Venkatraman Ramnarayan

An off spinner good enough to be among the Indian probables for the tour of Australia in 1977-78, V Ramnarayan played for many years with distinction for Hyderabad in the Ranji Trophy. One of the main wicket-takers for the state in the 70s, he was the most successful Hyderabad bowler with my 86 wickets in five seasons. Ramnarayan was an integral part of the powerful Hyderabad team of the era which included such well known figures like ML Jaisimha, MAK Pataudi, Abbas Ali Baig, Abid Ali, K Jayantilal, Naushir Mehta, Mumtaz Hussain, P Krishnamurthy, MV Narasimha Rao, Shivlal Yadav and Arshad Ayub. He played for Rest of India against Bombay in 1976-77 and also represented South Zone in the Duleep Trophy. Hailing from a journalistic family, Ramnarayan fitted in naturally into a writing career once his playing days were over and has contributed a number of incisive articles on various aspects of cricket to numerous publications. (Partab Ramchand)