Dinkar Balwant Deodhar (14 January 1892 – 24 August 1993) 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 st ...

er. He played

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 ...

from 1911 to 1948.

Cricket career

Deodhar was born in

Poona Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

(now Pune),

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

. He was a professor of

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

at Pune College. Popularly known as the Grand Old Man of Indian Cricket, Deodhar was an aggressive right-hand batsman and a

leg-break Leg spin is a type of spin bowling in cricket. A leg spinner bowls right-arm with a wrist spin action. The leg spinner's normal delivery causes the ball to spin from right to left (from the bowler's perspective) when the ball bounces on the ...

bowler. He captained

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the second-most populous state in India and the second-most populous country subdi ...

Ranji Trophy The Ranji Trophy (also known as Mastercard Ranji Trophy for sponsorship reasons) is a domestic first-class cricket championship played in India between multiple teams representing regional and state cricket associations. Board of Control for Cr ...

matches from 1939 to 1941. In his first-class career, he played 81 matches, scoring 4,522 runs at an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7 ...

of 39.32 with a highest score of 246. Deodhar was vice-president of the

Board of Control for Cricket in India The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is the national governing body for cricket in India. Its headquarters are situated at Cricket centre, Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. The BCCI is the richest governing body of cricket in the worl ...

, the President of the Maharashtra Cricket Association, and also a national team selector. The Deodhar Trophy, a limited overs inter-zonal cricket tournament played in India since 1973, is named after him. In 1996,

India Post India Post is a government-operated postal system in India, part of the Department of Post under the Ministry of Communications. Generally known as the Post Office, it is the most widely distributed postal system in the world. Warren Hastings ...

issued a commemorative stamp in his honour. A statue of Deodhar was unveiled at Pune's Sahara cricket stadium in 2012. Like

Bill Ashdown William Henry Ashdown (27 December 1898 – 15 September 1979) was an English professional cricketer. He is one of a very few men who played first-class cricket before the First World War and after the Second World War. Ashdown was born in B ...

, Deodhar is one of the few people known to have played first-class cricket both before the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

and after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, having played in the

Bombay Triangular The Bombay Quadrangular was an influential cricket tournament held in Bombay, British India between 1892–93 and 1945–46. At other times it was known variously as the Presidency Match, Bombay Triangular, and the Bombay Pentangular. Presidency ...

in 1911 and the

in 1946. In a Ranji Trophy game against Nawanagar in 1944, he scored

centuries A century is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. A centennial or ...

in both innings, helping his team win. He was aged 53 at the time. He was awarded the

Padma Shri Padma Shri ( IAST: ''padma śrī''), also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is conf ...

award in 1965 and the

Padma Bhushan The Padma Bhushan is the third-highest civilian award in the Republic of India, preceded by the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan and followed by the Padma Shri. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "distinguished service ...

in 1991 by the Indian Government. He was the first Indian first-class cricketer known to have lived to 100.

Vasant Raiji Vasant Naisadrai Raiji (26 January 1920 – 13 June 2020) was an Indian first-class cricketer and cricket historian. He featured in nine first class matches between 1939 and 1950. Life and career Raiji was born in Baroda. Representing a Crick ...

became the second in 2020.

Personal life

India's former National Badminton Champions Tara Deodhar, Sunder Deodhar, and

Suman Deodhar Suman Deodhar (born 1930, married Suman Athavale) is a female badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the gam ...

are his daughters.

Legacy

(BCCI) named Deodhar Trophy, an annual domestic one-day cricket championship in his honour.

References

External links

* 1892 births 1993 deaths Maharashtra cricketers Indian cricketers South Zone cricketers Hindus cricketers Indian centenarians Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in sports Cricketers from Pune Recipients of the Padma Shri in sports {{India-cricket-bio-stub