Sudhir Vaidya, cricket's second oldest statistician will turn 75 on India's Independence day

Sudhir Vaidya (seen in photo with wife Hema) (Image source – Theweekendleader)

Sudhir Vaidya is the second oldest living cricket statistician and will create a statistic of sorts for himself, when he turns 75 on Thursday.

His enormous body of work has found mention in the Limca Book of Records of 2010. Sudhir has collected statistics since 1876-77 for Test matches and has done the same for ODIs since 1971. His data encapsules 1,971 Test matches, 3,050 ODIs, 300 T20 internationals and about 5,000 first-class matches played in the Indian domestic season.

Sudhir is the second oldest statistician after Anandji Dossa, another Indian, who will be turning 98 next month.

Sudhir Vaidya has been a statistician for the Board of Control for Cricket in India since the 1980s and has also been serving the Mumbai cricket Association from the 1970s. He has also been part of radio and TV broadcasts where he has assisted commentators with his statistics in over 250 Test matches, ODIs and domestic cricket matches.

As BCCI statistician, Sudhir has compiled and edited 16 Annual records for the board in the past 30 to 40 years.

“Yes, completing 75 years of age is something special and it is a landmark age”, Sudhir told Pakistan Observer.

“God is kind enough to give me this opportunity to work with cricket statistics at this age and I feel proud to honour the commitments”, said Sudhi Vaidya.

“15th August is India’s Independence Day, but I was born on this day 10 years before”.

“My compilation has been unique in as much as I am in possession of all the scorecards for all the Tests played ever since 1876-77, for all the One-Day internationals played ever since 05-01-1971 and also for domestic cricket matches played ever since 1934-35″. he added.

Sudhir has also written about 25 books on cricket. Some of his famous books include ‘Vinoo Mankad’, published in 1969, ‘Know Your Cricketers’ in 1981, ‘Book of World Cup Cricket’ editions of 2003 and 2007, and also three editions of ‘Figures of Cricket’.

The book ‘Vinoo Mankad’ was awarded in the second national competition organized by the Government of India in 1972 at New Delhi.

Even though he had held a full time job, he was able to find time for his passion, family and job through his career, reported The Weekend Leader.

“I did justice to my job, my family and my hobby,” he signed off.