Sitanshu Kotak

कर्मण्ये वाधिका रस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।

मा कर्म फल हेतु र्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्व कर्मणि॥

Translation: You have a right to “Karma” (actions) but never to any Fruits thereof. You should never be motivated by the results of your actions, nor should there be any attachment in not doing your prescribed activities.

Sometime back, Saurashtra's stalwart Sheldon Jackson went berserk and castigated the Indian selectors for being out of favour. But before Sheldon, there was another stalwart from Saurashtra who persevered silently without whinging. He became the U-19 coach, along with Paras Mhabrey last year, taking the reins from Rahul Dravid. This week, the spotlight is on the Saurashtran southpaw Sitanshu Kotak.

Saurashtra has a rich cricketing history. It is as old as Indian cricketing history. Ranjeetsinhji and Duleepsinhji, both hailed from Saurashtra. It was Saurashtra, where the university and college cricket started and picked up pace, but sadly the team didn't achieve anything significant for 60 years, since it's inception in 1950-51.

At present, Saurashtra is a formidable team which has a Ranji title under their belt and have been runner up three times. They boast of champion players like Sheldon Jackson, Ravindra Jadeja and Pujara, but Sitanshu Kotak formed the fulcrum of Saurashtra's hapless batting unit before the arrival of these giants. Kotak didn't have the innate ability of Sachin or the belligerence of Kohli. Although he had the attributes of Geoffrey Boycott and Chris Tavare. He wasn't pleasing to the eyes either. But he used to murder bowlers with his steely resolve and used to grind them to dust by just boring them to death. The spectators used to feel that they were subjected to Chinese torture. Kotak was unperturbed with whatever was hurled at him. The moniker "Rock of Gibraltar" seems so apt.

He made his debut for Saurashtra in the 1992-93 season and remained their sheet anchor for 20 long years. He made it a habit of bringing Saurashtra's innings on track after a flurry of quick wickets. Like Surendra Bhave, he fancied the mighty Mumbai team. Amol Mazumdar fondly talks about one of Kotak's marathon inmings against Mumbai, when he literally "killed" them, by scoring 168 off 543 balls in 796 minutes, which seemed like eternity. However, Sitanshu felt that his best knock was 118(384 minutes, 302 balls) against a star studded Karnataka's bowling line up of Srinath, Kumble and Dodda Ganesh, in his only Irani Cup appearance for Rest of India in 1999.

When asked about whether he has any regrets or complaints, he very diplomatically shrugged off the question and said that he has no complaints. However, he regretted losing the only Ranji final he was a part of in 2012-13, against the side he fancied. He was never off color against Mumbai, in his entire career, but he scored 14 and 0, in that final and Saurashtra suffered an ignominious defeat in just three days. 

As far as playing for India is concerned, he said that he accepted his fate, courtesy the fab four. The closest he came to wearing the Indian jersey was in 2007, when he went in as an injury replacement for one of the India A players in West Indies, but didn't get a game.

Kotak is a paragon of "stats not telling the whole story".

The Renaissance Man

कर्मण्ये वाधिका रस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।
मा कर्म फल हेतु र्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्व कर्मणि॥

You have a right to “Karma” (actions) but never to any Fruits thereof. You should never be motivated by the results of your actions, nor should there be any attachment in not doing your prescribed activities.

In all the previous editions, we discussed our domestic legends who were proficient cricketers, who gave their best, but their best wasn't good enough. The spotlight this week is on the man, who was perhaps the most loved figure in the Indian cricket circuit and was called the "Renaissance man". Yes, we are talking about Maturi Venkat Sridhar.

Sridhar was born on 2nd August 1966 in Vijaywada, Andhra Pradesh, but went on to represent Hyderabad between 1988/89 and 1999/00. Interestingly, his best score of 366 came against Andhra Pradesh, when Hyderabad piled on a colossal score of 944/6 declared. During that innings, Sridhar owned a record which stands till today. 850 runs were scored, while he was batting, which is the most runs added during a batsman's innings in first class history.

He was one of those "good guys", who was devoid of any kind of malice towards anybody and the vice versa. When you search about Sridhar, you will find more anecdotes about how good a person he was than how good a cricketer he was. One such incident is when he travelled from Hyderabad to Bangalore to watch VVS Laxman bat, when he was on the verge of breaking Sridhar's record of 366. Unfortunately, VVS fell short, but he was moved by Sridhar's gesture. He later wrote the foreword of Sridhar's biography. When Sridhar was asked about the same, he said that he wanted to emulate Gary Sobers who went to see Brian Lara breaking his record of 365.

After his retirement, he served Indian cricket in myriad roles. He was our assistant manager during India's tour of Australia in 2007/08, when the "monkeygate" incident happened. Bhajji said in an interview that Sridhar was instrumental in helping India win that case and reducing Bhajji's punishment. He was promoted and was made India's media manager and during his tenure, there were no information leaks. He was the best media manager ever.

His biography is called "The renaissance man- Doc MV Sridhar", written by former Hyderabad Ranji Trophy cricketer and selector Harimohan Paruvu. Renaissance man means a person with many talents. He was a doctor, a fine cricketer, a competent administrator, a bank clerk, a educationist and a jazz drummer.

He is perhaps the only cricketer, who is more known for his other talents, but it doesn't mean that he was a lesser cricketer. He was a fine batsman, who should have played for India, but sadly couldn't.

Sridhar passed away on 30th October 2017.

Ashish Winston Zaidi

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन |

मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ||

Translation: You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, nor be attached to inaction.

Who are the most injury prone, when it comes to cricket? Fast bowlers, right? But what if I tell you there was a fast bowler in our country, who played for 18 years on trot without a single injury. Sounds incredible? But it's true, it's damn true(Kurt Angle style). There was a guy about whom it was said that "he used to intoxicate the ball to such an extent that it used to vacillate profusely". It gives me immense pleasure to present to you a legend from my native state Uttar Pradesh- "Mr Ashish Winston Zaidi".

Everybody has an idol and they wish to meet them someday. In the same way, Ashish's idol was the Haryana Hurricane Kapil Dev and the impression he made on him in their first meeting was something which stuck with Kapil perpetually- which was 14 wickets against Haryana. Kapil was so impressed with the lad that he later recommended him for the MRF pace foundation. He considered his stint at the academy as the paradigm shift in his career. He was naturally an in-swing bowler, but this is where he learnt the art of out-swing and became a complete package.

Ashish was born in Prayagraj (then Allahabad) on 16th September 1971. Yes, today is his birthday and this post is my tribute to the great man. He got picked to play for Uttar Pradesh U-15 in a trial at Guru Gobind Singh Sports college, Lucknow and he took a ten-wicket haul on his U-15 debut. He made his first class debut for UP at the tender age of 17. 

He earned the most interesting moniker which I have heard of, because of his first Hindu name, second Christian name and third Muslim name. He was called "Amar Akbar Anthony" by his team mates. That's India's diversity rolled into one person. He was a "true servant" of UP and played for 18 years without any expectations and only for his passion for the game. When he hung his boots, he had won a Ranji trophy for UP in 2005-06(which was his swansong) and was a proud owner of 378 wickets in 110 matches, which is unheard of, for a fast bowler in Indian conditions.

During an interview, when he was asked if he had any regrets or does he blame anyone for not getting the India cap, he meekly said- "I stopped blaming people long back, because it doesn't change your reality". I was in contention for the 1992 world cup and Singer cup, but I have no idea what happened. The selectors demanded five wicket hauls and I took more than five wickets, day in, day out. The surfaces which I played on, during my time, were either turning tracks or flat tracks. I never saw a trace of grass on them, but I had a penchant for taking wickets.

Ashish's best performance came against Vidarbha in 1999-00 season, when he took 9/45, Mohd Saif took the remaining wicket. Vidarbha was bowled out for 98 and Ashish bowled 20 overs on trot. The interesting part of this herculean effort was that, out of his nine wickets, seven were either bowled or LBW. He took 49 wickets that season and was sure of getting a call from the selectors, but the phone never rang.

Amol Mazumdar's story is so hyped that we feel that he was the most unlucky player ever, but after reading Ashish's story, I beg to differ. Mazumdar's competition was the invincible Sachin Tendulkar. On the contrary, Ashish's competition were Indian pacers of 1990s, who were average at best, apart from Srinath. It has to be the regional bias which kept Ashish away from the Indian cap. Rusi Jeejeebhoy who was in the selectors panel then, once told Ashish that none of the selectors ever brought up his name. Sad, right?

Sridharan Sharath

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन |
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ||

Translation: You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, nor be attached to inaction.

If a decent cricketer like N Gautam* confers the moniker of an "all time great" of a state which has produced quality cricketers incessantly, then you should have done something right. But what enrages me is when players who played alongside him and were nowhere close to his calibre got call ups for the national side and the deserving guy missed out. This week we are discussing the tragic+ uplifting story of Tamilnadu's greatest Sridharan Sharath.

Sadagopan Ramesh and Sharath, both were southpaws. Ramesh's first class average was 42 and Sharath's average was 51. Ramesh ended up playing 19 tests and 24 ODIs for India. On the contrary, Sharath kept chasing the coveted India cap.

I am a sucker for good stories. I grew up in the 90s, which was all about recuperating from an injury and winning at life, cinema wise, for me. I only saw Jean Claude Van Damme's movies. If you remember "Blood sport"(Bollywood's version of it is Ajay Devgn's starrer "Jigar")- in the ultimate fight, when the antagonist uses a certain powder to blind Van Damme, he struggles for a wee bit, then closes his eyes, concentrates a little and kills the menace. Something similar happened to Sharath in 1993. He suffered a deadly accident, resulting in the tibia and febula of his left ankle breaking into two pieces. Few months prior to this, he had scored a hundred and two fifties against the NZ U-19 side, which featured Dion Nash and Stephen Fleming. Life is so unfair, you would think, but the guy makes a Van Damme-esque comeback and scores a hundred in his very first match. What a champion!

When you have had vanquished pain and rejection, nothing deters you. He was the first Tamil Nadu player to play 100 Ranji matches. W.V. Raman and K Srikkanth have heaped praises on Sharath and both wanted him to play for India, but both have diverse views on why he didn't get the India cap. Raman feels that the accident was the reason he couldn't play for India and Srikkanth feels it was between Dravid and Sharath, who were the contenders for the Indian cap in the 90s and it went to Dravid, because both batted in the middle order.

When a player stuggles and gets dropped, he/she goes back to the drawing board and starts working on his flaws, because he/she is aware of what they are lacking, but my heart goes out for people like Sharath who did everything right, but fell short. A classic case of "NEKI KAR AUR DARIYA KE DAAL".

*N Gautam was a Tamilnadu cricketer who passed away in 2002. He played 23 tests for Tamilnadu from 1988-2002. He was battling cancer.