BCCI Umpire Rajesh Kannan quits IOB after 25years

R Rajesh Kannan moves into the league of Top 100 Indian Umpires - Set for a new full innings as an Umpire

A few years ago, he let go a cricket coaching offer as it meant taking away another's livelihood. In a world that has now come to grab everything coming one's way, this was indeed a rare gesture

It is a sign of changing times. A couple of decades ago, upcoming cricketers looked up to bank jobs for life security. Life in the cricketing circles has come a full cycle. 

After serving the bank both as a player and a mentor- coach for over two decades,  46 year old Rajesh Kannan (http://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2015/06/rajesh-kannan-bcci-board-umpire.html), a down-to-earth man from a humble middle class family in Madras who for many years during those early days in cricket boarded that infrequent 45B bus at the Saidapet bus stand to reach his cricket destination and came up the hard way in cricket facing many hurdles that would broken many a weaker mind, is quitting IOB exactly 25 years after he joined when he was handpicked by former TN opener and mentor for many at IOB V Krishnaswamy (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2016/08/krishnaswamy-v.html). 

Rajesh Kannan has quit the Bank just ahead of the long domestic cricket season. He follows in the footsteps of mentor and former teammate KN Ananthapadmanabhan (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2016/09/ananthapadmanabhan-kn.html) who just last year quit IOB. International umpire S Ravi (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2018/11/umpire-ravi-quits-rbi.html) too had quit his bank job at RBI a couple of years back.

In recent times, it had become increasingly difficult for him to straddle between the two careers – the pressures of a Deputy Manager at a bank branch, the physical challenges of sitting at the desk for several hours and the issues relating to that and his absence from the branch for many days with the growing number of matches for BCCI umpires and the related outstation travel involved in this engagement.

Once, Banks provided a stable career

In the decades gone by, Banks provided a stable long term job for cricketers, who usually settled down in the PSUs at the end of their playing days. There were those like Krishnaswamy who also grew professionally in the Bank after their playing career and scaled the peak in the Banking Career.

Not anymore.

Buoyed by positive feedback over the last 12 months on his umpiring performances at the BCCI level and confident of going up the ladder with increasing opportunities at the national level tournaments and pushed and motivated by BCCI Umpiring colleague Sai Darshan Kumar to explore his umpiring potential a little further, Rajesh Kannan, who continued to play for IOB till the time he was into his 40s also doubling up as a mentor- coach for the bank, has taken a bold call and decided to focus on a full time career in umpiring.

With match referee and teammate ASK Verma at the send off function at the Besant Nagar Branch

Even in the just concluded TNPL, given the pressures of the bank job and the responsibilities he held at the branch, he was shuttling midweek between Tirunelveli/ Natham and Madras to take care of his work at the Besant Nagar Branch, where he has been working over the last year, and then returning a day later for his umpiring duty at the TNPL.

TNPL Final
Rajesh Kannan officiated as the third umpire in the final of the TNPL at Chepauk after a strong showing in the league phase of the tournament that earned him the respect of the players.

With the domestic calendar set to start next month and expected to be another long one, Rajesh Kannan is likely to be away on an Umpiring expedition going around the country over the next four months.

A Great Human Being
A few years ago, Rajesh Kannan was offered a lucrative coaching role by a local team in the city, almost a blank cheque for him to sign up. His entry would have meant two of the three existing coaches to have lost their jobs. Life for those existing coaches depended on that coaching engagement. Rajesh Kannan refused that engagement. He did not want a coaching assignment that would have meant taking away the financial benefits of other human beings. In a world that has now come to grab everything coming one's way, this was a rare gesture. 

It is likely to be an exciting new career for him especially given the increasing number of matches at the national level starting from age group tournaments. While the steps up the umpiring ladder may have many challenging moments, one can be confident of one thing – at all times, Rajesh Kannan will display the same kind of passion and commitment as an umpire that he, for so long, presented as a player and then subsequently as a staffer at the bank. And it is the above human characteristic of not grabbing everything at all cost that will stand him in good stead wherever he goes.

Rajesh Kannan's elder daughter is an upcoming carnatic music artiste and a student of Subha Ganesan
(http://sundaykutcheri.blogspot.com/2015/07/harini-presents-lively-sunday-kutcheri.html)