Venkataraghavan is 75 today. And if you're not in your fifties you probably remember him as an ICC umpire, not the brilliant off -spinner, attacking lower order batsman and excellent fielder that he was. And he was also a walking cricket encyclopaedia.

It must have been 1999 or 2000. After an India vs Aus Cricket quiz series and a India V Pak quiz, we were doing a 'batsmen' vs 'bowlers' cricket quiz series on Star Sports. Gavaskar was leading the batsmen & Venkat was single handedly keeping the bowlers in contention.

We had a question about the only test captain who led a team whose members were all older than him and the answer I had was Tiger Pataudi, after Nari Contractor got injured in the West Indies. Venkat objected as he thought Ian Craig of Australia was also possibly correct.

He started reciting the dates of birth of each of the players on that Australian team. He had 6 dates of births down pat before he stopped at Bobby Simpson and remarked that he was younger than Craig and so the question was correct.
60s Aus cricketers & he knew every name & DOB!