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.