Venkatraman Ramnarayan (born 8 November 1947, in

Madras Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...

) is a former 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 current journalist, editor, translator and teacher.

Cricket career

An off-spin bowler, Ramnarayan left his native

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

and moved to

Hyderabad Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of , much ...

in 1971 to see if he could break into first-class cricket. In the final of the

Moin-ud-Dowlah Gold Cup Tournament The Moin-ud-Dowlah Gold Cup Tournament is an Indian cricket competition that has been held in Hyderabad (and sometimes nearby Secunderabad) since the 1930–31 season. From 1930–31 to 1937–38, and from 1962–63 to 1973–74, it had first-cla ...

in October 1975 he took 8 for 75 in the first innings for Hyderabad Cricket Association XI, who went on to win the match. A week later he made his first-class debut for

against

Kerala Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...

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 ...

, taking 6 for 33 in the first innings. A further week later, in the first innings against

Andhra Andhra Pradesh (ISO: , , AP) is a state on the east coast of southern India. It is the seventh-largest state and the tenth-most populous in the country. Telugu is the most widely spoken language in the state, as well as its official lang ...

, he took 6 for 41. In the quarter-final against

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 ...

he took 7 for 68 in the first innings, but Bombay won the match after trailing on the first innings, and went on to win the championship. With 28 wickets at an average of 17.32, 1975-76 was Ramnarayan's most successful season, but he continued to play for Hyderabad in the Ranji Trophy until 1979-80. He also played for South Zone in the

Duleep Trophy The Duleep Trophy, is a domestic First Class Cricket competition played in India. Named after former cricketer Duleepsinhji, the competition has largely been contested by teams representing various geographical zones of India since the first ed ...

in 1978-79 and in 1980-81 when, in his last first-class match, he took 4 for 144 off 51 overs in the first innings.

Journalism career

For some years Ramnarayan was a regular columnist for ''

Cricinfo ESPNcricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a Sports journalism, sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including Liveblogging, liveblogs and sco ...

'', and he edited '' Sruti'', a monthly performing arts magazine, from 2006 to 2018. He has taught writing at the

Asian College of Journalism, Chennai The Asian College of Journalism (ACJ) is a journalism school in Chennai, India, which offers postgraduate diploma courses in journalism. History Asian College of Journalism, Chennai was founded in Bangalore as the Asian School of Journalism, B ...

since 2006. He has also translated books from

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

into English. In 2015 he published a memoir of his first-class cricket career, ''Third Man: Recollections from a Life in Cricket''. He writes under the name "V. Ramnarayan".

Books by V. Ramnarayan

* ''Mosquitos and Other Jolly Rovers: The Story of Tamil Nadu Cricket'' (2002) * '' R.K. Swamy, His Life and Times: From Humble Village Origins to the Top Rungs of a Contemporary Profession'' (2007) * ''Third Man: Recollections from a Life in Cricket'' (2015)

References

External links

* *
V. Ramnarayan's articles for Cricinfo

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ramnarayan, Venkatraman 1947 births Living people Cricketers from Chennai Indian cricketers Hyderabad cricketers South Zone cricketers Savitribai Phule Pune University alumni Cricket writers Indian magazine editors Indian cricket commentators Journalists from Tamil Nadu Indian sportswriters 20th-century Indian biographers