Hazare was born in Sangli, in the then Bombay Presidency of British India in 1915, one of eight children of a school teacher. Primarily a right-hand batsman, Hazare was also a right-hand medium-pace bowler. A "shy, retiring" man, it was widely thought that he was not a natural captain and that his batting suffered as a result. His rival, Vijay Merchant said that the captaincy prevented Hazare from becoming India's finest batsman: "It was one of the tragedies of cricket." Even so, Hazare's Test record is very respectable: he amassed 2,192 runs in 30 Test matches with a batting average of 47.65. His first-class record is even more impressive, with a batting average of 58.38 for his 18,740 runs. He scored 60 first-class centuries, the fourth highest for an Indian player and 10 first-class double centuries. His bowling record was more modest, and he took 595 first-class wickets at a bowling average of 24.61. On the Indian domestic circuit, Hazare played for the Maharashtra, Central India and Baroda teams. Some of his notable achievements include:
*the first, his highest score, was 316 not out for Maharashtra against Poona in 1939–40
*the second was 309 out of 387 for The Rest against The Hindus at Bombay in 1943–44. Despite his innings, The Rest lost the match by an innings. It included a partnership of 300 with his brother, Vivek Hazare. Vijay scored 266 of the 300 runs while Vivek contributed 21. Hazare scored 79.84% of his team's score, then a world record, and it is the second highest individual score in a losing cause. The Rest's total is the smallest completed innings to contain a triple century.
First Indian to score a century in each innings of a Test match
Against England at Kanpur in 1951–52, Hazare also became the first Indian batsman to score a pair
First Indian player to score a century in three successive Test matches
First Indian player to make fifty centuries in his first class career
In retirement, he was for a short while an Indian Test cricket selector. He has been honoured with a trophy in his name, the Vijay Hazare Trophy, a zonal-cricket tournament in India. He died in December 2004 following prolonged illness caused by intestinal cancer. He and Jasu Patel were the first cricketers to be honoured with the Padma Shri.
