Former cricketer V Ramnarayan launches memoir

Cricketer-turned-author V Ramnarayan launched his book ‘Third Man’ at Akshara Book Store in Jubilee Hills recently. The former first class cricketer’s colleagues and friends were in attendance for an evening of nostalgia. He caught up with his buddies and recalled his days as a Ranji player.

“I began penning it and wrote as many as 30 pages in a ruled book when life interrupted it by a couple of decades. Even as it lay forgotten, Krishna Shastri, an author himself and a good friend, prompted me to pick up where I’d left off. He kept pushing me to finish the book and when I found a publisher I decided to do so,” says Ramnarayan. Incidentally, when the author did begin writing his book several years after his first attempt, he realised that his writing was almost identical to his first draft.

Revelling in the challenge of his position as Third Man, Ramnarayan was an integral part of many Hyderabad victories in the Ranji Trophy, performing alongside names like Abbas Ali Baig, Abid Ali, ML Jaisimha and MAK Pataudi. He also had the opportunity to bowl to stalwarts of Indian cricket like GR Vishwanath, Ashok Mankad, Brijesh Patel and the Amarnath brothers and rub shoulders with the likes of VV Kumar, BishanBedi, Salim Durrani and Hanumant Singh in the vibrant first class scene of a largely amateur era.

The stories featured in this fine book are recollections of a life spent playing and observing cricket. They are stories of a time when sheer love for the game drove people to cricket grounds. At a time when rampant commercialisation has overtaken the game, these stories bring back memories of a simpler time. Nostalgic and insightful, Third Man is a welcome addition to cricketing lore contributed by a former cricketer who, as a journalist today, straddles the worlds of sports and arts.