The name of Ajit Laxman Wadekar is such a name in Indian Cricket that will be remembered by all the Indian cricket fans forever for his extraordinary performances in the cricket field both as a Batsman and a Leader. The wonderful cricketer and the master mind of the Series win of India against West Indies in 1971 was born on 1 April at Mumbai in Maharashtra. He got attracted in the game of Cricket from his very childhood and he started to play it in a very young age. He studied two of the Bombay`s most prestigious colleges named as Elphinstone and Ruia.

After completing his study in the colleges, he got admitted in the Bombay University and Ajit Wadekar represented his University in the Rohinton Baria Inter-University Tournament from the years of 1957-58 to 1961-62. He became the captain of the Bombay University Cricket team in 1961-62. He was also the captain of the Combined University Cricket Team when it played against the M.C.C. in the years of 1961-62. While he was playing in the University levels of Cricket, he did his most brilliant inter-university performance against Delhi in 1958-59 when he scored was 324 in an innings. With the help of this extraordinary performance, Ajit Wadekar became able to claim a place in Bombay`s Ranji Trophy Cricket team. He continued to retain the position till the years of 1974-75.

However, in spite of performing successfully at the domestic level tournaments, he was being ignored by the selectors of the National Team for some unknown reasons and he got his maiden chance in the National Team when the famous West Indies team led by Sir Gary Sobers visited India in 1966-67. Though he got the chance to prove his talent, he failed to make a mark in the first Test against West Indies at Bombay and he scored only 8 and 4 runs in the two innings of the Test. After this very poor performance, his spot in the team came under pressure in the following two Tests and he somehow became successful to earn a berth on the team to England after scoring 67 in the second Test. He claimed the spot in the team to England in the year of 1967.

Though Ajit Wadekar earned the spot in the team after a lot of talks, these things could not affect his performance in the tour and he was one of the most successful India cricketers in the tour by scoring 835 runs in the county matches. He also played very well in the Test matches and scored 242 runs with a highest of 91 in the Series. For this extraordinary performance, all the fans and critics of Indian Cricket started to call him as the discovery of the tour. Not only this, Ajit Wadekar did also establish himself in the team. However, when he went to Australia just after a few years from the England Tour, he found it difficult to suit himself in the faster and more bouncy pitches in Australia and he was able to score only 212 runs from eight innings with an average of 26.50. After this poor performance in Australia, Ajit Wadekar improved his performance in the New Zealand Tour in 1969-70 and achieved an aggregate of 330 runs with an average or 47.14. In this very tour he scored the very first and the only Test century of his entire career. Not only this, he was the topper of the series as far as the batting averages are concerned.

The very stylish left-handed batsman and a brilliant close-in fielder Ajit Wadekar was very successful throughout his career with some occasional failures, but the fact that will surpass all his great performances is his success in the Cricket field as a captain. He is the only Indian captain in the entire history of Indian Cricket who has won three series in a row. Amongst those three series, he won two of them in abroad. So far, no other Indian captain has the success to win two series in abroad like Ajit Wadekar.

If anyone asks about his personal achievements apart from his success as a captain of the Team, it should be said that he is amongst the successful cricketers of India as far as personal performance is concerned. He has played 37 Tests throughout his career and aggregated 2,113 runs with a career average of 31.07. Though he scored only one Test century when he scored 143 runs against New Zealand in 1967-68 in New Zealand, he did enter the 90s on four other occasions. His record in the first class matches is also something extraordinary. In the 73 matches that he played in the first class level during the period of 17 years, he scored a total of 4,288 runs with an average of 57.94. He played a very important role in the 15-years` winning streak of Bombay Team in the Ranji Trophy. He has got 2 Ranji Trophy centuries under his belt that include his career best score of 323. He made this score against Mysore in the season of 1966-67. He was the captain of the West Zone in six of the 18 Duleep Trophy matches that he played and he captained his side in a total of 30 matches. He led the Bombay Team successfully six times against the Rest of India.