Surendra Bhave

Surendra Shriram Bhave (born 30 March 1966) is a former Indian first-class cricketer who played for his home state Maharashtra from 1986 to 2001. A right-handed opening batsman, noted for his prolific run scoring and ability to build large innings, Bhave regularly captained Maharashtra throughout the 1990s.

Bhave had a strong start to his career, after making just one first-class appearance in both 1986/87 and 1987/88 he made the most of his opportunity in 1988/89 by scoring 730 runs at 91.25. Of his four hundreds that season, the biggest was an innings of 274 which he made against a Dilip Vengsarkar led Bombay team.[1] He would score a further six double hundreds in his career, three of them in 1992. Such was his consistency that it wasn't until 1997/98 that he ended a season with an average under 50 and he never scored less than 800 runs from 1992/93 to 1996/97.[2]

Although Maharashtra never won the Ranji Trophy while Bhave was at the club, he did captain them to the final in 1992/93. Playing against Punjab, Bhave failed in both innings and in the end it was a maiden first-class century to Amit Sharma that was the difference.[3]

Bhave played for India A in the 1992/93 SAARC Quadrangular, a limited overs series also competed for by Sri Lanka A, Bangladesh A and Pakistan A. Bhave scored 81 against the Sri Lankans and although India made the final, the contest was canceled following rioting in the host city of Dhaka. [4]

He also represented West Zone in the Duleep Trophy on occasions and on 2 December 1994 made 292 for the team in a first-class match against South Zone at Rourkela. His 739-minute vigil ended when he was bowled by offspinner Kanwaljit Singh.[5]

The right-hander was particularly prolific against Saurashtra during his career, plundering them for 1471 at 91.93 with seven hundreds.[6]