Arun Kumar Thakur

Arun Kumar Thakur (61), head of the department of English at Ranchi College, died on Thursday in Delhi after a prolonged battle with cancer.

Thakur, a respected figure in Ranchi’s academic circles, is survived by his wife, three sons and brother.

A keen cricket writer — he played the game in his younger days at the state level — Thakur started off by contributing articles for a number of publications, including Ranchi’s The New Republic and Calcutta’s Amrita Bazar Patrika.

Later, he began contributing for The Telegraph and continued to do so for over a decade.

Thakur was an avid cricketer while he was a student of St John’s School and later St Xavier’s College in Ranchi. He also played for Ranchi University and represented Ranchi district for about a decade.

Before joining Ranchi College, Thakur used to teach at a college in Bihar. But, so keen was he to continue playing cricket that he would travel through the night and come to Ranchi during weekends to play.

Later, Thakur became a selector and had chosen Mahendra Singh Dhoni, then a boy of 15, to be a part of the Ranchi district team.

P.D Singh, a family friend, recalled how he had told him that he had had to convince other selectors about Dhoni’s “potential”.

Years later, Thakur wrote a book, Wah! Dhoni, that was recently brought out by a Delhi-based publisher.