New Delhi: Former India cricketer and Bengal cricket captain Gopal Bose breathed his last after suffering a cardiac arrest at a Birmingham hospital Sunday. He was 71 and is survived by his wife and son Arijit.
An opening batsman, Bose had scored 3757 runs in 78 first-class games with eight hundreds and 17 fifties. He also took 72 wickets with his handy off-breaks including one five-wicket haul.
Bose was also the first cricketer from Bengal to play an ODI (which was his only India appearance) against England in 1974, which was incidentally only the second ODI that India played.
After a prolific 1973-74 season, during which he scored a big hundred for Rest of India in the Irani Cup, Bose was included for India’s unofficial tour of Sri Lanka, where he scored a hundred and shared a 194-run opening stand with Sunil Gavaskar.
Bose was also picked in the Indian squad for a 1975 Test match against the West Indies in Chennai when Gavaskar was injured. However, selection committee decided to promote Eknath Solkar as Farokh Engineer’s opening partner meaning Bose never got a call-up after that.
Interestingly, Bose was also the manager of the Virat Kohli-led India U-19 team that won the World Cup in Kuala Lumpur in 2008.
Known to speak his mind, Bose was recently conferred with the Lifetime Achievement Award after former india skipper Sourav Ganguly became the president of Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB).
“Lost a very dear person today ..luckily he was with his entire family in Birmingham ..will miss him ..may his soul rest in peace,” Ganguly tweeted.
