Nirmal Nanan RIP

 

NIRMAL NANAN 1951 - 2021

Nirmal Nanan was born at Preysal in Trinidad on 19th August 1951. The wristy right-hand bat played for Trinidad and Tobago Schools and Under-19 sides in the 1969/70 season. He made his first-class debut in May 1970 for South Trinidad versus North Trinidad at Pointe-a-Pierre in the annual Beaumont Cup fixture, scoring 12 and 16 and taking 2-45 and 0-7 with his leg breaks.

In the following months, he toured England with West Indies Young Cricketers and had his first experience of playing at Trent Bridge in a two-day fixture against the National Association of Young Cricketers in July 1970; top scoring in the second innings with 56 not out.

In 1971, several new players were added to the Trent Bridge staff.  Nanan was amongst a group which included Bill Taylor, Derek Randall, Phil Wilkinson, ‘Dusty’ Hare and fellow Trinidadian Boya Sahadeo.  He played regularly in the Second Eleven and after making his mark with several significant early season contributions, was handed his first-class debut for Notts against Oxford University on 30th June 1971.  He had a good all-round match against the students, with scores of 10 and 72 with the bat and returns of 0-11 and 3-12 with the ball. 

Nanan appeared more frequently in the following season, playing in seven first-class (scoring 153 runs @17.00) and eight List A matches, making 58 in a four wicket victory over Somerset at Torquay in a Sunday League fixture.  With the Seconds, he was part of the side which won the Second XI Championship in 1972 and was second highest run scorer with 666 runs @47.57.

As first-class counties were restricted to the use of two overseas players in any one fixture, Nanan struggled to gain a place in the Notts first eleven playing 14 (4 first-class and 10 List A) games in 1973 and 10 (5 first-class and 5 List A) games in 1974 making little impression. In 1975 he was restricted to Second Eleven cricket, although he bizarrely played for the West Indians versus Notts in a warm-up match for the inaugural cricket World Cup in June 1975. In 1976 he made 12 first-class appearances scoring 332 runs @17.47 including a championship career best of 46 against Somerset at Trent Bridge. He also appeared in 4 Sunday League fixtures in 1976.  He scored 55 and 54 in the Parks against the Oxford students, his sole first-class fixture of 1977 and also made three List A appearances that season. With Notts having Clive Rice, Richard Hadlee and Kenny Watson on their books, Nanan made no first-team appearances in 1978 and 1979.  Notts manager Ken Taylor wrote to the TCCB and following some negotiation it was agreed that Nanan would no longer be considered an overseas player for the 1980 season; by the rules at the time he should have waited until 1981 to become English qualified. He therefore started the 1980 season in the Notts first team and played in two championship and two List A games. Ironically, after a frustrating Notts career in his final first-team appearance he won the Gold Award scoring 93 in an 103-run Benson and Hedges Cup victory over Derbyshire at Trent Bridge on 10th May. Agonisingly he was run out seven short of his ton after skipper Clive Rice going for a two sent Nanan back and he just failed to make his ground. Nanan slipped a disc in his back whilst fielding during the Derbyshire innings and he was out injured for the following three months before appearing in the final four Second Eleven fixtures. He left the staff at the end of the season.

His career record for Notts is given below:

 

BATTING	M		I		NO		RUNS		HS		AV’GE		CT		100	50		30		0
First-Class	32		58		5		846		72		15.96		20		-	3		7		8
List A	32		30		2		472		93		16.85		8		-	2		1		4
BOWLING		OVERS		M		RUNS		W		AV’GE		ARPO		BPW			BB		5wI
First-Class		61		7		257		7		36.71		4.21		52.28			3-12		-

A stalwart in the Notts second team during his 10 seasons on the Trent Bridge staff, Nanan appeared in 114 Second Eleven championship matches scoring 6,642 runs @39.77 hitting 12 tons including an innings of 204 versus Leicestershire Seconds at Grace Road in 1978.

His nephew Rangy Nanan (1953-2016) was an all-rounder (right-hand bat and off-spinner) with Trinidad and Tobago who appeared in 94 First-Class games and 35 List A games, including one Test match for West Indies versus Pakistan at Faisalabad in December 1980.

Nirmal Nanan made his final first-class appearance with Rangy as a team-mate in January 1984 for South and Central Trinidad versus North and East Trinidad. In 35 first-class matches he scored 925 runs @15.67 and took nine wickets @35.77. He played his cricket for Preysal CC in National League Division One.

Nanan, a retired supervisor for Readymix Concrete in his native Trinidad died aged 70 years on 4th December 2021