SPORTSPERSON OF INDIA - 3 - ANSWERS

1. C. Carrom

(Irudayam receiving Arjuna Award from K. R. Narayanan, the then President of India)

A. Maria Irudayam (born 1956 in Chennai, India) is a two-time World Carrom Champion and nine-time National Champion of India. He was awarded the prestigious Arjuna Award in 1996. As on date, he is the only person to have received the Award for Carrom.

2. A. Shantha Rangaswamy

Shantha Rangaswamy (born 1 January 1954) was a former Indian woman cricketer. She was a woman of many firsts in Indian women cricket. She was the first captain of the Indian women’s cricket team in 1976 when India played its first ever International (Test) match against West Indies at Bengaluru. She was Indian women’s cricket’s first international centurion (against New Zealand in 1977 at Dunedin, NZ) and the first captain to win a Test (against West Indies in 1976 at Moin-ul-Haq Stadium in Patna).

She was awarded the Arjuna Award in 1976. In 2015, when the BCCI introduced the  "Lifetime Achievement Award for Women", Shantha Rangaswamy became the first recipient. In October 2019, she became the first Indian female cricketer to represent the Indian Cricketers' Association. She is also a regular cricket columnist.

3. B. Wilson Jones

Wilson Lionel Garton-Jones (2 May 1922 – 5 October 2003) a professional player of Billiards, was India’s first individual world champion in any sport when he won the amateur World Billiards Championship at Calcutta's Great Eastern Hotel defeating the defending Champion Leslie Driffield of England. He was also the first Asian to win the title which is dominated largely by Britons, Australians and South Africans.

(Wilson Jones displaying his skills in front of the first President of India, Dr Rajendra Prasad)

Jones, 12-time National amateur Billiards champion and 5-time National amateur Snooker champion, was honoured with the Arjuna Award in 1962 and Padmashri in 1965. After quitting the game in 1967, Jones gave everything he had in making champions like Subhash Agarwal, Ashok Shandilya, Devendra Joshi and many others. He was awarded the Dronacharya Award in 1996.

4. A. Basketball

(Leander Paes with his mother Jennifer Paes)

Leander Adrian Paes (born 17 June 1973), an Indian professional tennis player, has won eight doubles and ten mixed doubles Grand Slam titles. He holds a career Grand Slam in men's doubles and mixed doubles, and achieved the rare men's doubles/mixed doubles double at the 1999 Wimbledon tournament. His mixed doubles Wimbledon title in 2010 made him the second man (after Rod Laver) to win Wimbledon titles in three decades. He won a bronze medal for India in singles in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. He competed in consecutive Olympics from 1992 to 2016, making him the first Indian and only tennis player to compete at seven Olympic Games.

Paes received the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna awardin 1996–97; the Arjuna Award in 1990; the Padma Shri award in 2001; and the Padma Bhushan in January 2014, for his outstanding contribution to tennis in India.

Leander was born in Calcutta to Vece Paes, a Goan, and, Jennifer Paes, from Calcutta. Vece was a midfielder in the bronze medal-winning Indian field hockey team at the 1972 Munich Olympics. His mother, Jennifer Paes, captained the Indian basketball team in the 1980 Asian basketball championship and and participated in the 1972 Summer Olympics. Jennifer is a direct descendant (great granddaughter) of Bengali poet Michael Madhusudan Dutta, one of the greatest poets in Bengali literature. 

5. B. Cotah Ramswami

Cotah Ramaswami (born 16 June 1896, Madras – presumed dead (possibly January 1990)) was a double sports international who represented India in both cricket and tennis. Ramaswami is one of the three Indian cricketing double internationals, the others being M. J. Gopalan (Cricket and Hockey) and Yuzvendra Chahal (Cricket and Chess). He was the youngest son of Buchi Babu Naidu, often considered the father of South Indian cricket.

In 1922, Ramaswami represented India in the Davis Cup with Dr. A. H. Fyzee and A. A. Fayzee and also participated in Wimbledon and reached the second round while he was in Cambridge University (1919 - 1923) as a student. After return to India in 1924, he started playing Cricket and played for India in 1936 against England in two Test matches at the age of 40.

After the end of his career, he served as a selector, and Manager to the Indian team to West Indies in 1952-53. His "Ramblings of a Games Addict" is one of the earliest autobiographies in Indian cricket.

Ramaswami left his home in Adyar, Tamil Nadu on the morning of 15 October 1985 and mysteriously never returned. There have been occasional rumours about him being sighted. Later, he was presumed dead in 1990.