C Ramachandra Rao – an avid cricket follower from his childhood and a decent cricketer who represented Mangalore Sports Club, Mangalore,  Mount Joy Cricketers, Bangalore, Hanumanthnagar Cricketers, Bangalore, Union Cricket Club, Puttur, Hubli Cricket Club, Udupi Cricket Association, Udupi, Syndicate Bank, Manipal and Corporation Bank.  Some of these teams have participated in the league tournaments conducted by Karnataka State Association.CR Rao was a useful bat and has decent scores to his credit including a century. He was an useful trundler too.

Born into a family of teachers has his education in Christian High School and MGM College, Udupi. Completed his post graduation from Manasa Gangotri, Mysore. His interest in cricket started from his childhood with tennis ball cricket. He was the founder member of the famed Paradise Bannanje Tennis ball cricket team

Cricket runs in his blood. His elder brother Sri C Prahlada Rao was also an avid cricket enthusiast. Netizens would remember Sri C Prahlada Rao for his article on the veteran commentator P Ananda Rao – https://hrgcricstats.com/2017/09/unforgettable-ananda-rau-commentator-with-a-golden-voice/C

He also observes the following statistical nugget

“Avnish” Dhaliwal and “Anuj” Tiwary– Opening batsmen of Chattisgarh were dismissed for zeroes in both innings against Karnataka at Bangalore in the recently concluded third round match in the ongoing Ranji Trophy season 2022-23

A Dhaliwal	c Sharath	b V Kaverappa	0	in first innings
A Tiwary	c Sharath	b V Kaushik	0	in first innings
A Dhaliwal		b V Kaverappa	0	in Second innings
A Tiwary	c Sharath	b V Kaushik	0	in Second innings

It is interesting to note that A Dhaliwal was dismissed by V Kaverappa in both innings and A Tiwary was dismissed by V Kaushik in both innings.

This is perhaps for the first time in the long history of Ranji Trophy that both the openers of a team dismissed for zeroes in both innings of a match

From this incident I deduced another statistics – Both openers dismissed for a “pair” – Both the openers dismissed by the same bowler in both innings – another rare happening

A Dhaliwal	c Sharath	b V Kaverappa	0	in first innings
A Dhaliwal		b V Kaverappa	0	in Second innings
A Tiwary	c Sharath	b V Kaushik	0	in first innings
A Tiwary	c Sharath	b V Kaushik	0	in Second innings

Karnataka vs Chhattisgarh match can be described as match between “V”s and “A”s

Karnataka had four cricketers with their surnames starting from V, while Chattisgarh had five cricketers with their surnames starting from A

Karnataka’s cricketers were – Vidyut Kaverappa, Vyshak Vijayakumar, Vasuki Koushik and Vishal Onat.

Chhattisgarh cricketers were – Avinish Dhaliwal, Anuj Tiwary, Ashutosh Singh, Amandeep Khare and Ajay Mandal.