Registered with the Registrar of Newspapers for India under R.N.I 53640/91
Vol. XXXIV No. 17, December 16-31, 2024
When W.V. Raman broke a 44-year old record
-- by Partab Ramchand
In 1944-45 Rusi Modi amassed 1,008 runs during the Ranji Trophy season while playing for Bombay. It was a stupendous feat for he played only five matches. This not only set a new record for the premier national competition but also turned out to be `Mission Impossible’ for the batsmen who followed. Over the next 43 years even with the proliferation of matches no other batsmen came close to it though several breached the 800-run mark. Finally in 1988-89 Madras-born W.V. Raman did the impossible – he surpassed Modi’s long standing record.
W.V. Raman. Picture courtesy: The Hindu.A left-handed batsman and a left arm spin bowler the tall and talented Raman first attracted notice with his bowling skills after making his Ranji Trophy debut as a 17-year-old in the 1982-83 season. In fact he earned the distinction of dismissing the great Viv Richards not once but twice. The first time was in 1983-84 while playing for the Indian Under-22 side against the touring West Indians. Raman bowled him for one and four years later he got rid of the great man for six when he came over as captain of the next touring West Indian squad while playing for the Board President’s XI.
All this time Raman’s batting too was improving and a notable feat came about in 1986-87 when he and Bharat Arun added 221 runs for the seventh wicket in the Duleep trophy final against West Zone to help South Zone overhaul the opponents’ imposing first innings total of 516. Arun got 149 and Raman 95 and by this time he was in the selectors’ books for the Test series against West Indies the following season. Sure enough he made his debut in his home town and straightaway showed his class getting an elegant 83 at No 3 against the likes of Courtney Walsh, Patrick Patterson and Winston Davis. By the end of the season he was also a member of the Indian ODI squad.
And so to the 1988-89 season which saw Raman break the famous 44-year- old record of Modi. Before playing the Ranji trophy games he figured in the first Test against New Zealand but was out to Richard Hadlee for three. Dropped for the rest of the series he now concentrated on trying to make it another successful outing for Tamil Nadu, the side having regained the Ranji Trophy the previous season after 33 years.
Raman started modestly enough and there were no indications that he was to rewrite the record books by the end of the season. In the first game against Hyderabad he had scores of 45 and 19 not out. He followed this up with 90 against Kerala and 41 against Andhra. He then scored 36 against Karnataka. In four games his tally was 231 but the floodgates really burst wide open in the final South zone league match against Goa. TN led off with a total of 860 for six which was boosted to 912 with 52 penalty runs thanks to Goa bowling 13 overs short in the stipulated time according to the rules prevalent then. It was the joint highest total in Ranji Trophy history and leading the run-riot was Raman with 313 the highest score by a TN batsman in the national competition and the first triple centurion. L. Sivaramakrishnan the TN captain kept the innings going till midway through the third day even though it was a three-day game and Raman and Arjan Kripal Singh made the most of this opportunity, the latter remaining unbeaten with 302 at the declaration. The two added 356 runs for the sixth wicket and it provided the only instance in first class cricket of two players getting triple hundreds in the same innings. Raman batted 575 minutes, faced 411 balls and hit 31 fours while Arjan batted 560 minutes, faced 400 balls and hit 20 fours.
Raman’s aggregate for the season had now leapt to 544. He was confidence personified as he approached the quarterfinal against Maharashtra and stroked his way to an unbeaten 200 in the first innings following it up with 36 the second time around. His run tally was 780, the highest by a TN batsman in a season.
With TN winning by 39 runs he had a maximum of two matches left but first up was the semifinal against Bengal at the Eden Gardens. The home team led off with 596 for eight declared but as soon as Raman went in to bat on the third morning this total seemed anything but formidable. In his most commanding display yet he did pretty much what he liked with the bowling. He cut, drove, pulled and hooked his way to 100 and then 200.
He added 100 runs with Diwakar Vasu (46) for the second wicket and was then associated in a third wicket partnership of 253 runs with P.C. Prakash (75). There was just no way he could be dismissed and by end of the third day TN were 351 for two with Raman on 231. By this time he had gone past 1,000 runs for the season and broken Modi’s record.
TN were favourites going into the final day. They required 246 runs to overhaul Bengal’s first innings total but they had eight wickets intact and Raman was batting like he would never get out. However his dismissal for 238 was a devastating blow from which TN never really recovered and they were bowled out for 535. It was Bengal not TN in the Ranji Trophy final but the talking point in cricketing circles all over the country was Raman’s rare feat of surpassing a long standing record.
He ended the season with 1,018 runs at an average of 145.42 culminating in a blaze of glory with scores of 313, 200 not out and 238 in successive matches.
