by Abhishek Mukherjee

India thrashed Romania 5-0 in the first round in the 1922 Davis Cup. This included a 6-2, 6-4, 6-0 win against Nicolae Misu and Misu Stern.

India were eliminated after a 1-4 defeat against Spain in the next round. Their only win came in the doubles match – 3-6, 7-5, 11-9, 8-10, 6-4 – against the formidable pair of Eduardo Flaquer and Manuel de Gomar.

One of the members of the doubles team was Dr Hassan-Ali Fyzee. The other was one C Ramaswami, son of Buchi Babu Naidu, and still a student at Cambridge.

Ramaswami featured in that year's Wimbledon as well. He won a titanic clash against Ulysses Williams (5-7, 8-10, 6-0, 14-12, 6-3) in the first round before losing to Nicolae Misu in the second.

But that was not all. Ramaswami also played cricket two Test matches, on India's ill-fated tour of England in 1936 – fourteen years after his greatest year in tennis. At 40 years 39 days he remains India's second-oldest Test debutant.

He scored 40, 60, 29, and 41 not out, which gave him a career average of 56.67 – the third-highest for India among those with completed careers.

There were the oddities as well. Ramaswami was not convinced that he deserved a place in the touring squad. He was certain he was overweight, and that his selection had to do with reasons off the field.

And decades later, on the morning of October 15, 1985, he left his residence at Adyar and never returned. There were rumours of occasional sightings in subsequent years, but none of them were confirmed.

Wisden listed him as 'presumed dead'. While nobody knows exactly when he died, the registered month is January 1990.

But there is more to him. The most commonly used version of his first name is Cota, though he has himself Cotah (possibly a variation) in his autobiography. And Cambridge listed him as Cotar in a list in their 1932 calendar.

C Ramaswami was born on 16 June 1896.