Farokh Engineer kept wicket for more than a decade to India's famous quartet of spinners: Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Bishan Bedi, Srinivas Venkataraghavan and Erapalli Prasanna. He was also an accomplished batsman, once famously scoring 96 not out before lunch against the fearsome West Indian opening pair of Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith. With the Indian Cricketer of the Century Awards coming up on July 23, he gives us some of his thoughts on some of the great cricketers to have come out of India in the last 100 years. Engineer opened the batting with Sunil Gavaskar for years, for both Bombay and India, so he got to know him well. "His concentration and dedication was tremendous," Engineer said. "We took the mickey out of each other when we opened together. We enjoyed our cricket. I used to talk a lot; it was relaxation for him. He'd say 'Don't make me laugh, Rookie.' That was our way of relieving tension."

Engineer also has fond memories of playing alongside Gundappa Viswanath. "He was a very wristy player - he hit the ball very hard. He was a great competitor and you couldn't meet a nicer guy."

As for the spinners, Engineer described them as "four of the greatest spinners to have graced any pitch anywhere ... It was great to keep wicket to Chandra on the fifth day of a Test against a left-hander like Garry Sobers or Clive Lloyd."

Engineer trained himself to watch how Chandra was gripping the ball and how it left his fingers to read what it would do. He added that "Prasanna was a great offspinner who flighted the ball beautifully ... He read the batsman's mind."

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