Madhav Apte, born October 5, 1932, boasts perhaps the most bizarre Test career for India. In a span of five months, he played seven Tests, and averaged 49.27 as an opener, with a hundred and 3 fifties — all scored in the West Indies. After that, he was dropped for some unknown reason and never played another Test. Arunabha Sengupta looks back at the man who played his first Ranji Trophy match as a replacement for Vijay Merchant and some three-and–a-half decades later faced a 14-year-old Sachin Tendulkar on the field.