Those of my
friends not addicted to Cricket – can you relate or identify the person on extreme
right with red head gear ?
At
Melbourne, with 4 overs remaining, a draw was announced much to the relief of
Indian fans. Even though there was no
overnight declaration and Aussies preferring to bat close to lunch, India was
in the danger of losing especially after those early fall of wickets. The young KL Rahul messed up the chance that
was given to him overlooking Suresh Raina, failing in the 2nd
innings too. Lall
Singh, Hiralal Gaekwad, Ramesh Saxena, Kenia Jayantilal, Yograj Singh, Thirumalai
Echampadi Srinivasan, Ghulam Parkar, Rakesh Shukla, Ajay Sharma, Rashid Patel, M.
Venkataramana, Salil Ankola (debuted alongside Sachin Tendulkar), Gursharan
Singh, Subroto Banerje, Vijay Yadav, Robin Singh, Nikhil Chopra, Syed Saba Karim ………………. Long
list of some of Indian Cricketers who played in one test only.
There are many players who never got the right
opportunity and ended up not getting a National call. India has a well
organized structure. Ranji forms the
basic foundation for players and serves as a good platform providing
opportunity to players from all the States to claim National reckoning. Still,
those on top - Amol Mazumdar and Amarjit
Kaypee never played for the Nation.
In yet another category of players who we feel ended
up much less than what they deserved is
- the elegant left hander Sadagoppan Ramesh, the tale of a player who has put behind him the disappointments of
an aborted career and ventured into something totally new – the show
business. Remember he made his debut at a tough time, at
his home ground Chepauk in 1999 and left everyone spellbound with pristine
drives off Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis- in the subsequent tour to Lanka, he
shone when others failed. A back injury ruled him out of the South Africa tour
and started his disappointment of being in and out. After more than two years off the radar, he
had another opportunity when he was picked for the 2003-04 tour of Australia as
a third opener but never got the chance there.
In a recent interview to Cricinfo, he stated that he
should have played at least 50 test matches.
He was a middle-order batsman who became an opener due to forcing
circumstances. Pakistan, at that time,
had probably the best attack in the world. You had Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis,
Shoaib Akhtar, Saqlain Mushtaq and Mushtaq Ahmed. In that Delhi test remembered for Kumble’s
clean 10, Ramesh got 60 and 96. In that 2001 epic Series, he played so well at
Chepauk against Aussies making 61 and 25. In his last innings he scored a fifty but
sadly never got a chance after that and ended up playing 19 Test matches. Ramesh is the first Indian cricketer to take a
wicket off his first ball in ODI cricket, the victim being Nixon McLean of the
West Indies.
The man at the start is indeed Sadagopan Ramesh, the
Cricketer. From
Cricket, he landed on TV as a Judge in a comedy show. Then he played the hero’s brother in Jayam
Ravi starrer ‘Santhosh Subramaniam’.
Then came ‘Potta potti’ in 2011.
It was a hilarious plot – two men, Kodaivannan and Kolaivannan, of a
remote village decide to marry a rich girl. In tune with the village rivalries the winner
of an event would get her – and it boils down to a Cricket match at the
village. The ‘good’ hearted
Kodaivannan’s team kidnaps the real cricketer, Sadagoppan Ramesh, while he is on
his way to Thekkady. Kolaivannan hires his coach from a greedy big
shot from Chennai who eyes the big land of this village for his business. In
between, the coach Sadagoppan Ramesh falls in love with that girl. Though it
did not go great guns, the movie was a good comedy.
Sadagoppan Ramesh ended up playing 19 tests (37
innings) scoring 1367 runs with 2 centuries and 8 fifties at an average of
37.97. In 24 One dayers he made 646 –
though he scored 159 and 70 fours in Tests and One dayers – he hit only a
single six in his International career.
He was an
elegant player to watch.
With regards – S. Sampathkumar
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