Padmakar Shivalkar
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A brief biography
Gaurav Gupta, March 4, 2025: The Times of India
From: Gaurav Gupta, March 4, 2025: The Times of India
Padmakar Shivalkar was one of India’s finest left-arm spinners.
Despite his exceptional talent, he never represented India internationally, as his career coincided with the dominant era of India’s renowned ‘spin quartet’ and probably the greatest ever left-arm spinners to grace the game, Bishan Singh Bedi. During his illustrious 27-year career from 1961-62 to 1987-88, ‘Paddy’ as Shivalkar was nicknamed, claimed a staggering 589 wickets in 124 first-class matches.
Batting legend Sunil Gavaskar led the tributes, calling Shivalkar an architect of many a Mumbai win. “Within a short time, Mumbai cricket has lost two of its stalwarts, Milind (Rege) and now Padmakar. One of my regrets as India captain is not being able to convince the national selectors to include ‘Paddy’ in the Test team. He deserved the India cap far more than some others who got it,” Gavaskar said.
Beginning his Ranji Trophy journey at 22, he remarkably played his final first-class match aged 48, concluding with a Ranji Trophy quarterfinal against Delhi at the Ferozeshah Kotla in 1987-88. His 361 Ranji wickets for Bombay (now Mumbai) set a record at the time of his retirement.
In Mumbai’s fertile cricketing stable, he donned the whites for the famous Shiva ji Park Gymkhana and represented Tata Sports Club in the Times Shield. His 1961-62 Australian tour with CCI yielded 15 wickets in three matches. When he wasn’t playing cricket, he composed music and was a passionate singer. Married to loop and length, Shivalkar, a master at using the crease, grabbed 74 wickets in 15 Duleep Trophy matches for West Zone and 23 wickets in seven Moin-ud-Daula matches.
If his career was a highlights reel, it would have April 1972, when representing Rest of India at the Brabourne Stadium against Indian XI in a National Defence Fund match, he bagged 5-77, dismissing notable players including Gundappa Viswanath, Eknath Solkar, Syed Abid Ali, S Venkatraghavan, and Syed Kirmani. Post-retirement, he served as a spin bowling coach and Mumbai’s chief selector.
The BCCI honoured him with the CK Nayudu Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017, alongside Rajinder Goel. Both exceptional spinners never played for India, competing against the established Bedi, who claimed 266 Test wickets and 1560 first-class wickets.
His 1973-74 Sri Lanka tour with an India team resulted in four wickets across two unofficial ‘tests’.
