Raiji was born in
Baroda. Representing a
Cricket Club of India team on his first-class debut in a festival match in 1939, he scored a
duck in the first innings and just a single run in the second. In 1941-42 he opened the batting for
Bombay in the
Ranji Trophy, and was a reserve for the
Hindus team in the 1941
Bombay Pentangular. He then moved to play for
Baroda, and his two highest scores came in Baroda's victory over
Maharashtra in the 1944-45 Ranji Trophy, when he made 68 and 53. His younger brother
Madan also played first-class cricket for Bombay in the 1940s. At the end of Raiji's playing career, he turned to writing, and wrote several important works on early
Indian cricket. He was an accountant by profession and authored two books on the subject. In the 1930s he was one of the founding members of the Jolly Cricket Club in
Bombay along with his friend
Anandji Dossa, who was a renowned cricket statistician. On the death of
B. K. Garudachar in February 2016 he became India's oldest first-class cricketer. He celebrated his 100th birthday in January 2020, attended by
Steve Waugh,
Sunil Gavaskar and
Sachin Tendulkar. On 7 March 2020, he became the oldest living first-class cricketer following the death of
John Manners. Raiji was only the second Indian
first-class cricketer known to have lived to 100, after
D. B. Deodhar who was aged 101 when he died in 1993. Raiji died on 13 June 2020, aged 100, survived by his wife and their two daughters. ==Books==