da doce： If he is still alive – and this is a very big if – then CotaRamaswami, who was born on this day in 1896, will easily be,at 104, the oldest living Test cricketer
Partab Ramchand29-Oct-2008If he is still alive – and this is a very big if – then CotaRamaswami, who was born on this day in 1896, will easily be,at 104, the oldest living Test cricketer. The doubt remainsbecause he has not been heard of or seen since he walked out ofhis house in Chennai one day in 1985, at the age of 89. A littleover a year before that, I had interviewed him for the sportsmagazine I then represented. He spoke fairly clearly, consideringhis age and except for a hearing aid did not seem to have anyhealth problems. He remembered quite a few things about hisplaying days and could recall a lot about when he was manager ofthe first Indian team to the West Indies in 1953 and when he wasa national selector in the late fifties. On occasions, he falteredwhile trying to remember a person or a particular detail of anevent and had to be prodded. But he was standing tall and erectas I took leave of him and there was certainly no indication ofany kind of problem which would force him to just walk out ofthe house not long after that interview took place.Since that day, some 15 years ago, there has been no word abouthim though his family members tried frantically to find him andsent out police search parties. The unexpected happening wascertainly unfortunate for Ramaswami was quite a character. Talland sturdily built, his appearance was almost magnetic, asbefitting the son of Buchi Babu Naidu, a pioneer of the gamein Madras in the early years of the 20th century. Of coursehis claim to fame on his own was as one of the few double internationals in sport. In the 1920s he had represented Indiain the Davis Cup while studying in England and in 1936 he wasselected to tour England with the Indian cricket team.In his autobiography, `Ramblings of a games addict’ Ramaswamiclaimed modestly that he was convinced he had been chosen `forreasons other than cricket’ as he had become `bulky and slow.’But his performance on the tour suggested otherwise. For not onlydid he score 737 runs (average 30.70) in first class matches healso topped the Test averages, ahead of contemporaries like CKNayudu, Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali. He made his Test debut inthe second Test at Old Trafford at the age of 40 years, 37 years, making him the second oldest Indian cricketer to play in hisfirst Test. But he scored 40 and 60, knocks which helped Indiato draw the Test. This was of course the game in which Merchantand Mushtaq shared their famous first wicket stand of 203 runs.With two more valuable contributions of 29 and 41 not out in thefinal Test at the Oval, Ramaswami finished with 170 runs at theaverage of 56.66. That however remained the extent of his Testcareer but he remained a stalwart for Madras for many more years.In a first class career spanning 25 years, the left handedRamaswami made 2261 runs (28.26) at a time when opportunities werevery limited. A free stroking batsman with a particularlypowerful drive on both sides of the wicket, Ramaswami played forthe Hindus in the Bombay Quadrangular and Pentangular tournaments.In later years, Ramaswami maintained his association with the gameby managing the team to the West Indies in 1953. It proved to beone of the most popular sides to visit the Caribbean. In the late fifties, Ramaswami became a national selector but this tenure wasnot a very happy one and culminated in the fiasco of the 1958-59series against West Indies, when four captains led India in fiveTests and there was much bickering over the team selection and thepoor performance of the home side. He continued to be a popular cricketer in Madras cricket circles till well into his 80s and wasan engaging conversationalist. Since his death has never beenconfirmed, cricket annuals have for the last decade or sogenerally put against his details “missing since 1985, presumed dead.” But just in case he is alive…