A wristy strokeplayer, Rusi Modi combined elegance with a voracious appetite for runs. Tall and slim, he was the first batsman to score 1000 runs in a season in the Ranji Trophy and his feat of getting 1008 runs (201.00) in 1944-45 remained unsurpassed till WV Raman amassed 1018 runs, 44 years later. In 1943-44 Modi scored a record 215 for Parsees against Europeans in the Bombay Pentangular. He remains the only batsman to score five successive hundreds in the Ranji Trophy. He followed this remarkable run with a brilliant 203 not out in the third and final `Test' against the Australian Services team at Madras in 1945-46. Amid high expectations, Modi toured England in 1946 and in that wet summer performed commendably getting 1196 runs (37.37). He played with reasonable success in all three Tests. He missed the tour of Australia in 1947-48 due to ill health but touched superb form in the series against West Indies the following season, scoring 560 runs, which remained the Indian record until Vijay Manjrekar surpassed it in 1961-62. This run included his only century in Tests, 112 at Bombay. Thereafter his career was anti climactic for though he played against the two Commonwealth teams and once each against England in 1951-52 and against Pakistan the following season, he was never again the commanding figure at the crease. He however continued to play with much success for Bombay and in the Ranji Trophy he scored 2696 runs (81.69) with ten hundreds. In a two decade long first-class career he scored 7509 runs (53.63) with 20 centuries. He died following a fall at the Brabourne stadium.
Partab Ramchand