Gundappa Ranganath Viswanath is a former Indian cricketer. He was one of India's finest batsmen throughout the 1970s. Viswanath played Test cricket for India from 1969 to 1983 making 91 appearances and scoring over 6000 runs. He also played in One Day Internationals from 1974 to 1982 including the World Cups of 1975 and 1979. He was born on February 12, 1949 in Bhadravati, Karnataka. He began his Test Cricket career in the year 1969 in a match played against Australia at Kanpur. In the first innings he scored a duck, while in the second innings of the same match he was the highest scorer for India with 137 runs, although the match was a draw. Viswanath played his first ODI match against England on 13th of July, 1974 at the Leeds Cricket Ground, in which he scored just 4 runs. Incidentally, he played his last ODI match against England itself at the same Leeds Cricket Ground on 2nd of June, 1982. In this match he scored 9 runs. He also served the Indian Cricket team as its Captain for a short period during 1979-80. During the tenure, he led the Indian Cricket team to 2 Test matches, of which 1 was lost by India and the other was a draw. As a Cricket player and a Captain too, Viswanath was famous for his honesty and Fair-Game policy throughout his career. He received the Arjuna Award for his performance in 1978. Viswanath was awarded Col. C K Naidu Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009 by BCCI which is one of the highest awards given in Indian cricket.