Sports scribe Darryl Crasto passes away

Senior sports journalist and former president of the Sports Journalist Federation of India (SJFI), Darryl Crasto, of the Times of India passed away in a Mumbai hospital on Sunday after a prolonged illness. He was 47 and is survived by his wife and two children.

Senior sports journalist and former president of the Sports Journalist Federation of India (SJFI), Darryl Crasto, of the Times of India passed away in a Mumbai hospital on Sunday after a prolonged illness.

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He was 47 and is survived by his wife and two children.

Crasto, the incumbent president of the Sports Journalists Association of Mumbai (SJAM), started his nearly three-decade-old career in sports journalism in the mid-seventies in the Free Press Journal newspaper in Mumbai before shifting to the now defunct Indian Post and then Observer group in the mid to late eighties.

Crasto, who specialised in hockey, tennis and motor sports, later shifted to another newspaper from the Times group, The Independent, before he was absorbed in TOI where he worked till his death.

In his long career Crasto, whose two late paternal uncles - Joe and John - had also carved a niche in sports journalism with the TOI, covered the Hockey World Cup in Mumbai held in 1981, besides covering a host of international hockey and tennis events.

Pithy in his comments and erudite in his writing, Crasto's last major assignment was the Junior World Cup Hockey championship in Holland in July before he took seriously ill and was admitted to the Leelavati hospital's intensive care unit ten days ago before breathing his last.