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The Sreesanth Appreciation Society
- Thread starter Teja.
- Start date
SJS
Hall of Fame Member
A very sad tale . . .
It is poignant and very sad and makes one think of him as a victim more than culprit . . . and it may very well be something in between . . .
Source : Friends, cricket and a stray ball
It is poignant and very sad and makes one think of him as a victim more than culprit . . . and it may very well be something in between . . .
Friends, cricket and a stray ball
Nihal Koshie
Indian Express
26th May 2013
Temperamental, gullible, a mentor to juniors, a lost kid who retreated into a world of his own. As those who know Sreesanth say, he is all of this.
Earlier this year, J K Mahendra, a former Kerala cricketer, got a call from an anxious mother enquiring about her 30-year-old son. Savithridevi's calls to Shanthakumaran Sreesanth had gone unanswered for nearly a week. She was worried because her son hadn't even texted his usual "Im busy. Wil cal" back. At the end of her call to Mahendra, Savithridevi, a state treasury officer, wasn't any wiser about her son's whereabouts.
Mahendra and Sreesanth go back more than a decade. When a teenaged Sreesanth was called for trials to the MRF Pace Foundation, Mahendra, who lives in Chennai, took the young medium-pacer under his wings. Over the years, Mahendra had taken on different roles—mentor, father-figure, local guardian, business partner. As the young boy with a brilliant outswinger grew in stature, he forever remained reverential to his senior state-mate. Or so his mother thought till she made that call.
"Sreesanth had stopped keeping in touch with me, contrary to what his parents believed. He had stopped taking my calls over the past two years. I told his mother. 'If he isn't in touch with his parents, there is something wrong'," Mahendra recalls the frank, but brief, conversation he had with Sreesanth's mother.
A common grouse many who were part of the medium-pacer's growing-up years hold against him is that he retreated into a world of his own after being part of India's 2011 World Cup-winning team. "I never approved of the people who started getting close to him because I felt he had surrounded himself with fair-weather friends. I may have been wrong but look at the mess he has got into. He is a victim of the company he kept," says Mahendra.
***
Those who Sreesanth chose to keep in touch with talk about his "dark days"—when he stopped answering calls following the high of having a World Cup medal around his neck. The same year, he played three Tests in England—the last time he played for India—but had only eight wickets to show for it.
His attempt at playing the Ranji Trophy for Kerala in the 2011-12 season lasted one game because of the recurrence of a toe injury. He shunned surgery and opted for Ayurveda. By the time the fifth edition of the Indian Premier League began, he was traveling with the Rajasthan Royals team but didn't play because he had to eventually undergo surgery on both his big toes. What followed was a year of rehabilitation and some days spent in a wheelchair.
P Sivakumar, Sreesanth's first coach at the Ernakulam Cricket Club, recalls that his most-famous ward had, in the days after the surgery, wondered if he would ever play cricket again. "I wouldn't say he was frustrated but he was desperate to play for India again. He was in great pain. But to his credit, he worked hard and played for Kerala and then was selected for the India 'A' team that would play England in early 2013," says Sivakumar.
Hopes of making a comeback to the national side improved when Sreesanth was asked to bowl in the nets at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on the eve of the second One-day International against England in Kochi. Sreesanth waited for half-an-hour in the afternoon sun. A Kerala player, who was part of that loosely assembled circle of net bowlers of which Sreesanth formed the central figure that afternoon, says Sreesanth was determined to impress his former India mates but felt ignored when he was given a go only at the reserves.
However, his coach Shivakumar says he seemed excited at the end of the session because the Indian team management had told him that he was still in their scheme of things. "Sreesanth knew that if he was picked for the Test tour of South Africa later this year, he would make a grand comeback. It was in South Africa that he was always at his best. The bounce and life in the wickets allowed him to make the most of his upright seam position. To motivate him when he was down, I would sometimes remind him of the ball with which he forced Jacques Kallis to recoil in the air and edge to the wicketkeeper at the Kingsmead in Durban in the 2010 series," says Sivakumar.
***
When the India call never came, Sreesanth grew restless, says a friend in whom the medium-pacer confided. "After the toe surgery, Sree realised that he probably would never be the same bowler again. He knew that his career would last another year or two, that too provided he was injury-free. Maybe he wanted to make the most of this IPL season because he knew that it could be his last chance," says the friend while trying to make sense of the allegations against Sreesanth.
Another friend who claims to have been in Sreesanth's "inner circle" says it would have been impossible to lure his friend with money. "He was very large-hearted. He wouldn't think twice about spending money for his friends or for complete strangers who approached him for help. He liked to live a good life, but he would never compromise for money. If he spot-fixed, as the police are claiming, it could have been only because he was entrapped by a woman. He would easily charm women. Unfortunately, he was naïve when it came to judging people".
Mahendra believes that someone like Sreesanth who was as gullible as he was temperamental would have been better off if he had been home in Kochi, not in Bangalore where he had started staying after his international debut in 2006. "I think the boy lost his way and there was no one to guide him when he needed it the most," he says.
After the slap-gate incident involving Sreesanth and Harbhajan Singh, coach Sivakumar feared that Sreesanth's fits of misbehaviour would only increase because he was getting increasingly angry and feeling isolated. That is when the coach turned to N Ajith Kumar, a professor of economics and former secretary of the Kerala Cricket Association. Prof Kumar, who had a few one-to-one chat sessions with Sreesanth, says he now wishes he had given him more time. "The brief I got was to drive sense into him. At that point, he had developed an arrogant streak and had rubbed many people up the wrong way, including the local media. Sreesanth was facing a lot of flak and I guess everyone was worried how he would react."
With time at a premium—the professor is a research guide and has a lot of students who work with him—the face-to-face interactions gave way to phone calls and text messages. Ajith Kumar believes that Sreesanth's stint with English county Warwickshire in 2009, where Allan Donald was the coach, did a world of good to him. "Once he came back, he was more amicable, fitter and much more committed to the game. Being away from Bangalore helped him stay away from all distractions," says Ajith Kumar.
***
When they say "distractions", they mean the company Sreesanth kept. In 2008, the residents' association of the apartment complex in which he owned a flat in Bangalore's Langford Town filed a police complaint following a party that had turned boisterous past midnight. This incident is one of his many brushes with trouble during his time in Bangalore, his home away from home. Yet, Sreesanth swore by his 'friends' and among them was Jiju Janardhanan, an all-rounder who was increasingly spotted by his side over the last two-three years. Janardhanan is one of those under arrest for alleged spot-fixing.
Kerala Cricket Association (KCA) secretary K C Mathew calls Janardhanan Sreesanth's "satellite". "Sreesanth brought him to Kerala hoping to help him play for the state. Jiju was always with Sreesanth, not just when he was in Kerala or Bangalore but also when he was abroad," says Mathew.
Sreesanth and Mathew had a falling-out after the fast bowler was named skipper of the Kerala team but refused to attend a coaching camp being conducted by a Sports Authority of India coach in Thalassery. Ajith Kumar, however, defends Sreesanth. "He had just returned after being coached by Allan Donald. The KCA didn't have to force him to attend a camp conducted by a local coach," he says.
In spite of his tantrums, Sreesanth remained popular among cricketers in the senior and junior teams of his home state for being a large-hearted mentor.
Krishna Prasad, who is now a regular on the veterans' circuit, says, "It will be hard to find a junior player in Kerala who doesn't use a pair of shoes or cricket whites or a bat given to him by Sreesanth. I have gone to his house several times and filled the boot of my car with shoes, bats and cricket gear that Sreesanth wanted to give to junior cricketers. He would never say 'no' if anyone asked him for help."
Sreesanth also insisted on hosting informal team-bonding sessions or parties and he footed the bill at the end of every game in which Kerala did well. Sometimes, he even handed away 'gifts' to the Man of the Match. "As the senior-most Test player from the state, he tried to be an elder brother. He is the one who took Sanju Samson and Sachin Baby for the selection trials of the Rajasthan Royals team," says Sivakumar, a fact confirmed by the IPL franchisee's management.
***
As part of the Indian team, Sreesanth was different from most newcomers. Not only was he confident of his ability to swing the cricket ball but he could set a dance floor on fire, could sing, play the drums and talk in English—a package that made him a ladies' man. He was respectful of legends he grew up watching, but had the uncanny knack of irritating them when he got carried away.
In a Challenger Trophy game in 2006, Sreesanth had beaten "Sachin paaji" in two consecutive balls and then walked up a couple of yards and stared at one of his idols. It is part of the team folklore that Tendulkar told the young bowler to never get that close to him again. What can be confirmed is that the next delivery was hit back over the bowler's head.
Though over the years, he counted M S Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Irfan Pathan, Robin Uthappa and RP Singh among his friends, as early as his second Test in 2006, he began feeling isolated. "Everyone is after my life, no one seems to understand me," Sreesanth had confided on the eve of the final Test versus England in Mumbai in 2006.
His many interests outside of cricket—music and films among them—helped him take his mind off his dressing room woes. It helped that his brother-in-law Madhu Balakrishnan was a playback singer and a sister, Niveditha, a television show actress. But when he tried to mix his passion with business, he wasn't successful. The Music Café brand promoted by his elder brother Deepu Santhan and Balakrishnan never really took off and his band S-36 hardly created a stir. His latest venture, a sports goods retail store, was being promoted by Deepu when the spot-fixing scandal broke. There are stories of how, like in cricket, his investments were driven by emotion because his family—immediate and extended—were poor business advisors.
However, Sreesanth's dream of being part of a Malayalam movie was fulfilled when lyricist and singer Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri gave him the role of a cricketer in his yet-to-be released movie Mazhavillinattam Vare. "After the shoot, I handed him Rs 50,000 in a cover. But he returned it without even opening the cover, saying, 'I am nothing compared to artists like you. I only want your blessings'," says Namboothiri, who now wants to re-shoot Sreesanth's part with another actor.
A week before the start of the IPL, Sreesanth exchanged pleasantries with this correspondent as he headed for an advertisement shoot at the team hotel in Jaipur. He defended not answering calls for an interview request. "I am lying low. I want my ball to do the talking. We'll chat at the end of the IPL," he said. Sreesanth signed off with "Swami Sharanam", a chant to invoke the blessings of Lord Ayyappa that the young boy with a natural outswinger and a perfect wrist position would invoke before producing a match-winning spell in Ernakulam's club circuit.
Sree-Fall
2005: Makes his ODI debut , but makes his mark the next year, a few months after his Test debut. His eight-wicket haul against South Africa in Johannesburg helps India to its first win in the country.
2007: Was one of the standouts as India went on to claim the inaugural T20 World Cup. He was particularly impressive in India's semifinal win over Australia with a spell of 4-1-12-2 in a high-scoring game. Took the catch to dismiss Misbah-ul-Haq, the moment that sealed the final against Pakistan in India's favour.
2011: Part of India's World Cup winning campaign at home. Though he played the final against Sri Lanka, he went wicket-less and proved expensive. Represents India for the last time in both Tests and ODIs.
2012: Played for Kerala in December after a toe surgery
2013: Caught spot-fixing in IPL 6 and is banned pending inquiry.
Nihal Koshie
Indian Express
26th May 2013
Temperamental, gullible, a mentor to juniors, a lost kid who retreated into a world of his own. As those who know Sreesanth say, he is all of this.
Earlier this year, J K Mahendra, a former Kerala cricketer, got a call from an anxious mother enquiring about her 30-year-old son. Savithridevi's calls to Shanthakumaran Sreesanth had gone unanswered for nearly a week. She was worried because her son hadn't even texted his usual "Im busy. Wil cal" back. At the end of her call to Mahendra, Savithridevi, a state treasury officer, wasn't any wiser about her son's whereabouts.
Mahendra and Sreesanth go back more than a decade. When a teenaged Sreesanth was called for trials to the MRF Pace Foundation, Mahendra, who lives in Chennai, took the young medium-pacer under his wings. Over the years, Mahendra had taken on different roles—mentor, father-figure, local guardian, business partner. As the young boy with a brilliant outswinger grew in stature, he forever remained reverential to his senior state-mate. Or so his mother thought till she made that call.
"Sreesanth had stopped keeping in touch with me, contrary to what his parents believed. He had stopped taking my calls over the past two years. I told his mother. 'If he isn't in touch with his parents, there is something wrong'," Mahendra recalls the frank, but brief, conversation he had with Sreesanth's mother.
A common grouse many who were part of the medium-pacer's growing-up years hold against him is that he retreated into a world of his own after being part of India's 2011 World Cup-winning team. "I never approved of the people who started getting close to him because I felt he had surrounded himself with fair-weather friends. I may have been wrong but look at the mess he has got into. He is a victim of the company he kept," says Mahendra.
***
Those who Sreesanth chose to keep in touch with talk about his "dark days"—when he stopped answering calls following the high of having a World Cup medal around his neck. The same year, he played three Tests in England—the last time he played for India—but had only eight wickets to show for it.
His attempt at playing the Ranji Trophy for Kerala in the 2011-12 season lasted one game because of the recurrence of a toe injury. He shunned surgery and opted for Ayurveda. By the time the fifth edition of the Indian Premier League began, he was traveling with the Rajasthan Royals team but didn't play because he had to eventually undergo surgery on both his big toes. What followed was a year of rehabilitation and some days spent in a wheelchair.
P Sivakumar, Sreesanth's first coach at the Ernakulam Cricket Club, recalls that his most-famous ward had, in the days after the surgery, wondered if he would ever play cricket again. "I wouldn't say he was frustrated but he was desperate to play for India again. He was in great pain. But to his credit, he worked hard and played for Kerala and then was selected for the India 'A' team that would play England in early 2013," says Sivakumar.
Hopes of making a comeback to the national side improved when Sreesanth was asked to bowl in the nets at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on the eve of the second One-day International against England in Kochi. Sreesanth waited for half-an-hour in the afternoon sun. A Kerala player, who was part of that loosely assembled circle of net bowlers of which Sreesanth formed the central figure that afternoon, says Sreesanth was determined to impress his former India mates but felt ignored when he was given a go only at the reserves.
However, his coach Shivakumar says he seemed excited at the end of the session because the Indian team management had told him that he was still in their scheme of things. "Sreesanth knew that if he was picked for the Test tour of South Africa later this year, he would make a grand comeback. It was in South Africa that he was always at his best. The bounce and life in the wickets allowed him to make the most of his upright seam position. To motivate him when he was down, I would sometimes remind him of the ball with which he forced Jacques Kallis to recoil in the air and edge to the wicketkeeper at the Kingsmead in Durban in the 2010 series," says Sivakumar.
***
When the India call never came, Sreesanth grew restless, says a friend in whom the medium-pacer confided. "After the toe surgery, Sree realised that he probably would never be the same bowler again. He knew that his career would last another year or two, that too provided he was injury-free. Maybe he wanted to make the most of this IPL season because he knew that it could be his last chance," says the friend while trying to make sense of the allegations against Sreesanth.
Another friend who claims to have been in Sreesanth's "inner circle" says it would have been impossible to lure his friend with money. "He was very large-hearted. He wouldn't think twice about spending money for his friends or for complete strangers who approached him for help. He liked to live a good life, but he would never compromise for money. If he spot-fixed, as the police are claiming, it could have been only because he was entrapped by a woman. He would easily charm women. Unfortunately, he was naïve when it came to judging people".
Mahendra believes that someone like Sreesanth who was as gullible as he was temperamental would have been better off if he had been home in Kochi, not in Bangalore where he had started staying after his international debut in 2006. "I think the boy lost his way and there was no one to guide him when he needed it the most," he says.
After the slap-gate incident involving Sreesanth and Harbhajan Singh, coach Sivakumar feared that Sreesanth's fits of misbehaviour would only increase because he was getting increasingly angry and feeling isolated. That is when the coach turned to N Ajith Kumar, a professor of economics and former secretary of the Kerala Cricket Association. Prof Kumar, who had a few one-to-one chat sessions with Sreesanth, says he now wishes he had given him more time. "The brief I got was to drive sense into him. At that point, he had developed an arrogant streak and had rubbed many people up the wrong way, including the local media. Sreesanth was facing a lot of flak and I guess everyone was worried how he would react."
With time at a premium—the professor is a research guide and has a lot of students who work with him—the face-to-face interactions gave way to phone calls and text messages. Ajith Kumar believes that Sreesanth's stint with English county Warwickshire in 2009, where Allan Donald was the coach, did a world of good to him. "Once he came back, he was more amicable, fitter and much more committed to the game. Being away from Bangalore helped him stay away from all distractions," says Ajith Kumar.
***
When they say "distractions", they mean the company Sreesanth kept. In 2008, the residents' association of the apartment complex in which he owned a flat in Bangalore's Langford Town filed a police complaint following a party that had turned boisterous past midnight. This incident is one of his many brushes with trouble during his time in Bangalore, his home away from home. Yet, Sreesanth swore by his 'friends' and among them was Jiju Janardhanan, an all-rounder who was increasingly spotted by his side over the last two-three years. Janardhanan is one of those under arrest for alleged spot-fixing.
Kerala Cricket Association (KCA) secretary K C Mathew calls Janardhanan Sreesanth's "satellite". "Sreesanth brought him to Kerala hoping to help him play for the state. Jiju was always with Sreesanth, not just when he was in Kerala or Bangalore but also when he was abroad," says Mathew.
Sreesanth and Mathew had a falling-out after the fast bowler was named skipper of the Kerala team but refused to attend a coaching camp being conducted by a Sports Authority of India coach in Thalassery. Ajith Kumar, however, defends Sreesanth. "He had just returned after being coached by Allan Donald. The KCA didn't have to force him to attend a camp conducted by a local coach," he says.
In spite of his tantrums, Sreesanth remained popular among cricketers in the senior and junior teams of his home state for being a large-hearted mentor.
Krishna Prasad, who is now a regular on the veterans' circuit, says, "It will be hard to find a junior player in Kerala who doesn't use a pair of shoes or cricket whites or a bat given to him by Sreesanth. I have gone to his house several times and filled the boot of my car with shoes, bats and cricket gear that Sreesanth wanted to give to junior cricketers. He would never say 'no' if anyone asked him for help."
Sreesanth also insisted on hosting informal team-bonding sessions or parties and he footed the bill at the end of every game in which Kerala did well. Sometimes, he even handed away 'gifts' to the Man of the Match. "As the senior-most Test player from the state, he tried to be an elder brother. He is the one who took Sanju Samson and Sachin Baby for the selection trials of the Rajasthan Royals team," says Sivakumar, a fact confirmed by the IPL franchisee's management.
***
As part of the Indian team, Sreesanth was different from most newcomers. Not only was he confident of his ability to swing the cricket ball but he could set a dance floor on fire, could sing, play the drums and talk in English—a package that made him a ladies' man. He was respectful of legends he grew up watching, but had the uncanny knack of irritating them when he got carried away.
In a Challenger Trophy game in 2006, Sreesanth had beaten "Sachin paaji" in two consecutive balls and then walked up a couple of yards and stared at one of his idols. It is part of the team folklore that Tendulkar told the young bowler to never get that close to him again. What can be confirmed is that the next delivery was hit back over the bowler's head.
Though over the years, he counted M S Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Irfan Pathan, Robin Uthappa and RP Singh among his friends, as early as his second Test in 2006, he began feeling isolated. "Everyone is after my life, no one seems to understand me," Sreesanth had confided on the eve of the final Test versus England in Mumbai in 2006.
His many interests outside of cricket—music and films among them—helped him take his mind off his dressing room woes. It helped that his brother-in-law Madhu Balakrishnan was a playback singer and a sister, Niveditha, a television show actress. But when he tried to mix his passion with business, he wasn't successful. The Music Café brand promoted by his elder brother Deepu Santhan and Balakrishnan never really took off and his band S-36 hardly created a stir. His latest venture, a sports goods retail store, was being promoted by Deepu when the spot-fixing scandal broke. There are stories of how, like in cricket, his investments were driven by emotion because his family—immediate and extended—were poor business advisors.
However, Sreesanth's dream of being part of a Malayalam movie was fulfilled when lyricist and singer Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri gave him the role of a cricketer in his yet-to-be released movie Mazhavillinattam Vare. "After the shoot, I handed him Rs 50,000 in a cover. But he returned it without even opening the cover, saying, 'I am nothing compared to artists like you. I only want your blessings'," says Namboothiri, who now wants to re-shoot Sreesanth's part with another actor.
A week before the start of the IPL, Sreesanth exchanged pleasantries with this correspondent as he headed for an advertisement shoot at the team hotel in Jaipur. He defended not answering calls for an interview request. "I am lying low. I want my ball to do the talking. We'll chat at the end of the IPL," he said. Sreesanth signed off with "Swami Sharanam", a chant to invoke the blessings of Lord Ayyappa that the young boy with a natural outswinger and a perfect wrist position would invoke before producing a match-winning spell in Ernakulam's club circuit.
Sree-Fall
2005: Makes his ODI debut , but makes his mark the next year, a few months after his Test debut. His eight-wicket haul against South Africa in Johannesburg helps India to its first win in the country.
2007: Was one of the standouts as India went on to claim the inaugural T20 World Cup. He was particularly impressive in India's semifinal win over Australia with a spell of 4-1-12-2 in a high-scoring game. Took the catch to dismiss Misbah-ul-Haq, the moment that sealed the final against Pakistan in India's favour.
2011: Part of India's World Cup winning campaign at home. Though he played the final against Sri Lanka, he went wicket-less and proved expensive. Represents India for the last time in both Tests and ODIs.
2012: Played for Kerala in December after a toe surgery
2013: Caught spot-fixing in IPL 6 and is banned pending inquiry.
Source : Friends, cricket and a stray ball