Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Full name | Anant Dhondu Solkar | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Pawas, Bombay State, India | 19 September 1951||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Died | 26 May 2024 Bandra, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India | (aged 72)||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Batting | Right-handed | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bowling | Right-arm off break | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Relations | Eknath Solkar (brother) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Domestic team information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Years | Team | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1972/73–1975/76 | Railways | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1976/77–1980/81 | Maharashtra | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Career statistics | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Source: ESPNcricinfo, 18 March 2016 |
Anant Dhondu Solkar (19 September 1951 – 26 May 2024) was an Indian first-class cricketer. He was the younger brother of Test cricketer Eknath Solkar.
Born on 19 September 1951 in Pawas, Maharashtra, Solkar played as a bowling all-rounder who batted right-handed and bowled off spin. He had five siblings (including Eknath Solkar) and his father was a groundsman at the Hindu Gymkhana in Bombay.[1] In a Harris Shield match in 1968, he scored 396 and took 6/28. This is regarded as the best all-round performance in school cricket.[2] He made his first-class debut in the 1972/73 season for Railways and, in the same season, registered his career-best bowling figures of 8/100 in a Ranji match against Delhi. He switched to his home state team Maharashtra in the 1976/77 season and represented it for five seasons. After getting dropped from the team, he quit playing cricket on the advice of his elder brother Eknath Solkar.[2] He finished with 26 first-class appearances in which he took 63 wickets at an average of 23.96.[3]
After his cricket career, Solkar became an alcohol addict. He recollects, "I don’t know what happened. There was nothing left in my life after cricket. I was slowly becoming addicted to it. My day would start and end with it." In 1986, his 15-year-old daughter died of blood cancer. Solkar, who was employed with Tata Electric, quit his job in 1987.[2] He came out of his alcohol addiction in 2007,[4] and worked as an umpire in local matches between 2001 and 2009. He then started to coach young cricketers free of cost in Mumbai.[2]
Solkar died on 26 May 2024, at the age of 72.[5]