PANKAJ ROY

'Pankaj Roy' (31 May 1928-4 February 2001) was an Indian and Bengali cricket player. A right handed opening batsman. He is best known for together with Vinoo Mankad establishing the world record opening partnership of 413 runs, against New Zealand at Chennai. The record still stands today and he was honoured with the Padma Shri. His son, Pranab Roy also played Test cricket for India.

Contents

First class career

Test career

First class career

Roy played domestic cricket in India for Bengal. He scored a century on his first-class debut, in 1946-47 and went on to score 33 hundreds and made 11868 first class runs at 42.38.

Test career

When England toured India in 1951, Roy was called into the Indian squad and made his Test debut at Delhi. Despite making just 12 in his debut innings he scored 2 centuries in the series. The following summer he tourned England and had a contrasting series, making 5 ducks in his 7 innings. This tally included a pair at Old Trafford. He would hit five Test centuries for India, with a top score of 173.
He captained India in a Test match in England in 1959 which they lost.