Benjamin Frank (1919 – 12 August 1986) was an Indian

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er. He played

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

for

Assam Assam (, , ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...

Bengal Bengal ( ) is a Historical geography, historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the Eastern South Asia, eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Benga ...

and

Mysore Mysore ( ), officially Mysuru (), is a city in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. It is the headquarters of Mysore district and Mysore division. As the traditional seat of the Wadiyar dynasty, the city functioned as the capital of the ...

. He played for Bengal in the

1952–53 Ranji Trophy The 1952–53 Ranji Trophy was the 19th season of the Ranji Trophy. Holkar won the title defeating Bengal in the final. Highlights * Kerala Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. ...

. Frank made his first-class debut playing in the Bombay Pentangular in the 1940s. He went on to play for Mysore state, before joining the Mohun Bagan Club in

Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...

. Here he played with success against touring teams becoming the first Indian player to score a century against the

West Indian A West Indian is a native or inhabitant of the West Indies (the Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago). According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED''), the term ''West Indian'' in 1597 described the indigenous inhabitants of the West In ...

side in 1948. A few years later he scored 93 against the visiting

Pakistanis Pakistanis (, ) are the citizens and nationals of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Pakistan is the fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the second-largest Muslim population as of 2023. As much as ...

. Cricket writer Ramachandra Guha writes that he would have made the national side had he not come from an underprivileged background. In 1959, Benjamin Frank recommended that Kenneth Powell, a bowler for Kolar Gold Fields, switch to running.

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* 1919 births 1986 deaths Indian cricketers 20th-century Indian sportsmen Assam cricketers Bengal cricketers Karnataka cricketers Cricketers from Bengaluru Anglo-Indian people {{India-cricket-bio-1910s-stub

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