South Zone U19, India U19 Against Australia, 1st Division while still at School
Retired by the time he completed his education!!!
He
went to Chepauk for the U16 selection. One of the selectors, M Srinivasan,
immediately spotted the talent in him and picked him in the squad with the
encouraging words ‘You have a run up like the legendary Aussie Alan Davidson.’
That
season, he bagged the South Zone Sub Junior cricketer of the year award. When he was just 16, he played in the Madras
Test for India U19 against Australia U19 comprising of Tom Moody, Paul Reiffel,
Andrew Zesers and Gavin Robertson.
He
very quickly moved up the rank and was at that time the only school boy
cricketer to play in the 1st division for Alwarpet first under the
captaincy of Bharat Kumar and then under K Srikkanth. He had also become a specialist short leg fielder
(he dedicates his entire cricket achievements to PK Dharmalingam). But very
soon cricket politics got the better of him.
Instead
of exploring other options in Madras that could have furthered his cricketing
ambitions, his father (KC Srivatsa, Partner at that time at the legendary
Auction House Murrays) directed him to take up the seat offered by GCT
Coimbatore. This meant that through that year he would travel unreserved on
Friday evening to play the league match for Alwarpet and get back to Coimbatore
unreserved on Sunday night. It was something that took its toll on his body and
undid his cricketing future.
PK Dharmalingam who coached Hemant from his school days as well as at Alwarpet believes that had he stayed back in Madras during those four years, it is very likely he would have achieved big in cricket for he was at the peak of his form during that phase.
‘Hemant
had a lot of potential as a left arm fast bowler. ‘He had a long and an
economical run up, his delivery stride was a coach’s delight- he accelerated at
the right time, had a high arm action, the perfect landing of the right foot
and a pronounced follow through.’
‘He
had the potential to play much higher level of cricket than what he finally
ended up with, which is very unfortunate.’
Districts beat City
Hemant
captained the Combined districts team that beat the strong N Gautham led City
team. He was the new ball bowler for South Zone U19 and took 5wickets against a
West Zone U 19 team that comprised of Ranji cricketers. And yet a player who
played only one match that year for South Zone (from Karnataka) was selected
for India U19. A former off spinning great was the Selector.
As
luck would have it, that same former India Spinner was the manager of the Indian team when Pakistan
toured India. That Pak team had an upcoming left armer in Azeem Hafeez. Leading
up to the series, the Indian team wanted to practise against a good left arm
quickie and Srikkanth brought Hemant to bowl at the Indian stars in the nets
leaving the offie totally embarrassed.
(The offie called up Srikkanth asking him to convey his apologies to Hemant for having had
to overlook him (for non cricketing reasons) at the India U19 level and
promised to include him next year!!!)
On
another occasion, another South Zone manager from Mangalore told him a day
ahead of the match that another player (not half as good as him) from Karnataka
would be playing the match and that Hemant was dropped (again for reasons
similar to the above).
In
a practise match against SPIC as a teenager, he bowled a sharp bouncer that hit
the then SPIC captain P Ramesh on the chest (after the left hander had hit him
for four the previous ball). He was asked to apologise but Hemant stood his
ground and did not. That was the stuff he was made of and was not known to be a
‘yes man’, another reason that slowed down his progress.
MRF Pace Academy’s deal with 1st
Div teams
It
was also during that period that MRF struck a deal with league clubs in Madras
to play some of the pace academy fast bowlers in their teams. Hemant was the
only real left arm quickie at that time and MRF academy had none.
Yet,
as part of this deal, two fast bowlers from the academy automatically played in
the XI for Alwarpet though Hemant had a proven track record and like the case with the Anna
University admission was far more meritorious. And he missed out again on
crucial opportunities.
All
of these frustrated Hemant and the entire selection process left a poor taste
in him. He quit cricket for good just after 20 despite having played SZ U19 for
4years and India U19 as well.
Looking
back, Hemant regrets taking up cricket for he could never get to terms with the
amount of politics and match fixing.
Hemant currently runs the famous Murrays Auction in Madras.
3 comments:
Sad to say the least.
Such wonderful talent completely wasted
Brilliant Prabhu !!
But still we will have the stupid Dravidian apologist film makers make films on cricket like the recent release, Jeeva :-(
Very nice.Prabhu,u have captured the story well.
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