Rusi Modi - First-Class Career

First-Class Career

Modi started his first class career with a century on debut at the age of 17 in a Bombay Pentangular match. In Ranji Trophy between 1943/44 and 1944/45, he scored five hundreds in successive innings for Bombay, seven in successive matches. The sequence read 168 v Maharashtra, 128 v Western India both in 1943/44, 160 v Sind, 210 v Western India, 245* & 31 v Baroda, 113 v Northern India and 98 & 151 v Holkar all in 1944/45. His aggregate of 1008 in only five Ranji matches in 1944/45 was a record which stood for over forty years. He made 1375 runs in all first class matches. Modi was only 20 at the time.

Apart from the two double hundreds in Ranji, Modi scored a 215 for Parsees in the 1944/45 season. The next he hit 203 against Australian Services XI, the first double hundred for India in representative matches. Modi considered the finest of all his innings. Modi represented Bombay in the Ranji Trophy, where he enjoyed success, scoring 2196 runs at an average of 81.69.