Tamil Nadu looking for Leg Spinners 'leggies'

Leg spinners are rare breed especially match winners. If Anil Kumble is behind Indian cricket, a recent set back though,it is even worse for Tamil Nadu, which had in the past given Indian cricket a devastating young talent in L Sivaramakrishnan in the 80s though it was shortlived. But the loss of Sivaramakrishnan to Indian cricket was even worse for Tamil Nadu cricket. The senior state team, believe it or not has been going without a match winning leg spinner since then(late 80s). Siva, whose guile and style deserted him suddenly due to varied reasons that did the r ounds at that time, did give a try in the 90s to make a come b ack. But that proved to be his last ditch effort.

“Yes, it is right to say that Tamil Nadu’s Ranji t rophy team is sorely missing a leg spinner. Indeed, it has been so after Sivaramakrishnan faded out, says vetern V V Kumar, who after a short stint with India’s Test team, had captured a record four hundred wickets in Ranji trophy for Tamil Nadu as one o f the greatest leg spinners in I ndia. He was even compared favourably to the proverbial best leggie Subhash Gupte, who had bought glory to Indian cricket before Kumble and the unorthodox B S Chandrasekhar.

After Kumar or during his time, a few leg spinner in Tamil Nadu did show some talent like W D Balaji Rao, M O Parthasarathy, P K Dharmalingam and T S Mukund, picking up a lot of wickets in league and other junior state games. But none could really evolve into another Vaman Kumar, until young Sivaramakrishnan did with a sensational debut against Delhi in the Ranji trophy for Tamil Nadu in t he 80s. Kumar opines that there is a lot of talent in Tamil Nadu. But many of them lose focus after reaching a certain stage in evolving as able leg break bowlers. They give up too. Right now, in the spin academy set up by Tamil Nadu Cricket Association there are one or two young ta lents in leg spin bowling. Especi ally one Nirmal Kumar f rom Tiruchirapalli in the Under 19 age group. He is being guided by T S Mukundan. “I have been giving him a few crucial tips and teaching hi m finer points. We expect him to be blossom into a good talent for Tamil Nadu”, he told me for Sportskeeda.