Tiger Pataudi came into the Indian cricket scene like a fresh air and infused fresh life with his Royal touch. The junior Nawab had it all. Cricketing talent, leadership skills, looks and the blue blood. And he also had a fateline that spelt trouble, especially when it came to four-wheelers. A smashed windscreen in a car accident while at Oxford in 1960 meant the Nawab, then only just out of his teens, would spend the rest of his life with a destroyed right eye.

For a budding cricketer of those times such a major mishap would have spelt end of a career. But Tiger Pataudi was well-versed in survival skills.

Pataudi not only survived but went on to lead India in the West Indies when the then skipper on the tour of the Caribbean, Nai Contractor, was felled by a Charlie Griffith bouncer. Pataudi went on to become one of the most successful skippers the country had produced. And he had the most Test wins against his name until Sourav Ganguly beat that record recently.

Possessing a shrewd cricketing brain, Pataudi was the first leader to deploy the three-pronged spin attack that later became a legend. When nations were destroying the opposition batsmen with their battery of pace bowlers, Pataudi introduced the quartet of spinners Bishan Singh Bedi, EAS Prasanna, B S Chandrasekhar and S Venkataraghavan to bemuse and surprise the opposition.

Pataudi had the honour of leading India to its first-ever overseas victory against New Zealand and a draw against the mighty Australians, who were playing under Bobby Simpson.

Finally, it was the casting vote of the then chairman of selection committee, Vijay Merchant that saw the ouster of Pataudi as skipper and the emergence of Ajit Wadekar, who in later years proved to be one of the luckiest captains in Indian cricket.

After he retired from cricket, Pataudi almost kept away from the game and was never seen or heard even on cricket fields. Barring a ribbon-cutting cricket academy function, here and there. He was also the president of the Indian Cricket Players Association which hardly ever functioned. He could have made a better national selector or a coach but he always stayed away from the BCCI politics.

He shunned limelight and preferred to stay aloof. But now with the black buck hunting controversy, Pataudi has been reluctantly pushed into the limelight.

Film star Salman Khan had earlier been accused of hunting rare species and is still facing court cases.

At 65 years, Tiger Pataudi would have preferred a peaceful life than getting entangled in court cases for killing animals, as a pastime.