Adieu Solkar

Paying homage to the first and arguably the only specialist forward short leg fielder in test cricket history - Eknath Solkar.

His life is what great movies are made of - the son of a poor groundsman living in a hut, rising to be a test cricketer, and carving a name for himself in the then-unglamorous discipline of fielding. That too in days when there were no helmets to protect you.

The famed Indian spin quartet has admitted more than once that they owed a lot of their wickets to him, because he conjured catches from out of thin air.

The demise of Solkar, close on the heels of the great Mushtaq Ali, has robbed Indian cricket of two of its most unconventional "heroes".