Late Indian cricketer A.G. Kripal Singh is a popular name in the annals of Chennai’s cricketing history. His ancestors migrated to erstwhile Madras from Amritsar back in the 19th century and have since gone on to cement their place among the city’s cricketing elites. A name oft-forgotten in the family’s fabled history is that of his wife Esmie Kripal Singh.
Esmie, along with others like Comala Gopinath, wife of former India cricketer C.D. Gopinath, late politician Visalakshi Nedunchezhiyan and J.B. Shah, former India captain Sudha Shah’s father, was one of the founding members and vice-president of the Tamil Nadu Women’s Cricket Association (TNWCA) in 1973. Esmie passed away on May 29, after battling early onset of Alzheimer’s, aged 88.
“My mother’s interest in the sport probably came about after she married dad. She would attend every game religiously and kept tabs on what was happening in the sport thereafter. She never played cricket though,” her son Arjan Kripal Singh, a former First-Class cricketer and BCCI match referee, remembers.
