Former cricketer Vithal Patil no more

Mumbai: Former Ranji Trophy cricketer and a well-known coach of Dadar Union club, Vithal Shivram Patil, passed away here today due to old age related ailments.

He was 86. Patil, known by his nickname `Marshall`, had a highly successful career at the local club level, scalping a record 759 wickets in the monsoon cricket tournament -- Kanga League -- with his ability to move the ball both ways. But he could not replicate this success at the first class level in the limited opportunities that he got when he represented the then strong Bombay team of the 1950s. In two Ranji games he got to play, he picked up five wickets and then he was forgotten. But he was a stalwart for the Dadar Union club, led by Madhav Mantri, who passed away recently, and later helped several players who went on to make it big in cricket, including batting stalwarts Sunil Gavaskar and Dilip Vengsarkar, with his inputs. Former Mumbai opener Shishir Hattangadi described Patil`s demise as end of an era. "The end of another era, V S Patil. Rest in peace, my coach," he tweeted.