Rahul Mankad endured the tough world of Mumbai cricket

Former Mumbai player Rahul Mankad during a domestic match

Rahul, the third and youngest son of great cricket all-rounder Vinoo Mankad, passed away in London on Wednesday morning. He was 66. Rahul represented Mumbai in first-class cricket as an attractive middle-order batsman from 1975-76 to 1984-85.

Only a few weeks ago, he had the satisfaction of seeing cricket's law-makers remove the act of running out a batsman for backing up too far, from the unfair segment of the laws. Rahul, nicknamed Jigga, despised the word ‘Mankaded' and never tired from stressing that his late father committed no cricketing crime when he ran out Australia's Bill Brown during India's tour of Australia in 1947-48.

Rahul suffered a heart attack on March 4. A stent was inserted in his heart, but he suffered a cardiac arrest five days later. His passing has stunned the cricketing fraternity because they believed he was on the mend. He spent several years of his post-playing days in Australia, where he worked for the Griffith University in Queensland.

Rahul and Ashok played in the same Bombay team in the 1970s and 1980s. In inter-office cricket, they played for Nirlon and Mafatlal respectively and there was no love lost between the brothers on the field of play.

Recently, all-rounder Karsan Ghavri said on the mid-day Mumbai cricket podcast that Rahul gave back in terms of verbals what he received, in equal measure. Nirlon v Mafatlal were akin to India v Pakistan matches, opined Ghavri. Rahul scored five first-class hundreds from 47 games, scoring 2,111 runs at 35.77.

Ashok and Rahul smashed hundreds in the same innings against Gujarat at the Wankhede Stadium in 1982-83. They put on an unbeaten 252-run stand for the third wicket to play a big role in the hosts' innings victory.

Former Test star Sandeep Patil, who made his Ranji Trophy debut in the same 1975-76 Mumbai v Hyderabad game as Rahul, was stunned when this writer conveyed the news of his teammate's demise. "Apart from making our Ranji Trophy debut together, we played together at school, university and U-22 cricket. We were also in the same Nirlon team," said Patil.