The man who rolled Tendulkar over

Some questions in cricket are subjective, allowing for perfectly good arguments both sides, such as whether Bradman’s Invincibles were a greater team than Steve Waugh's side, or whether Sunil Gavaskar possessed a better defensive technique than Geoffrey Boycott. In such cases the pleasure lies in the give-and-take of conversation, in the marshalling of evidence and the subtlety of the details one summons – it’s a way of keeping one’s cricket brain in good nick.

And even when some perfectly absurd point of view turns up, such as the recent case made by least three wise men of Indian cricket that Sourav Ganguly was not just a batsman but a batting allrounder and would add balance to the Test side with his seamers, the good cricket fan mops up the coffee he has spilt in surprise at the breakfast table, and, swallowing his initial derision, begins to think how one might best argue this case. (eg. Not only did our good Dada take a number of wickets in this year’s Duleep Trophy, but he also topped the bowling averages for India in his debut series in 1996; bowled a corker of an opening spell when given the new ball against Australia at Kolkata in 1998, not so long ago; and only last year beat and bowled the tiresomely immovable Jacques Kallis in a Test match, again in Kolkata.)

So here’s another question for you to mull over: of the hundreds of bowlers to have dismissed Sachin Tendulkar in his sixteen seasons of international cricket, who can have been the least distinguished? To my mind the answer is Ujesh Ranchod, a bowler of Indian origin who came with the touring Zimbabwean party of 1993. One doesn’t know on what basis Ranchod was selected, but when he was named in the eleven for the only Test of the series it turned out he was making not only his Test but apparently also his first-class debut.

Ranchod was a purveyor of the most gentle, benevolent offspin; what shape and curve he possessed had less to do with his bowling than his frame (although only 23, he was rather portly). He made a charming contrast bowling in tandem with Zimbabwe’s senior spinner, the gaunt, shrewd veteran John Traicos, all of 45 - no older man has played Test cricket since, or probably ever will. While Traicos looked every bit as capable as when he made his debut for South Africa in 1970, Ranchod’s was the sort of bowling that made even the viewer want to charge down the pitch and hit him for six. Yet some lucky star stone over his head that day, and Tendulkar, perhaps overly respectful given that it was the first day of the Test, chipped him in the air and was caught by Traicos.

It was to be Ranchod’s only Test match, and the wicket of Tendulkar his only Test wicket.