Former India captain Nari Contractor is recovering well after surgery and should be back home in the next couple of days, his son Hoshedar said on Friday.
Contractor, who was hit on the head by a Charlie Griffith bouncer during the 1961-62 tour of the West Indies, got the metal plate inserted in his skull 60 years ago removed through surgery at a Mumbai hospital on Wednesday.
“My father is doing very well. In fact I visited him in the afternoon and spoke for a while. He is very much in his senses and is mobile too. The doctors are very happy with his progress. We are playing it by the ear and he is expected to be discharged in the next couple of days,” Hoshedar told The Telegraph.
The surgery was performed by Dr Harshad Parekh and Dr Anil Tibrewala at the Reliance Foundation Hospital in Mumbai. “After 60 years, the body was rejecting the metal plate. The skin was disintegrating on the plate.
“So the skin was coming off and if it continued in that fashion, it could have caused an infection, which could have been dangerous. Hence the doctors decided to get it removed,” Hoshedar said.
He also said the BCCI has been “very helpful and supportive”. Contractor, 88, played 31 Tests, leading in 12 of those matches. His international career ended after suffering the injury during a side game against Barbados on March 17, 1962, in Bridgetown. He, however, had made a comeback to first-class cricket later.
Contractor had undergone a series of operations following the injury and later a titanium plate was inserted at the Christian Medical College in Vellore, Tamil Nadu.
There have been various versions about whether he ducked into that bouncer or it just knocked him off. According to the Wisden Almanac: “Contractor did not duck into the ball. He got behind it to play at it.
“He probably wanted to fend it away towards short-leg, but could not judge the height to which it would fly, bent back from the waist in a desperate, split-second attempt to avoid it and was hit just above the right ear.”
Among those who donated blood for Contractor were legendary West Indies captain Frank Worrell, Chandu Borde, Bapu Nadkarni, Polly Umrigar and journalist K.N Prabhu.
Griffith was admonished by the cricketing world for “chucking” while Contractor lay unconscious for six days. Griffith later narrated a heart-warming story about the incident.
When Griffith’s wife visited Contractor after he regained consciousness, Contractor told her, “Charlie is not to blame… it was all my fault.”