India's loss is still North West's gain

Cricket: He was playing Test cricket before some of his team-mates on the North West side were born but 50-year-old Bobby Rao showed at the weekend why he is still a useful performer with a gutsy knock of 31 to help post a total that was ultimately too much for his Southern XI opponents, writes James Fitzgerald.

Standing at the top of the pavilion steps in College Park, Narasimha Rao (as a boy growing up in Hyderabad, his mother nicknamed him "Bobby") looked down on the paltry Dublin crowd and said with a wry smile: "When I played my first Test for India against the West Indies in Calcutta, there were 98,000 people screaming at us."

In 1980, Rao came to Ireland as the Strabane professional, returning home during our winters to captain the Hyderabad side in the state championship. Indeed, in 1987, he led the team to their first Ranji Trophy victory in 50 years, making him a folk hero in his home town.

In those days, Rao had a coaching clinic, where 200 children came every morning from 6-8 a.m. to practise. Current Indian Test player VVS Laxman was a product of Rao's clinic, and is now one of the top batsmen in the world. Rao was invited to Laxman's wedding earlier this year, an event that attracted blanket coverage in Indian media. Despite Laxman being India's answer to David Beckham, he still calls Rao "sir" such is the respect that remains.

But although he could have been a top coach or administrator in India, Rao's future lay in the North West. In 1988, he married Josephine McElroy - a cousin of current Ireland international Peter Gillespie - and settled down in Ireland. He spent many years playing in Sion Mills but also got involved with coaching further afield. He was batting coach for the national side under Mike Hendrick and is now an ECB staff coach.

Returning to Strabane this year, though, has given him a chance to play with the players he first taught in the early 1980s.

"I am enjoying life in Strabane - it is like going back home," he said. And, despite passing his half-century of years, he is still able to perform at senior level in this country. He took four wickets for Strabane against Bready last week.

While he enjoyed the buzz of being back in the representative scene as a player, his selection was tinged with a little regret. Several of the first-choice North West players had made themselves unavailable for the double-header trip to Dublin and many feel this ambivalence among some players in the North West is devaluing the competition.

"I am keen to compete but I don't want to take anyone's place. The problem is that people don't like to travel this far for two days' cricket," he said. "It's sad because this is such a good competition. It's not the fault of the North West union or the selectors. It is all to do with the commitment of the players. What can you do? At the age of 50, I shouldn't be playing but I had to fill in just to help the team out."

Rao is a legend of the Irish game, a man with enormous experience of cricket and someone who, as his eyes and limbs tell him to call time on his playing career, will continue to move Irish cricket through the insight he brings to his coaching. If there is an Irish VVS Laxman in the North West, the chances are Bobby Rao will discover him.