WHEN CRICKET BRINGS FOOD TO THE TABLE

One fine morning in April, after the Summer Slam coaching sessions had gotten underway, in walked into our ground a journalist from a leading national daily. What followed were interactions with our head coach Mr. Srinivasan and our COO, Mr. Sudarshan. Today, about three months later, the insights from the interactions have gone into a book titled Cricket Soru Poduma? authored by Bagawati Prasad, senior correspondent at The Times of India in Chennai. The book was launched on the evening of July 19 in Mylapore by a host of eminent cricket personalities.

Before we dwell into the specifics of the book launch event and the book itself, let us analyse, for a moment, the larger context of the game of cricket. Have you ever wondered what is it that makes a cricket match or a tournament successful? What goes behind the scenes to make the match a roaring success? Behind every cricket match is a whole gamut of activities executed by a team of people working in clockwork precision to deliver a world class experience at every level, be it a school level tournament organized by the state cricket association in a city ground or an Ashes Test match in a high-profile Melbourne Cricket Ground. The book profiles 22 such people who have been involved both directly and indirectly to deliver world class cricket experience at all levels.

The book officially launched
Photo courtesy : Srinivasan Venkatachalam

Back to the book launch event, it was graced by Mr. Dav Whatmore, present coach of the Kerala state team and former international coach, Mr. L. Sivaramakrishnan (popularly known as LS), commentator and former Indian cricketer, Mr. V.V Kumar, former India cricketer and Mr. Kasi Viswanathan, former secretary, Tamilnadu Cricket Association. Speaking first, Mr. Whatmore expressed his regret at not being able to read Tamil but he promised he would be the first to hit the stores if an English translated version comes out. Among others, LS narrated anecdotes about how video analysis helped India beat Australia in Australia in 2003-04, Mr. Kumar spoke on harnessing talent in the right manner and Mr. Viswanathan described the constant support the state association was rendering to the game. Finally the author, Mr. Prasad himself, described his experience of penning the book by drawing from his work experience of having interacted with a multitude of people from the world of cricket. Later our head coach was called up on stage, along with Mr. Ramki (cricket data analyst) to hand over a memento to LS.

From left : Mr. Ramki, Mr. Sivaramakrishnan and Mr. Srinivasan
Photo credit : Mahesh Ramesh

We in Gen-Next have every reason to cheer the book since it profiles our COO and our head coach in exclusive chapters. The former’s chapter profiles his journey from a software professional to cricket academy manager, about the power of using social media to promote oneself. The chapter on Srinivasan sir describes his journey from his early days in suburban Tambaram where he coached young kids until he moved on to take up full-time coaching responsibilities with GenNext. To make things sweeter, there is a chapter on Mr. V. Balaji, manager of our chief mentor Ashwin. But topping it all, the icing on the cake, is the book’s foreword, penned by none other than our chief mentor himself.

Photo courtesy : Bagawati Prasad

The event concluded with a photo-op of the personalities, profiled in the book, with the chief guests and the author. 

Standing : Mr. Srinivasan (third from right) and Mr. Sudarshan (partly hidden)
Photo courtesy : Srinivasan Venkatachalam

The title of the book translates into ‘Will cricket feed you?’ This is a common question asked by a majority of Indian parents when their sons aspire to become professional cricketers. The answer to this is a resounding YES ! Read the book to learn about more interesting personalities like video analyst, scorer, umpire, cobbler (yes, you read that right), throw-down specialist and lots more. Available in Amazon here. Happy Reading !