Kaypee, a batting force in the 80s and 90s

Much before Amol Muzumdar became the poster boy of Indian cricket’s nearly men, Amarjit Kaypee occupied that unenviable pride of place.

For those who followed domestic cricket in the 1980s and 90s, the name Amarjit Kaypee must be quite familiar. Born in Jalandhar, Kaypee began his career with Punjab, but it wasn’t until he made a move to neighbouring Haryana that his game blossomed, reaching its peak in the early 1990s.

In his first season with Haryana in 1986-87, he hammered 210 against Delhi, his highest first-class score.

A sturdy middle-order batsman, Kaypee notched up 940 runs at an average of 84.45 with five centuries in the 1990-91 season, including two 150-plus knocks in the quarterfinal against Uttar Pradesh. This was the season the great Kapil Dev led Haryana to their maiden and only Ranji Trophy triumph, beating Mumbai by just two runs in what has arguably remained the greatest final in the tournament’s history.

Individually, Kaypee didn’t have great final, scoring 45 and five, but he still made a telling impact on the game when his brilliant anticipation in the field led to last-man Abey Kuruvilla’s run out with Mumbai needing just three runs for victory. An inconsolable Dilip Vengsarkar (139 n.o.) was left stranded in the middle.

“That’s the most memorable moment of my career,” gushes Kaypee.

The next season was no less productive as the right-hander topped 800 runs with three hundreds at 101.75 runs per innings. That was the time Kaypee felt he had a genuine chance of making the cut to the Indian team, but he was overlooked.

“There will always be that regret,” says Kaypee, who is set to retire this October as General Manager at Food Corporation of India in Jalandhar. “From 1981 to when I retired in 2000, I didn’t take a break. I was never injured. In 1990-91, I scored nearly 950 runs in Haryana’s Ranji title win. I was the top-scorer in India, I was the ‘man of the year’ along with (Sachin) Tendulkar that season. Next, I see Ajay Jadeja and Vijay Yadav (from Haryana) were playing for India,” he laughs.

Kaypee wasn’t the first, and won’t be the last, cricketer to have suffered due to a combination of reasons. In an age when quota system dominated Indian cricket, he was the unlucky one to miss out as North Zone already had a handful of players in the Indian side. From Haryana alone Kapil, Jadeja, Yadav and Chetan Sharma featured in the Indian team while players from Delhi too occupied a few places.

“I genuinely felt I had a chance in early 90s, but then there was a slogan going on in Indian cricket called OT (over thirty),” he recalls. “I was around 31 then and I was thought to be too old, it didn’t matter how fit I was. Plus, there were quite a few from north in the Indian team and that was another reason I was always overlooked.”

When Kaypee retired after two decades of cricket with Punjab and Haryana, whom he led in 31 first-class matches, he was the highest scorer in the Ranji Trophy before Muzumdar overtook his tally of 7,623 runs at an average of over 54 and 27 tons.

Was it frustrating and how did you keep yourself motivated because there wasn’t much money in cricket, even less in domestic cricket? “I got Rs 300 for my first Ranji match and when I played my last first-class match in 2000, I got in hand about Rs 6500. Bas ek junoon tha cricket khelne ka (it was just the passion to play cricket).”