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[Blwe_torch]

First post...
Ross Edwards

"Ross Edwards was a dependable middle-order batsman and a brilliant cover fielder (although he started as a wicketkeeper) who improved with age and was 29 when he was picked for his first overseas tour , to England in 1972. In his second Test at Nottingham he opened the innings in an emergency and hammered an unbeaten 170. Australia might have thought they had found a new opener, a pair in the next Test resulted in Edwards returning to his more familiar middle-order role. After another solid home series against Pakistan, he toured West Indies as the reserve wicketkeeper, but a poor series meant he was out of the side until recalled against England in 1974-75, hitting his second hundred at Perth. He toured England in 1975, top-scoring with 58 in the World Cup final defeat by West Indies, and in the Tests series which followed he made 99 in a crisis at Lord's, but didn't play for Australia again after that series. In 1977 he joined World Series Cricket, ending his career in 1979-80. An accountant by trade, he moved to England where he continues to play club cricket."
Martin Williamson

For his career stats..plz refer to: http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/australia/content/player/5124.html

[jks61]

Let me add some unknown cricketer from the Indian side.
This is about Ram Narayan (V.RamNarayan), who used to play for Hyderbad as their off spinner. I am adding this piece because, I have seen Ram bowl at his best form in Ranji and felt that he had all the tools required for a top class off spinner - loop, flight, guile, vicious turn, bounce and the wrong one too. Most of all, Ram has a tremendous knowledge of the game and to this day,  it comes out in his comments. We have exchanged the odd email over the years and Ram continues to be still attached to everything around cricket.
Ram, unfortunately played around the same time as Venkat and Prasanna and hence never got the chance to don the national colors but my guess is, he was almost as good as Venkat, if not equal to that of Prasanna in wicket taking ability.
Ram also is the brother of V.Sivaramakrishnan (whose son Vidyut now opens for TN), the former TN opening batsman, who had a much more successful Ranji career.
Ram has a nice sense of humor and his chronicles of Madras cricket produces non stop laughter in his column - curd rice in the chennai online site.
Here is an excerpt from one such story -
==============================
Chennai cricket has its own lingo, a laidback approach to it seldom seen elsewhere, and a strong tendency among its players to see the funny side of most situations, cricketing or otherwise, connected with the game. If we want to understand Chennai cricket, we must first learn some of its unique technical terms. Here are some samples:
Danda out: A bad decision by the umpire. This term is usually employed by a batsman who has failed in a match, when a friend asks him how many runs he has scored.
Poi bowling: The hard-to-please Chennaiite's description of the stuff dished out by most spin bowlers. Poi of course means a lie or falsehood, and this term denotes lack of spin or fictitious spin. A variation is poi bowler.
Grease: Archaic local pronunciation of "crease". Means the crease.
Sign match: A match at the end of which the losing captain signs in acknowledgement of his team's defeat. Strictly street corner or neighbourhood cricket formality. A further value addition is provided by the umpire(s) affixing his/ their signatures.
Bye-runner: A runner who runs for an injured batsman, usually refused permission by the fielding captain.
Azhukku batsman: Literally "dirt(y)" batsman; someone your bowlers don't know how to dismiss; usually a dour, defensive one.
Arai kozhi: A long hop.
Tyte (pronounced tie-thay): A bowler who runs in like Tyson and bowls like Gupte; a bowler who has a long and impressive run-up but doesn't achieve any appreciable pace.
Manga: Literally means mango, a colourful term for chucking or throwing by a bowler. "Manga adikkaranda", is the way a suspect action is described meaning the bowler throws stones to bring down mangoes.
Set-up: A fixed match.
Gada Munuswami: A slogger or wild hitter.
Pazham: A poor fielder, especially a poor catcher.
Local six: A mistimed skier, which ends in a catch within single-saving distance.
Dhanakoti sixer: Same as above, made famous by a stonewaller called Dhanakoti.
Mookku mele (literally, on top of your nose): Same as above.
Ganapati uruttal: A ball that shoots all along the ground, named after S Ganapati who played for St. Bede's School and Reserve Bank of India.
Gaaji: Hogging the strike.
KPP or kuri pathu podu or kala pathu podu: Bowl a sandshoe crusher
Paper score: Getting enough runs or wickets to have your name published in the newspaper (Used to be 25 runs or three wickets, now 40 runs in The Hindu)
Goal: To misfield and let the ball go between your legs.
Katthi (knife): A crossbatted shot.
Rude bowling: Fast bowling.
Feed bowling: Same as above.(Feed is a mispronunciation of speed).

[Blwe_torch]

Can you post something on V V Kumar?

[jks61]

Another tail piece. Ram comes from the same PS High school, Mylapore as that of Venkat and perhaps shifted to Hyderabad since he did not see much chance of making the TN Ranji team. Ram was employed by SBI (whose side in those days, resembled that of Indian team - GRV included) and later Andhra Bank.
Here is Ram's profile from crickinfo http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/india/content/player/33449.html
Profile

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, 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)

[Blwe_torch]

Thats a neat compilation!...

[jks61]

Can you post something on V V Kumar?

Sure.. I have seen Kumar bowl in 100s of matches (Ranji, 1st division...) maybe for a decade and felt that here is the most graceful spectacle in cricket - he was an artist, the very definition of leg spin bowling.  He played cricket at the wrong time and with BS Chandrasekhar, the peerless - strike bowler emerging, Kumar was finished but he was still a spectacle to watch in MA Chidambaram stadium. In those years, TN team hardly had any batting and whatever they won was due to VV and Venkat.
http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/india/content/player/30173.html
More than what I can say on VV- here is what Ram Narayan has to say on KUMAR..from CURD RICE CRICKET

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
V V Kumar is one of the finest spinners India has produced. In the sixties and seventies, he was the best leg spinner in the land after Subhash Gupte; he was not far behind that great exponent of wrist spin, rated even higher than Shane Warne by Sir Garfield Sobers.
Kumar made his mark first in collegiate cricket in the Madras of the late fifties. Making rapid strides in the Ranji Trophy, he was soon selected to tour Pakistan as a member of the Indian Starlets, a team full of young Test prospects. He was one of the successes of the tour and so was another Madras player-left hand batsman A G Milkha Singh.
'VV' took 5 wickets in the first innings of his all-too-brief Test career, against Pakistan at Delhi's Ferozshah Kotla. He dismissed seven batsmen in all in that match, but his next Test, against Ted Dexter's Englishmen at The Brabourne Stadium, Bombay, was a disaster.
That, incredibly, was the last Test appearance 'VV'ever made, though he dominated the Ranji Trophy for two decades more, taking over 400 wickets in the championship, the first bowler to do so. With Venkataraghavan, he formed a deadly combination for Tamil Nadu, snaring several top class batsmen with his immaculate length, subtle variations and ruthless accuracy. A whole generation of cricket lovers thought nothing of travelling miles to watch him bowl.
'VV'was a great bowler, but he was also one of cricket's characters. A keen sense of humour and a slightly eccentric bent of mind made for unusual responses on his part to a variety of situations both on and off the field. He was often known to disagree with the commonly expressed view on any given topic, and even if you didn't agree with him, you could not dispute the originality of his stance.
In the second half of his career, 'VV' was quite a grey eminence in cricketing circles, but he still continued to be a champion lateral thinker. There came a stage when he was senior not only to fellow players but also to umpires and administrators. And he sometimes took liberties with them no other player would dare to.
It was the first over after lunch in a crucial TNCA league match in the seventies. With his very first ball, VV rapped the batsman on the pads and appealed loudly. To his amazement, he found that the umpire had fallen asleep standing, no doubt as a result of his exertions the previous night as a volunteer giving the finishing touches to preparations at Chepauk for the Test match barely a couple of days away.
Desperate for wickets, 'VV' whose appeal had startled the umpire awake, admonished him sternly: "Didn't I tell you not to stuff yourself with curdrice during lunch?" The poor umpire was as embarrassed as he was angry, but chose to ignore the bowler's impertinence.
A couple of balls later, 'VV' hit the batsman on the pads again. This time, he rephrased his appeal in a rather novel fashion. "Ithu ennayya? (What about this one, I say?) he asked with utmost casualness in Tamil. The poor batsman had no chance after that, as the umpire's finger shot up like a rocket.

[Blwe_torch]

Superb!

[poondu]

Great thread and Great Info. Good to know about these cricketers.Thanks jks and blwe

[Blwe_torch]

Welcome Poondu!...we will keep updating...and you too can join in.

[DKG]

Dear All

THIS IS MAKING LIFE WONDERFUL

BRILLIANT STUFF

[Blwe_torch]

Thank you very much DKG...thanx for the encouragement.

[Aloo Kashmiri Ul Haq]

Let me add some unknown cricketer from the Indian side.
This is about Ram Narayan (V.RamNarayan), who used to play for Hyderbad as their off spinner. I am adding this piece because, I have seen Ram bowl at his best form in Ranji and felt that he had all the tools required for a top class off spinner - loop, flight, guile, vicious turn, bounce and the wrong one too. Most of all, Ram has a tremendous knowledge of the game and to this day,  it comes out in his comments. We have exchanged the odd email over the years and Ram continues to be still attached to everything around cricket.
Ram, unfortunately played around the same time as Venkat and Prasanna and hence never got the chance to don the national colors but my guess is, he was almost as good as Venkat, if not equal to that of Prasanna in wicket taking ability.
Ram also is the brother of V.Sivaramakrishnan (whose son Vidyut now opens for TN), the former TN opening batsman, who had a much more successful Ranji career.
Ram has a nice sense of humor and his chronicles of Madras cricket produces non stop laughter in his column - curd rice in the chennai online site.
Here is an excerpt from one such story -
==============================
Chennai cricket has its own lingo, a laidback approach to it seldom seen elsewhere, and a strong tendency among its players to see the funny side of most situations, cricketing or otherwise, connected with the game. If we want to understand Chennai cricket, we must first learn some of its unique technical terms. Here are some samples:
Danda out: A bad decision by the umpire. This term is usually employed by a batsman who has failed in a match, when a friend asks him how many runs he has scored.
Poi bowling: The hard-to-please Chennaiite's description of the stuff dished out by most spin bowlers. Poi of course means a lie or falsehood, and this term denotes lack of spin or fictitious spin. A variation is poi bowler.
Grease: Archaic local pronunciation of "crease". Means the crease.
Sign match: A match at the end of which the losing captain signs in acknowledgement of his team's defeat. Strictly street corner or neighbourhood cricket formality. A further value addition is provided by the umpire(s) affixing his/ their signatures.
Bye-runner: A runner who runs for an injured batsman, usually refused permission by the fielding captain.
Azhukku batsman: Literally "dirt(y)" batsman; someone your bowlers don't know how to dismiss; usually a dour, defensive one.
Arai kozhi: A long hop.
Tyte (pronounced tie-thay): A bowler who runs in like Tyson and bowls like Gupte; a bowler who has a long and impressive run-up but doesn't achieve any appreciable pace.
Manga: Literally means mango, a colourful term for chucking or throwing by a bowler. "Manga adikkaranda", is the way a suspect action is described meaning the bowler throws stones to bring down mangoes.
Set-up: A fixed match.
Gada Munuswami: A slogger or wild hitter.
Pazham: A poor fielder, especially a poor catcher.
Local six: A mistimed skier, which ends in a catch within single-saving distance.
Dhanakoti sixer: Same as above, made famous by a stonewaller called Dhanakoti.
Mookku mele (literally, on top of your nose): Same as above.
Ganapati uruttal: A ball that shoots all along the ground, named after S Ganapati who played for St. Bede's School and Reserve Bank of India.
Gaaji: Hogging the strike.
KPP or kuri pathu podu or kala pathu podu: Bowl a sandshoe crusher
Paper score: Getting enough runs or wickets to have your name published in the newspaper (Used to be 25 runs or three wickets, now 40 runs in The Hindu)
Goal: To misfield and let the ball go between your legs.
Katthi (knife): A crossbatted shot.
Rude bowling: Fast bowling.
Feed bowling: Same as above.(Feed is a mispronunciation of speed).

ahaa i remember using the term "gaaji" so very well.