New Delhi, Nov 14 (IANS) Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday paid tributes to Independent India's first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru on his birth anniversary and recalled his fondness for cricket amid the ongoing World Cup tournament.

Pt. Nehru played a cricket match to raise funds for flood relief in different states and later served as the auctioneer selling off cricket bats and score books presented to him in November 1948 by the West Indies and Indian cricket teams, he recalled.

Paying tributes to Nehru, the Congress general secretary said, "Today is the 134th birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru, the ‘gentle colossus’ who shaped 20th century India so very decisively."

Taking a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Jairam Ramesh said: "His legacy lives on and he continues to resonate in numerous ways, even as the self-styled Vishwaguru and his drum-beaters do their worst to deny his monumental contributions and distort, damage, denigrate, demean and defame him."

Referring to the ongoing world cup tournament in India, where the host has already qualified for the semi finals on November 15, he said, "Today, as the nation awaits India's victory in the cricket World Cup final five days hence, let us recall Nehru the cricketer. On September 12th and 13th, 1953 the Prime Minister’s XI played a two-day match against the Vice President’s XI in New Delhi to raise funds for flood relief in different states. Nehru was on the field throughout. He bowled, fielded and batted and the newspaper The Hindu had a lovely account of this match."

"Nehru found time to speak on the radio for a few minutes while the game was on. Later, he served as the auctioneer selling off cricket bats and score books presented to him in November 1948 by the West Indies and Indian cricket teams that had just played a test match in Delhi then, and also by the Commonwealth and Indian cricket teams that had played a test match in February 1951 in Kanpur," the Congress leader said.

"Fortunately, what he said on both occasions in Hindi was captured for posterity. They make for wonderful reading even today," Ramesh said while attaching the news reports.

Earlier in the day, the Prime Minister paid tributes to Nehru on his 134th birth anniversary.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, CPP chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, K.C Venugopal, Manickam Tagore and others paid tribute to Nehru.