When we speak of Indian cricket’s great leaders, we usually start from Kapil Dev’s 1983, or Dhoni’s calm captaincy, or Kohli’s fire. But before all that, before India even had a flag of its own, there was one man who carried a nation’s spirit on his shoulders. Cottari Kankaiya Nayudu.

The first spark

Cricket in early 1900s India wasn’t really “Indian.” It was a borrowed game played under borrowed skies, with suits, cigars, and a sense of belonging that only the British enjoyed. Then came a tall, broad-shouldered man from Nagpur named Cottari Kankaiya Nayudu, or simply CK.

Born on October 31, 1895, he grew up when playing cricket as an Indian felt like a small act of defiance. His batting was loud and bold, full of swagger, nothing like the polite rhythm the English admired. Every

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