Rustom Sorabji "Rusi" Cooper (14 December 1922 – 31 July 2023) was an Indian

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 ...

er and lawyer.

Life and career

Cooper was educated in

Bombay Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial centre, financial capital and the list of cities i ...

Elphinstone High School Elphinstone High School was an English-medium school established in 1824 in Bombay, India in honour of Mountstuart Elphinstone, the then Governor of Bombay (1819–1827). In 1836 the Elphinstone Institute was founded, which started the Elph ...

and St Xavier's High School. A right-handed batsman, he made his first-class debut in the 1941–42 Bombay Pentangular Tournament, playing for the

Parsees The Parsis or Parsees () are a Zoroastrian ethnic group in the Indian subcontinent. They are descended from Persian refugees who migrated to the Indian subcontinent during and after the Arab-Islamic conquest of Iran in the 7th century, whe ...

. In the 1943–44 and 1944–45 seasons he represented

in the

Ranji Trophy The Ranji Trophy is a premier domestic first-class cricket championship played in India and organized annually by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The teams representing regional and state cricket associations participate. BCCI ...

. Selected to play for the Rest of India against Western India States in February 1944, Cooper went in to bat at number eight and made his maiden first-class century. He finished the season with 383 runs at an average of 76.60. He improved further in 1944–45, scoring 551 runs at an average of 91.83 with two centuries, one of them in the Ranji Trophy final against

Holkar The Holkars (pronunciation: �o(ː)ɭkəɾ were the ruling house of the Indore State of the Maratha Confederacy, and earlier held the rank of Subahdar under Peshwa Baji Rao I of the Maratha Empire. When the Maratha Confederacy began to we ...

to help Bombay win the title. Cooper moved to England in 1946 to study at the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

. He was signed by

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...

and played one game in the 1949 County Championship. The following season he got a longer run in the side but struggled to make an impact, averaging just 19.63 for the county. He was a champion batsman for

Hornsey Hornsey () is a district of north London, England, in the London Borough of Haringey. It is an inner-suburban, for the most part residential, area centred north of Charing Cross. It adjoins green spaces Queen's Wood to the west and Alexand ...

Cricket Club for several seasons, scoring 1,117 in 19 innings in 1953 at an average of 139.62, before returning to India with his English wife to practise as a barrister. A serious knee injury ended his playing career soon after his return to India. He practised in India as a maritime lawyer until he retired in his nineties. Cooper was the last surviving player from the Pentangular Tournament, which ceased after the 1945–46 season. He is also the longest-lived first-class player in the history of

. He turned 100 on 14 December 2022, and died in

South Mumbai South Mumbai, colloquially SoBo from South Bombay in Indian English, administratively the Mumbai City District, is the city centre and the southernmost precinct of Greater Bombay. It extends from Colaba to Mahalaxmi (Western side), Byculla ...

on 31 July 2023.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, Rusi 1922 births 2023 deaths Indian cricketers 20th-century Indian sportsmen Middlesex cricketers Indian expatriate cricketers in England Mumbai cricketers Parsis cricketers Alumni of the London School of Economics 20th-century Indian lawyers Cricketers from Mumbai Indian expatriates in the United Kingdom Indian men centenarians Members of Lincoln's Inn