Pananmal Hotchand Punjabi (20 September 1921 – 4 October 2011) was an Indian

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er who played in five

Test matches Test match in some sports refers to a sporting contest between national representative teams and may refer to: * Test cricket * Test match (indoor cricket) * Test match (rugby union) * Test match (rugby league) * Test match (association football) ...

in 1955. A right-handed opening batsman, Punjabi had a long but somewhat intermittent

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 one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

career, starting with two matches for

Sind Sindh (; ; ur, , ; historically romanized as Sind) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the southeastern region of the country, Sindh is the third-largest province of Pakistan by land area and the second-largest province ...

before partition and resuming more regularly from 1951 for

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

. In the 1953–54 season, he scored three centuries in three matches and was then picked for the tour to Pakistan the following season, 1954–55. He opened the batting in all five Tests with

Pankaj Roy Pankaj Roy (; 31 May 1928 – 4 February 2001) was an Indian cricketer and former national cricket team captain. He was right-handed opening batsman, he is best known for establishing the world record opening partnership of 413 runs, together ...

, and scored 164 runs, the fourth highest aggregate for the team. But his highest was only 33 and the series consisted largely of defensive cricket with all Tests drawn, the first time this had happened in a five-match series. He played on in Indian domestic cricket until 1959–60, scoring his highest score, an undefeated 224, in his penultimate game, but was never selected again for Test cricket. Despite his name, Punjabi came from

Karachi Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former cap ...

, spoke Sindhi, represented

for most of his first class career, and was employed as a supervisor in

Burmah Shell The Burmah Oil Company was a leading British oil company which was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. In 1966, Castrol was acquired by Burmah, which was renamed "Burmah-Castrol". BP Amoco (now BP) purchased the company in 2000. Histor ...

. Punjabi died in 2011 but his death was noticed in cricketing circles only in 2014.''Deepak Shodhan, not Pananmal Punjabi is the oldest living Indian Test cricketer'', Cricketcountry, 25 May 2014
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References

External links

* 1921 births 2011 deaths India Test cricketers Indian cricketers Sindh cricketers Gujarat cricketers West Zone cricketers Indian Sindhi people Cricketers from Karachi {{India-cricket-bio-1920s-stub