Tamil Nadu's master class in spin

Call Sridharan Sriram a left-handed batsman and he would point out that he was a left-arm spinner for Tamil Nadu in his early days before batting at the top of the order. At a time when Sriram made headlines during the first Test between India and Australia because he was the spin consultant for the visitors and a vital cog in the visitors’ wheel, the best left-arm spinner Tamil Nadu has ever produced, Sunil Subramaniam was busy coaching the under-12 team from the state at Chepauk for TNCA.  A spinner, who bowled like a medium-pacer with an umbrella field when he played on matting and turf wickets in the 1990s, Sunil is now a coach-in-demand for youngsters and the man who shaped the careers of the likes of Ravichandran Ashwin, Aushik Srinivas and even a paceman like T Natarajan. The 50-year-old Sunil, who took 245 Ranji Trophy wickets, a record for a left-arm spinner from the state, talks to DT Next on his long career and its highlights. 

Excerpts:

My schooling was all over the country in Kendriya Vidyalayas as my father was a Wing Commander in the Indian Air Force. I was born in Mumbai and my early years at cricket were in Nagpur and Chennai. My introduction to representative cricket was for Tamil Nadu at the under-15 level. Thereafter I represented Tamil Nadu at the Under-19,Under-22, Under-25 and the Ranji Trophy.

Plenty of performances in a 20-year league career but I enjoyed playing for SPIC under the mentorship of S.Vasudevan, learning the tricks of the trade, and winning the Palayampatti Shield 7 years for Jolly Rovers Cricket Club and one season for Stone Cricket Club, Staffordshire, England as their overseas professional too were immensely satisfying. If anything was more notable than other memories , it was in the summer of 1996 with Stone Cricket Club, Staffordshire, England, wherein I  captured 101 wickets for the club in League cricket beating the league record of 97 wickets in a season established by Sir Garfield Sobers in 1964.The club went on to win the League after a period of 16 years.

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the late M.L.Jaisimha for my debut in first class cricket for Tamil Nadu. The late Mr.Jaisimha used to assemble a bunch of young promising cricketers from all over India captained by a senior Indian Cricketer for his team the Vazir Sultan Tobacco Colts XI in the Moin-udDowla Gold cup in Hyderabad. While representing the team in 1988 I took seven wickets in a game versus the Tamil Nadu side which had won the Ranji Trophy in the 1987-88 season and was flying enroute to Western Australia to play the Sheffield Shield champions at Perth. On return from Perth, Ranji champions Tamil Nadu were scheduled to play the visiting New Zealand team at Panaji,Goa. The captain of the Ranji Trophy S.Vasudevan pulled out to make way for a youngster and I was given the opportunity by the selectors to play in that particular game. I had match figures of 3 for 82 and 3 for 83 with Ken Rutherford being my first first class wicket and was awarded the best bowler of the match.S.Vasudevan immediately announced his retirement from first class cricket and I made my Ranji Trophy debut against Hyderabad in 1988.

Surely, I was given a raw deal in the 1990s but it would be terribly erroneous to opine that Venkatapathy Raju or Sunil Joshi were any lesser skilled than Dilip Doshi or Padmakar Shivalkar. Somehow most chroniclers seem to forget Raghuram Bhat, Vijaykrishna, Rajinder Singh Hans and Hyder Ali whenever quality domestic left-arm spinners are mentioned. Bishen Singh Bedi was of course in a league of his own. With Raju, Joshi and myself plying our trade in the same zone and Utpal Chatterjee in the Esat Zone and Bharti Vij in the North Zone, it would be fair to conclude that Bharti Vij and myself were the ones who were overlooked. Not to be given an opportunity to exhibit my wares even for the India A side at any point in time was hard to digest. In fact it still is! Selection for the Indian senior side? Your guess is as good as mine! I can put forth my case by stating that, midway through my Ranji career I had a richer haul and a better strike rate than every one of the counterparts I have mentioned. To my limited knowledge, I was bowling on the same surfaces my zonal colleagues were bowling on.

Since announcing retirement from all forms of cricket in 2001, I hadn’t visited a cricket ground for almost six years. A combination of factors ,such as, a responsible and challenging corporate career, a deep sense of hurt at having failed to play the game at the highest level and a young family to look after somehow ensured that the game I played with a passion wasn’t a part of my life till 2007. Sometime in 2007 TNCA asst secretary R.I.Palani, a fellow cricketer in my college and First division league days, introduced me to cricket coaching. The TNCA Academy was coming up and the very first assignment was a 15 day spin bowlers camp, for promising bowlers from the under-19’s to first class cricket, with a mission to unearth the next generation of spinners for Tamil Nadu. The camp was being conducted from 15/6/2007.I still remember the names of that batch of spinners in the camp .Left arm spinners- C.Suresh, Dheeraj, Prasanth, Aditya, Aushik Srinivas, Leg-spinners- Sawan, Panchapakesan, Giripal, Off spinners-N.Einstien, Prabhu, Suresh Kumar, Vijay Shankar, Arjun Sarathy, and a tall, stocky, inquisitive, self-confident 20-year-old lad going by the name Ravichandran Ashwin. After the conclusion of the camp began a fascinating journey mentoring a bowler who I then thought would be the torch bearer of Tamil Nadu’s bowling and if the breaks come at the right time, a potential leader of the spin bowling attack for India. 

I belong to a generation of cricketers who have experienced three different kinds of playing surfaces at the first class level. Coir matting, uncovered turf wickets & covered turf wickets. Since all cricket at the formative years were either on matting or uncovered turf wickets, it taught and honed bowling skills on the virtues of a good length.