{"id":320115,"date":"2020-02-19T06:49:43","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T06:49:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=320115"},"modified":"2020-02-19T06:49:44","modified_gmt":"2020-02-19T06:49:44","slug":"interesting-facts-about-cricketing-legend-vasant-raiji-who-turns-100","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/interesting-facts-about-cricketing-legend-vasant-raiji-who-turns-100\/","title":{"rendered":"Interesting facts about cricketing legend Vasant Raiji who turns 100"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u25c6 He was 8 when he first saw C.K. Nayudu bat.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25c6 Through the newspapers he followed Nayudu on the tour to England in 1932.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25c6 He bought his first copy of Wisden (1933) to see Nayudu\u2019s portrait in it. Nayudu was one of Wisden\u2019s Five Cricketers of the Year and the first Indian to feature in this prestigious list.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25c6 At the age of 13, he was all excited to watch the Indian players in action. The first Test on Indian soil \u2014 at the Bombay Gymkhana.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25c6 The seating capacity of the Bombay Gymkhana was around 35,000, and all the lower-end tickets were sold out. When it was his turn to buy a ticket after waiting in a long queue, he was told that there were none available in the price range he was looking for.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25c6 Dejected. The dream of watching the historic Test was over.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25c6 He returned home, only to be surprised by his father\u2019s gift. First row sofa tickets for the Test match for him and his brother, Madan.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25c6 Against Jardine\u2019s team he saw Nayudu captain India in the first ever Test match to be played on Indian soil.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25c6 His first-class cricket career was brief. He opened batting for Bombay (Mumbai) & Baroda in the Ranji Trophy, and was a reserve of the Hindus in the 1941 Pentangular Tournament.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25c6 His younger brother Madan was also a Bombay cricketer.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25c6 The highlights of his cricketing career was when he shared the field with C.K. Nayudu. He also\u00a0 got a chance to share the dressing room with Lala Amarnath, Vijay Merchant, and Vijay Hazare.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25c6 Not even in his wildest dream did he ever imagine that one day he would be playing cricket with the greatest cricketer India has ever produced.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25c6 Once his playing days were over, he donned a cap of different nature and built up a successful career as a Chartered Accountant.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25c6 However, cricket remained his first love and he continued his life-long affair by writing on the summer game and its characters. Even though he switched to chartered accountancy later, his love for cricket never faded. He wrote books on cricketers \u2014 Victor Trumper, CK Nayudu, LP Jai. And was also one of the founding members of the Jolly Cricket Club. Even though memory plays truant these days, Raiji still makes it a point to watch cricket on television.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25c6 At the end of his playing career, he turned to writing, and is the author of several works on early Indian cricket. He is an accountant by profession and has authored two books on the subject.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25c6 In 1989, he wrote a book on C.K. Nayudu \u2014 The Shahenshah of Indian Cricket. Apart from this he has 10 more books to his name.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25c6 On the death of B.K.Garudachar in February 2016 he became India\u2019s oldest first-class cricketer. He lives in Walkeshwara area of South Mumbai.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25c6 Cricketer, cricket writer and India\u2019s oldest-living first-class cricketer, Vasant Raiji has turned 100.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25c6 In the nine first-class fixtures that he featured in, Raiji has never scored a century, but he has in life. The oldest living Indian first-class cricketer, who was born on January 26, 1920, has turned 100 years old.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25c6 A resident of Walkeshwar in South Mumbai, Raiji, who was a batsman, played for Bombay and Baroda before joining his family business of chartered accountancy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25c6 Vasant Naisadrai Raiji born on January 26, 1920 in Baroda turned 100 on January 26, 2020. He celebrated his 100th birthday attended by Steve Waugh, Australian Captain from 1997-2004 and Sachin Tendulkar, regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in history of cricket and highest run scorer of all time in international cricket.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u25c6 After the meeting Sachin, tweeted \u201cWishing you a very special birth birthday, Shri Vasant Raiji. Steve & I had a wonderful time listening to some amazing cricket stories about the past. Thank you for passing on a treasure trove of memories about our beloved sport\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

letters@tehelka.com<\/span><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u25c6 He was 8 when he first saw C.K. Nayudu bat. \u25c6 Through the newspapers he followed Nayudu on the tour to England in 1932. \u25c6 He bought his first copy of Wisden (1933) to see Nayudu\u2019s portrait in it. Nayudu was one of Wisden\u2019s Five Cricketers of the Year and the first Indian to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":320126,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,2205],"tags":[12603],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320115"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320115"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":320128,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320115\/revisions\/320128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/320126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}