V Ramnarayan
Might they have played for India?
Indian domestic cricket is full of players who have been unlucky to miss out on national selection. Here are 11 of the likeliest contenders
V Ramnarayan
11-Apr-2017
Some years ago I picked an Indian Test XI of players who should, in my opinion, have been selected but never were, for an article for the Wisden India Almanack.
In my team I included the likes of pre-Independence greats Babu Nimbalkar and AG Ram Singh, but here, in this fresh exercise, I am choosing a new squad of ''almost there'' players, only from among those I have watched or followed real time. Basically I leave out those who played first-class cricket before the late 1950s, before I was old enough to appreciate the nuances of the game. Among the other omissions from that earlier team is my brother V Sivaramakrishnan, who I actually believe would be a certainty in such an XI, but I wouldn't want to be accused of nepotism!
Picking a captain is the most challenging task, for there is not much proven leadership material among my automatic choices. So the captain will have to wait just a bit, until we pick the team.
Full postThe loneliness of an ignored player
It can be hard to keep your spirits up when you're in the squad but never make it to the playing XI
V Ramnarayan
08-Nov-2016
"The most miserable experience of your cricket career would be touring abroad with the Indian team and not getting to play a single match." The man who spoke these words had kept wicket in all of India's five Tests in the West Indies in 1971.
I had got into the star-studded SBI team when P Krishnamurthy was touring the West Indies, and when I first met him on his return to Hyderabad, after India's first series win in the Caribbean, he was brimming with confidence. Happily for me, he had liked what he saw of my bowling and lent me great support in my quest for a regular place in the team as an offspinner.
But this was five years later, and Murthy was no longer quite the impressive wicketkeeper he had been as a member of Ajit Wadekar's triumphant team. In fact, after his debut series he never played another Test match, with first Farrokh Engineer and later Syed Kirmani replacing him in the XI. He was part of the squad that went on tours of New Zealand and West Indies in 1975-76, and he barely got a game on either trip.
Full postLife lessons from a career ended by chucking
Former Hyderabad fast bowler L Vasan quit the game in 1981 after he was called for throwing. He didn't let the bitterness of that experience break him
V Ramnarayan
02-Oct-2016
As a young cricket fanatic lapping up everything the media of the period offered by way of reportage and history, I was moved by the misfortune that struck Geoff Griffin, the young fast bowler from South Africa who was no-balled repeatedly for throwing, not only in the Lord's Test in 1960 but even in an exhibition affair put on specially for the Queen following the early completion of the official match.
It was still relatively easy for me in distant Madras to be detached about the young man's humiliation and distress, consoling myself with the thought that chucking must be ruthlessly eliminated from the game. And my views on the subject haven't changed in all these years, though the hurt an offending bowler invariably undergoes when punished can be pitiable.
When I witnessed a similar episode in domestic cricket some 20 years later, it was not so easy for me to be rational. A Ranji Trophy match between Hyderabad and Tamil Nadu in Hyderabad in 1980 provided that repeat occasion, but this time my feelings as a spectator were rather more complicated. One of the umpires in the match, Piloo Reporter, was a good friend, with whom I shared a rapport and a quiet (or not so quiet) joke or two whenever we met. Now Reporter had a fearsome reputation as a no-nonsense one-man brigade out to rid the game of the scourge of chucking. I respected him for his commitment to his principles and the courage with which he did his job.
Full postThe importance of Kumble the coach for India's bowlers
The new coach is already making a difference to Ashwin's overseas record, and his partnership with Kohli could be fruitful too
V Ramnarayan
31-Jul-2016
Is it a coincidence that R Ashwin reached new heights as a spinner in away Tests after Virat Kohli and coach Anil Kumble came together? I believe not, for the two are among the most positive thinkers on the game that Indian cricket knows, and I am sure they have given Ashwin and the other Indian bowlers a dose of the sort of confidence they have rarely known before.
While his promotion in the batting order in the first Test must have done Ashwin's self-belief a world of good, we learn from the man himself that he successfully overcome his frustration at his lack of wickets in the first innings in Antigua thanks to Kumble's counselling.
Kumble obviously knows from his own experience that bowlers sometimes go unrewarded while doing everything right, but not all bowlers recognise this fact. In their anxiety to get wickets, they may end up trying too hard and eventually lose the plot altogether, instead of calmly continuing to do what they have been doing and waiting patiently for their luck to turn.
Full postThat '70s India-West Indies show
The rivalry has been a storied one - particularly through one decade of the 20th century
V Ramnarayan
24-Jun-2016
The first time I followed a whole Test series involving West Indies was during Australia's 1954-55 tour of the Caribbean. Though the touring Australians were pretty much invincible, there was instant identification for me with the gallant losers. The three Ws were in top flight, with Clyde Walcott scoring two hundreds in a Test twice in the series, Everton Weekes coming close to performing the feat once, and Frank Worrell batting serenely.
Bowling was West Indies' weak suit, with spinners Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine in decline; and their quickest man, Tom Dewdney, was no demon fast bowler. But eight-year-old me fell hopelessly in love with the islanders for whom a certain Garfield St Aubrun Sobers had made a quiet but impressive debut that season.
The love affair was to continue even when the West Indians soon thrashed India home and away. I was almost intuitively a fan of Sobers and Rohan Kanhai, but also diehard supporter of Polly Umrigar and Chandu Borde. Especially unforgettable was Borde's hit-wicket dismissal on 96, even as his hook shot crossed the boundary, in the Delhi Test of the 1958-59 series against West Indies after his first-innings 109.
Full postThree IPL leggies who gladdened the heart
A look at Amit Mishra, Yuzvendra Chahal and Adam Zampa, who, along with many other bowlers, challenged the increasing dominance of batsmen in the league
V Ramnarayan
29-May-2016
The diehard Test match addict that I am, I found the mental adjustment to watching the shortest format rather challenging, at least at the start of the season. Soon, however, the initial resolve melts into gradual submission. Increasingly my aesthetic objections to the game have started to lose strength, as some of the batsmen on view thrill us with the beauty of their strokemaking. More and more ''cricket shots'' are being played by the likes of Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Yuvraj Singh (in brief cameos) and M Vijay. This is probably the major positive, besides spectacularly innovative fielding, to have evolved from what started out as an extreme slam-bang version of cricket.
This season, however, it is the bowlers who have really delighted me. They have faced the overwhelming odds stacked against them and come up with answers - sometimes visually unappetising, as in slow bouncers and wide yorkers, but by and large creatively out of the box. Far from lying down in the face of outrageous batsmen, heavy bats and short boundaries, they have found ingenious ways of tackling the challenges they face.
The most impressive of them doesn't even make a conscious effort, by the look of it. Mustafizur Rahman was probably born bowling the way he bowls, the mind-body coordination natural, the variations dictated by a flick of the wrist here, a subtle change in the swivelling of the hips there, the computer program in his head apparently recording every little detail of the pitch and the batsman's response for future use.
Full postDo we need to be harsher on wide yorkers?
Maybe it's time to give bowlers a little more leeway down the leg side and a little less on the off
V Ramnarayan
05-May-2016
The IPL has revolutionised bowling in unexpected ways. The emergence of wristspinners as an integral part of most attacks in the competition has been quite a phenomenon. Franchises are evidently more open, more ready to take risks, and less inhibited when it comes to talent-spotting and selection than national selection panels.
In the process the IPL has brought to the world stage some of the most eccentric bowling actions. It has created a new animal - the expert T20 bowler. Many bowlers in the IPL seem to have perfected the four-over burst. Might the rules be modified to allow teams to enhance their competitive edge through greater use of these ''freak bowlers''?
What if a captain was allowed to pick one of his bowlers to bowl a maximum of eight overs? How might the likes of Tabraiz Shamsi or Shivil Kaushik fare if suddenly called upon to perform such a role when they are on top of the batsman? Will they be able to maintain the pressure and excel, or will they wilt under the additional load?
Full postHere's looking at spin in the IPL
The teams' slow-bowling strengths vary, but there does seem to be plenty of legbreak bowling in the offing
V Ramnarayan
09-Apr-2016
T20 cricket. The flashing blades, breathtaking fours and sixes, acrobatic catches, and diving, sliding run-outs of today can dazzle your eyes, stop your heart.
Old school as old school can be, you may be a reluctant spectator to start with, but are inexorably drawn by the magic of the twists and turns of the shortest form of the game. Once in, there is no way out. You simply must stay up to watch that last-over finish, even the post-match interviews, so complete has been the power, the drama the show has exercised over you.
With the onset of the IPL, the action now moves to an altogether higher pitch, often over-loud and hyped up, but a welcome change nonetheless in at least one respect. Sworn rivals will now share locker rooms and dugouts. Snarling could be replaced by bonhomie, within if not across teams.
Full postDoes Under-13 cricket need to be competitive?
At such a young age, bodies are not ready to take on the burdens of specialisation and rigorous coaching. Also, let 'em just have fun
V Ramnarayan
10-Mar-2016
For a brief period in the 1990s, I did the rounds of Chennai's cricket grounds where age group cricket was being played. It was delightful to watch the youngest cricketers, belonging to the Under-13 category, with their fierce passion and unconcealed delight or disappointment when they clean-bowled a batsman, took a good catch or scored some runs, failed or appealed in vain. Most of them were immaculately turned out, with their English willow bats, perfect protective gear, including helmets and elbow guards - thanks to their new generation parents who took an active, sometimes hyperactive interest in their cricket.
There was talent in abundance. Some of the little fellows could really belt the ball long and hard. The bowling was less impressive overall, with many of the aspiring pace bowlers too poorly endowed physically to generate any pace, and mostly tending to spray the ball around. There were some decent spinners, with a surprising number of them wristspinners of promise. This development was perhaps the result of the Shane Warne ball of the century. Of course, every batsman was a prodigy of Sachinesque potential in his parents' doting eyes. The poor coach had to field their ambitious queries all the time: ''When will my boy play for India?'' was a standard question, and the mother or father of the young player did not easily accept an ambivalent answer.
I usually sat far from the pavilion, permanent or makeshift, in order to insulate myself from these annoying conversations and to avoid being seen by parents who might spot a useful contact in me, given my assumed but non-existent influence with the selectors.
Full postAn evening with Gower
Talking captaincy, elegance and the playing of spin with the great England stylist
V Ramnarayan
03-Feb-2016
"Ï wish God hadn't made me so beautiful." The girl who uttered these words must have forever regretted them. She was one of the brighter students of Chennai's Presidency College during my own student years there, and this was her reaction to the catcalls and whistles that greeted her at the college gate every morning courtesy a gathering of louts inspired by the so-called heroes of the Tamil cinema of the day. Of course, her naïve response to their harassment only added to the ammunition of her tormentors.
David Ivon Gower, recently in Chennai to deliver the first KS Narayanan Oration, perhaps never had cause to regret his good looks, but I am not sure he was entirely happy with the media hype about the lazy elegance of his batting. He did hint during his interactions with Chennai's cricket enthusiasts that much effort went into his effortless batting.
I have this irritating habit of drawing parallels from other walks of life, especially the world of art, and I could not help remembering a lament of the late MS Subbulakshmi, one of the greatest Indian vocalists of our time. Though she was hurt by constantly being described as just a great voice, she rarely expressed her disappointment at it. She did sometimes drop her guard and confide in her closest associates, saying, "People always speak of my great voice and give me little credit for my technical prowess. They don't know how hard I must work to achieve my 'natural' voice.''
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