Marcus Couto retires from umpiring

If not for umpire Marcus Couto, the famed 664-run partnership between Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli in 1988 would never have been known to the world

Marcus Couto

If not for umpire Marcus Couto, the famed 664-run partnership between Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli in 1988 would never have been known to the world. It was Marcus who went to illustrious statisticians Anandji Dossa, Sudhir Vaidya and Mohandas Menon, who eventually established that it was world record partnership.

Marcus' brother Ricky was part of the same Shardashram Vidyamandir where the duo studied in. Yesterday, Marcus bid farewell to umpiring after 40 years of service to Mumbai cricket. He retired as a BCCI umpire two years ago.

In his 40-year journey, Marcus, 68, had the best seat in the house to watch the cream of Mumbai cricket. Apart from enjoying a distinguished umpiring career (a gold medal in 1981), Marcus has a feel for the history of the game. In the late 1980s, he edited a book on cricket great Vijay Merchant. He was a regular at Cricket with Vijay Merchant programmes which he attended a record 172 times.

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