As Farokh Engineer, one of India’s cricketing greats, steps into Parsee Gymkhana on Friday afternoon, the sea-facing club bears a near deserted look, with just a handful of youngsters in whites playing at the nets. And it’s not just the club from where the Parsis have gone missing. From a community that pioneered the sport’s growth in the country, Parsis have been slowly disappearing from the sport over the last few decades. Ironically, even Parsee Gymkhana’s own team, which figures in the ‘A’ division of the famous Kanga League, features not a single Parsi player.

Few feel this absence as keenly as 86-year-old Engineer, who hails from the glory days of Parsi cricket, when the community had contributed not one, but four of the 11 players in the Indian Test team during the 1961-62 tour of West Indies—Nari Contractor, Polly Umrigar, Rusi Surti and Engineer,  all giants of the game. Engineer remains the last Parsi to have played for India in men’s cricket.