1915 he lost his right eye in a shooting accident in Yorkshire, and he played his last game for Sussex in 1920. As an Indian prince, Ranjitsinhji took on many political responsibilities: he represented India twice at the League of Nations and was a delegate to the Round Table Conference sessions in 1930. He died in 1933 in one of his palaces in Jamnagar.