Excellent Article Mr Giridhar! I was aware of how fate had treated Padmakalkar Shivalkar and Rajinder Goel but I had never heard of Hari Gidwani . Cricket is a cruel sport indeed and one error can change everything. I guess it is a sad fact of life in general and cricket only mirrors it. Hats off to all those gentlemen who were good enough to play this game at the highest level but although destiny felt otherwise they still kept pursuing it. Most of these cricketers came from modest backgrounds , gave this game everything they had in the prime of their youth and now they are struggling to make both ends meet. That is precisely the reason why parents discouraged children to make sports their career. But I guess that times have changed for the better as so much of cricket is being played throughout the year causing injuries to the so called stars and ICL that more and more players have the opportunity to display their wares to a much larger audience and earn a decent living as well.

A good one. You have missed a few, one V. Sivaramakrishnan from T.Nadu, Syed Shahid Akbar from Hyderabad, and the unluckiest of them all Abdul Jabbar from Tamil Nadu who was a classic lefthander, very good close in fielder and a fairly decent bowler, who was a very good runner between the wickets, who had contemporaries like Narasimha Rao from Hyderabad and V.Sudhakar Rao from Karnataka who were not even close to him with respect to class but were lucky enough or I could say had enough clout during selection meetings to get a nod. Now let me put a few names who I strongly believe should have never made it like WV.Raman, B.Arun, Bharat Reddy, Narendra Hirwani, Surinder Amarnath, Ajay Sharma, Sanjeev Sharma and a host of others. Coming back to TE whom we used to call in Short was too good but given a late chance and that too as an opener which he was not, obviously he failed, just to prolong Vengsarkar and GR Vishwanath's careers, same fate for TA Shekhar, I have played with both.

Who are the 4 left arm spinners - Goel, Shivalkar and ????

Really good article and one feels very moved when you hear about the dedication and patience that these cricketers had to fullfill their passion. Kudos on you to make us all aware of their great deeds and thus atleast make them proud of their playing days and career.

Great posting Sir, in remembrance to some great cricketer, however 2 very prominent comes to mind Nausheer Mehta & Abdul Jabbar and there are countless unfortunate ones. This also reminds the yeoman service ICL is doing by creating opportunities to play & earn to some young & such very talented crickets, more so to retired crickets & officials - who otherwise get neither support nor encouragemet from the selfish BCCI.

Ya it is very interesting to see this article we can add Mr.Abdul jabbar who is an utility cricketer and alot of other players are also there but one thing we have to remember is it is because of these kind of potentials the Ranji trophy were very competetive those days .Youcould see the public was hearing ball by ball commentary of Ranji and Deodar trophies and used to discuss in offices and schools we had been talking about the local matches .More over the international cricket is not crowded as now adays as these are killing the interests of the local matches . More over BCCI should make it a mandatory that the international players has to takepart in atleast 35% of the local matches to make the matches more intersting. If you see the latest drubbing of India by Srilanka was because of our players not playing locally and accustoming to our pitches.We can form a non Test playing team and can have 3or 4 day matches to compete with regular Indian side just like N.K.Salvetrophy

Good article Mr Giridhar. As you have mentioned there were more than a dozen players during 70s and 80s, who deserved to have Indian cap were not lucky enough to have the same because of various factors. TE was a stylist batsmen in his heydays and could not make use of his chance, as he batted as an opener, which normally he was not. Things would have been different, if he has given a chance in his usual middle order There were many players who have toiled hard with great success in the field could not get the recognition they deserve.Many like that were Rajagopal. P K Belliappa,Kalyanasundaram Abdul Jabbar from Madras, Mumtaz Hussain,Nausheer mehta from Hyd apart from Saxena, Goel, Shivalkar,Amarjeet, Gidwani,. Considering their contribution to their respective states, they deserve some type of recognition at least now.

yes,Giridhar-there have been many good ones who failed to make it and a few not very good ones who were lucky.TE was very good and excellent against pace and bounce when most others were good only on placid wickets.There was a truly great batsman earlier who played just two test matches-Deepak Shodhan from Maharashtra-he scored a century in his first test in 52-final test against Pakistan and went on the tour to West Indies with Hazare as Captain and played just one more test if I remember right.If he had been given his chances he may have been our greatest left handed batsman,
our own VV kumar played two tests-7 wkts in his debut and a fruitless test against Dexter's England in the first test at Bombay when they scored 500 plus on a featherbed-thts it-no more look in for Kumar-who was a much better bowler than Baloo Gupte who got the chances in the next few years.
but then,we can go on-some people toil in first class cricket by being in the wrong place / wrong time.-like Shivalkar

This article certainly rang a chord. As a young schoolboy in the mid seventies, I watched Gaekwad make his debut in the 74-75 test against West Indies and score a gutsy 36. At the same time, I do remember Hari Gidwani who scored runs for Bihar against Bengal all the time. Some of the other players who never made it despite promise include Gopal Bose (dropped for the MAdras test in 74-75 in favour of Solkar), Abhik Mitra (he got replaced by Azharuddin in the board match against England), Ambar Roy (just 4 tests) amongst others. I remember Ashwini Minna, who was the left arm spinner expected to take over from Bedi, Dhiraj Parsana (got a couple of games against WI in 78-79) et al. Were they unlucky ? Did they need to work harder ? (get the impression that Barun Barman certainly did). Anyhow, they will perhaps always be remembered as the also rans in Indian cricket

Hello there:
I want to know more about shahid akbar, i was a die hard fan of this batsmen when playing for hyderabad in 80s, where is he now and is he a coach or in business or something else.

Pandurang salgaokar, shivalkar and Rajinder Goel, Barun Burman deserved their chances to be in the Indian side, but there are only 11 vacancies in a team and fate and destiny plays a great role in selection. However,they will still be remembered and respected as other test/international players for their contribution to Indian cricket.