Saif Ali Khan, a Bollywood actor and son of the legendary Indian cricketer Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, has recently recalled a fascinating story from his father 'Tiger' Pataudi’s iconic cricketing days.

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Tiger Pataudi, one of the greatest Indian skippers, led the side in 40 of 46 Tests he played in, winning 9 of them and amassed 2793 runs at an average of 34, which was a remarkable feat considering his right eye was impaired forever due to an unfortunate car accident.

Recalling an interesting anecdote, Saif revealed that the 'Nawab of Pataudi' had differences with the Delhi management due to which he had to move to South Zone – where everyone expected that he would lead the team being the Indian captain at that time, but his father decided to play under former Indian Test cricketer ML Jaisimha only just because of the respect towards the latter.

Saif told Indranil Basu on Sportskeeda Cricket: “He (Tiger) had trouble with the Delhi administration, and they weren’t getting along. So he told Tiger, ‘I don’t think you’ll play for North Zone’. So Tiger called Jaisimha and told him he wanted to come to South Zone and that he didn’t want to play in Delhi anymore.”

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He added, “So Jaisimha’s father ‘hired’ Tiger. Jaisimha was captaining South Zone and Tiger was captaining India. Everyone assumed that the captain of India would captain South Zone, but Tiger said, ‘No, I want to learn about South Zone and I will play under Jai’. This, I thought, was very cool.”

Meanwhile, the actor said his father didn’t receive the adulation that he deserved when he was alive.

He signed off by saying, “He really built that team. Ajit Wadekar, rest in peace, benefited from by taking them to beat the West Indies and beat team England were incredible feats. That team was really formed by Tiger Pataudi, but he never got the adulation that was required. He got the adulation after he died.”

(With Sportskeeda Inputs)