| Venkatraman Ramnarayan | |
| Country: | India |
| Birth Date: | 8 November 1947 |
| Birth Place: | Madras, India |
| Batting: | Right-handed |
| Bowling: | Right-arm off-spin |
| Family: | Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan (nephew), V. Sivaramakrishan (brother) |
| Club1: | Hyderabad |
| Year1: | 1975–1979 |
| Columns: | 2 |
| Column1: | FC |
| Matches1: | 25 |
| Runs1: | 71 |
| Bat Avg1: | 4.17 |
| 100S/50S1: | 0/0 |
| Top Score1: | 9 |
| Deliveries1: | 5476 |
| Wickets1: | 96 |
| Bowl Avg1: | 23.23 |
| Fivefor1: | 4 |
| Tenfor1: | 0 |
| Best Bowling1: | 7/68 |
| Catches/Stumpings1: | 15/– |
| Column2: | List A |
| Matches2: | 2 |
| Runs2: | – |
| Bat Avg2: | – |
| 100S/50S2: | – |
| Top Score2: | – |
| Deliveries2: | 144 |
| Wickets2: | 7 |
| Bowl Avg2: | 11.00 |
| Fivefor2: | 0 |
| Tenfor2: | n/a |
| Best Bowling2: | 4/35 |
| Catches/Stumpings2: | 2/ - |
| Source: | http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/player/33449.html ESPNcricinfo |
| Date: | 11 December |
| Year: | 2015 |
Venkatraman Ramnarayan (born 8 November 1947, in Madras) is a former Indian first-class cricketer and current journalist, editor, translator and teacher.
An off-spin bowler, Ramnarayan left his native Tamil Nadu and moved to Hyderabad in 1971 to see if he could break into first-class cricket.[1] In the final of the Moin-ud-Dowlah Gold Cup Tournament in October 1975 he took 8 for 75 in the first innings for Hyderabad Cricket Association XI, who went on to win the match.[2] A week later he made his first-class debut for Hyderabad against Kerala in the Ranji Trophy, taking 6 for 33 in the first innings.[3] A further week later, in the first innings against Andhra, he took 6 for 41.[4] In the quarter-final against Bombay he took 7 for 68 in the first innings, but Bombay won the match after trailing on the first innings, and went on to win the championship.[5]
With 28 wickets at an average of 17.32, 1975-76 was Ramnarayan's most successful season, but he continued to play for Hyderabad in the Ranji Trophy until 1979-80.[6] He also played for South Zone in the Duleep Trophy in 1978-79 and in 1980-81 when, in his last first-class match, he took 4 for 144 off 51 overs in the first innings.[7]
Ramnarayan is a regular columnist for Cricinfo, the editor of Sruti, a monthly performing arts magazine, and a teacher at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. He has also translated books from Tamil into English.[8]
In 2015 he published a memoir of his first-class cricket career, Third Man: Recollections from a Life in Cricket.[9] [10] He writes under the name "V. Ramnarayan".