He made us look twice the bowlers we were
Eknath Solkar was a tremendous asset to the team in general and to the spinners in particular. He made us (spinners) look twice the bowlers we actually were. The one catch I remember most is the one he took in Kolkata to dismiss Tony Lewis. When the England skipper went for a sweep, Solkar standing at forward short-leg ducked. But within a split second Solkar realised that the batsman had not middled the ball but only nicked it and saw it lobbing in front of him. Solkar immediately dived in front and came out with the ball in his hand, inches from the ground.
—Bishan Singh Bedi
He was a great mimic in the dressing room
He was a gutsy cricketer. I have played for many years with him. He fielded in positions that normally people will not accept. Solkar had taken so many catches off my bowling but the one that I remember most is one that saw the back of Alan Knott. Solkar was very great mimic. He used to enthrall us in the dressing room by mimicking film stars Ashok Kumar and Dev Anand.
—Srinivas Venkataraghavan
Anything above the ground was catchable
He had tremendous courage and never flinched while fielding close in. His reflexes were great and so was his power of concentration. It was never a question of ball being in the air, it just had to be above ground level and Solkar would pounce on it.
—Bhagwat Chandrashekhar
He enjoyed every second of his life
I owe a lot of my wickets to Solkar. Many of them would not have happened but for him. Off the field, he was a very jovial person, one who wanted to enjoy every second of his life.
—Erapalli Prasanna