Maharajkumar of Vizianagram
The Maharajkumar of Vizianagram in 1936
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| Full name | Vijay Ananda Gajapathi Raju | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born |
28 December 1905 (see Notes), India |
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| Died | 2 December 1965 (aged 59) Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India |
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| Nickname | Vizzy | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Batting style | Right-handed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| International information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| National side | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Test debut (cap 23) | 27 June 1936 v England | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last Test | 18 August 1936 v England | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Years | Team | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1934–1935 | United Provinces | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Source: CricketArchive, 16 September 2009
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Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Vijay Ananda Gajapathi Raju 
pronunciation (28 December 1905 – 2 December 1965), better known as the Maharajkumar of Vizianagram or Vizzy, was an Indian cricketer, cricket administrator and politician.
Vizzy was the second son of Pusapati Vijaya Rama Gajapathi Raju, the ruler of Vizianagaram. His title Maharajkumar (prince) comes for this reason. After his father died in 1922 and his elder brother became the king, Vizzy moved to the family estates in Benares. He married the eldest daughter of the ruler of the zamindari estate of Kashipur.
He attended the Princes' College (Mayo College) in Ajmer and Haileybury and Imperial Service College in England. He excelled at tennis and cricket and was also a hunter
Vizzy organised his cricket team in 1926 and constructed a ground in his palace compounds. He recruited players from India and abroad. When MCC cancelled the tour of India in 1930–31 owing to political problems, he organised a team of his own and toured India and Ceylon. He succeeded in drafting Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe for the team, a considerable feat as Hobbs had previously refused offers for five such tours. Vizzy brought Learie Constantine to India a few years later. He brought Mushtaq Ali to Benares for training when he was still a high school student. "If Vizzy had been content with being such a cricket sponsor", writes Mihir Bose in A History of Indian Cricket, "like Sir Horatio Mann in the eighteenth century, or Sir Julien Cahn in the twentieth, his name would be one of the most revered in Indian cricket. But he was consumed with the ambition to be a great cricketer".
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