Sunil Subramanian TN Left Arm Spinner

He topped the bowling charts for TN in four of his first five years and took around150 wickets in Ranji cricket in that phase but Zonal Selection remained elusive till into his 6th year

Fiercely Competitive and a man who wanted the ball at all times, he thrived on going after the big guns in the opposition batting order

With his two year-120 games experience as India's first professional manager, he can now look forward to similar opportunities on the domestic front 

An enlightening moment with legend ML Jaisimha transformed his life. And a magnanimous gesture by mentor S Vasudevan within an hour of lifting the Ranji Trophy paved the way for an early Ranji debut. He promised to himself that day that he would not let his mentor and that he would surpass his mentor’s tally of wickets for TN. That confidence reflected in his wicket taking spree for TN as he topped the bowling charts in four of his first five years. He went on to beat Vasudevan’s tally of wickets in the process topping the bowling charts in four of his first season for the state but just like his mentor, he too was given a raw deal at the zonal level. At times, he was seen as eccentric and even a maverick but was one of the fiercest competitors on the field. While he did vent his frustrated feelings every now and then, he allowed the red cherry to do the talking for a large part of his cricketing career and he did that in no small measure. His was a glorious contribution for the State. Here’s the story of one of TN’s best ever left arm spinners. 

High on Academics

Sunil Subramanian belonged to an academically inclined family. His forefathers hailed from the Nava Kailayam Sthalam of Kodaganallur, near Tirunelveli renowned for Sarpa Dosham Parikaram(https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2018/08/kodaganallur-kailasanathar-temple.html). His forefathers were oil merchants serving the Royal family of Travancore. His Grand Father was an active participant in the World War. His appa, a sports lover, was in the Air Force and his sister and brother held Masters and Doctoral degrees. He himself was a high performing product of KV and was keen to pursue CA. But by the time he was into his late teens, he was already playing U22 as well as for the Madras University. This turned him away from his earlier interest in professional degree into a life that for the next decade focused fully on cricket. But his learnings at KV made a well rounded person.

An unexpected job offer

Quite unexpectedly, his manager on the University tour, H Sundaram, impressed with his varsity performances (Sunil considers that team as the best he has played in), offered him a job at IOB while he was still in his 2nd year at Vivekananda College.  He had not completed his graduation and his family comprised of people professionally qualified in academics. His appa disapproved the teenager joining the clerical cadre at the Bank. It was one of the first occasions when his eccentric character came to the fore. He did not talk with his appa for a couple of years while he was at the Bank.

Sunil recalls the conversations that were to be the last with his appa for a couple of years “I had no offers from any other first division team. While I was excited to lock heads against the best in the state and had made up my mind to take up the job, my appa expressed his displeasure at my hurry in taking up a clerical job even before graduation.”

Off Spinner M Santosh Kumar dominated the spin attack for IOB in those days and much to Sunil’s frustration he did not get to bowl much. IOB opener from the 1970s and 80s M Sundar recounts those two years that Sunil played for IOB “He was under bowled in that period and played for us primarily as a batsman but he did give us crucial breakthroughs whenever he was given the ball.”

One of his big days in that early phase came in the Indian Express Trophy final in 1986 as a batsman. Sundar remembers that day “B Arun was in the Indian squad for the tied test against Australia but not in the XI. He played the final after getting permission from the Indian team. The belting he received at the hands of Sunil - the batsman- was brutal and that is still fresh in my memory. It was not a treatment that too many in the city meted out to Arun. Sunil's batting won us the final and him receiving the MOM award from Kapil was a big boost to his confidence.”

The MLJ Moment 

Quite (un)surprisingly, his life transforming moment came not in TN but outside. When on TN’s U25 tour in Hyderabad, he had someone tapping his back asking if he would come back and play for a Hyderabad club the next year. It was India Legend ML Jaisimha. 

Sunil looks back at that match in Hyderabad as his transformational moment in cricket “ML Jaisimha was my first and biggest motivator in cricket. After watching me bowl, he remarked that this boy bowls like Ravi (Shastri) and raised the question with the TN Manager as to how I had not yet played for TN. His comments boosted my confidence. Not once in the next decade do I recall that kind of motivational talk from anyone in TN cricket. MLJ was simply inspirational and one who made my cricketing life.”

In that phase, MLJ picked an all India youth team every year led by one international senior (Arun Lal that year). Sunil was chosen alongside Snehasish and Sourav Ganguly. As promised to MLJ, he also went on to play for VST in the Moin ud Dowla tournament. Interestingly, playing for VST, he got 7 wickets against TN, a year in which in he got 23 wickets in 3 matches in the tournament

“MLJ boosted my cricketing confidence in that phase and was the one who instilled the importance of game awareness and that a match was never really over until the very end” says Sunil of the legend’s early impact on his cricketing thought process. That fighting spirit remained with Sunil every time he entered a cricket field.

His mentor- S Vasudevan

After he was grossly under bowled in the two years at IOB, Sunil moved to SPIC where he was mentored by Ranji Trophy winning captain S Vasudevan. At the SPIC Nets, he would often bowl to former Bombay and TN Ranji cricketer S Srinivasan for hours challenging him to bat through the nets session without getting out once. Srinivasan recalls the challenge “He was an excellent left arm spinner who used his height to great advantage and got that extra bounce from any pitch. I witnessed some of his superb performances while playing for SPIC. I had the pleasure of playing him at the SPIC nets and it was always a challenge as he had enough & more variations.”

It was also the season in which this writer and Promodh Sharma, now a 100 million dollar businessman in the apparel space, (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2020/05/promodh-sharma-cricketer-turned.html) bowled alongside Sunil at the SPIC nets. Through that year, Sunil would ask this writer if his action was exactly that of Ravi Shastri. Even as a 21 year old, Sunil’s confidence was sky high and he always visualised himself as one in the bigger league. He would also challenge the Ranji veterans in the team - P Ramesh and V Sivaramakrishnan - to take him on at the nets. While they would go for the big hit into the nearby YMCA ground, he aimed to fox them with his guile. Most times, he was the winner. He carried the same spirit into every match he played. He was aggressive in his mindset and went after the ‘Big’ wickets in the opposition lineup.  He was vocal even in the nets and expressed himself to those around. 

A Great Learner

S Vasudevan (Vasu Ranji Retirement) had told this writer in a conversation in 2020 at his home as to how Sunil spent a number of hours with him wanting to understand and learn the nuances of spin bowling “He was inquisitive and would always ask questions. He was a great learner and looked to sharpen his skills all the time. It was a delight to be engaging in Spin-Talk with him in those two years. As someone who was closely engaged with him in that phase, it gave me great delight that he converted his learnings into great success on the field.”

Sunil looks back at the period under Vasudevan as the one that transformed him as a bowler “Vasu was the one who handed me the real chances in the first division and that helped me showcase my bowling skills. I watched him closely every time he bowled in the nets and the match. It was from him that I learned the art of spin bowling and widened my bowling repertoire.”

While MLJ was inspirational with his words, S Vasudevan kindled the spin spirit in Sunil imparting technical skills. And that was invaluable for Sunil in the late 1980s “I am ever grateful to Vasudevan for sacrificing his place in the TN team when he could have easily played another 3-4 years given the form he was in at that time. I promised to myself after his great gesture that I would not let down the confidence he had in me and that I would surpass him in the Ranji wickets tally one day.” 

Great Debut Season

And he did that in quite an extraordinary manner.  In the 1988-89 season, Sunil was roped into the squad to play for TN against the visiting Kiwis in Goa. In his debut match, he picked up 6 wickets. In his first year in Ranji, he was the highest wicket taken for TN by a long mile with 34 wickets including three five wicket hauls. In four of his first five Ranji seasons, he topped the bowling charts for TN, quite an unprecedented achievement for a left arm spinner. He went on to do that six times in his career.

Chemplast – The Best Cricketing Phase

An offer from Bharath Reddy led him to Chemplast where he worked for over 6years and played some of his best cricket. Sunil says that it was the best period in his cricketing life “We had a terrific side at Jolly Rovers. Chemplast took great care of us and we lived in style. In return we delivered the results. We played hard cricket and grabbed almost every tourney.”

During his stint at Chemplast,  he worked through the day till 8pm even on evenings when there was a train to catch “Vijay Sankar would help me with his car that would pick my luggage from my house and arrive at the station, while I went there directly after my office work.” This non cricketing work would hold him in good stead once he retired from cricket.

An Aggressive Spinner

‘ATG’ S. Sharath (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2020/12/sharath-s-tn-crickets-atg.html) who played alongside Sunil through that entire phase at Chemplast and for TN rates him as one of the two best left arm spinners (the other being Raju) that he had ever played with or against “He had everything in him. He was an outstanding competitor, an aggressive spinner who always went for wickets and a match winner who you could turn to at anytime. I saw both Raju and Sunil at the same level in the 1990s.”

Sharath says that Sunil was a different personality compared to many others in TN cricket at that time "He was forthright in his opinion and too straight forward a guy to succeed in TN!!! You could argue anything with him on cricket and he would respect and accept the views of his fellow cricketers. I was happy with the way he was. He was not one who would beat around the bush. I do think that anyone who performed as well as he did and did not get to play fair opportunities to showcase his skills at the next level has the right to throw up their views strongly. And Sunil did that a lot of the time in the 1990s.”

The man who transformed Jolly Rovers from the early 1980s, Bharat Reddy (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2019/11/bharath-reddy-players-man.html) saw Sunil from close quarters for several years at Chemplast and credits him for being a terrific bowler even on flat wickets. “His outspoken style was often misunderstood for arrogance. He was such a 'mad-cap' competitor that when once his Ranji captain took the ball away from him, he turned towards the D Stand for an entire over (away from the glare of his Captain’s eyes) almost in protest, such was his fierce competitive spirit and most captains found it difficult to take the ball away from his hands.”

Restless Character

By 1992-93, Sunil had already taken over 100 wickets in Ranji Trophy cricket and was well established as the Number one bowler in the team. But his restlessness on 'off- colour' days remained intact.  When he did not get wickets on a whole day in the Ranji match against Hyderabad in November 92, he could not get sleep and sought the suggestions of Hyderabad legend Abdul Azeem. Buoyed by his motivational words (the second such from a Hyderabad player), Sunil just persevered and picked up a hat trick in the very next match played against Kerala at Thiruvalla, a location famous for the Thiruvazh Marban temple (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2009/10/thiruvazh-marban-in-thiruvalla.html).

Now ICC panel umpire and top wicket-taker for Kerala, KN Ananthapadmanabhan (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2016/09/ananthapadmanabhan-kn.html) played that match and picked five wickets as well. Anantha was also in the Chemplast team for two years in the early 1990s alongside Sunil before he moved to IOB. Speaking to this writer from Pune where he has been umpiring IPL matches he said that Sunil was an outstanding bowler especially on flat wickets and was unlucky not to make it to the top.

High Intensity Player

India U19 batsman from 1988 World Cup G Shyamsundar played with Sunil both at the age group level as well as at Chemplast “He was hard working to the core. His intensity of involvement was very high. On days that he did not bowl well, he would go back to the nets the same evening and bowl for hours. He was a good hearted fellow. Even while at Chemplast, he knew all the nuances of spin bowling.”

Record Breaking Match – 14 wickets at Chepauk

And he came back even stronger with a 10 wicket haul at Chepauk against a very strong Karnataka batting line up helping TN register a win taking them into the knock outs. And there he registered the best ever match bowling performance for TN with 14 wickets against Assam, a team that he was going to play for later in his career. It was a match that also saw M Senthilnathan notch up his highest Ranji score. With this performance Sunil equaled the 14 wicket Ranji record of legends AG Ram Singh and VV Kumar. The record still remains intact three decades later. It was dream run with Sunil taking 31 wickets in three matches after going wicket less against Hyderabad end of November 1992 !!!

In his first five years in Ranji cricket, he had taken around 150 wickets but could not break through into the zonal team, one that left him deeply hurt and frustrated. He was a strong willed cricketer like Ravi Shastri and thrived in a crisis situation. Despite this extraordinary start to his Ranji career, he did not make his Duleep Trophy debut till he picked well over 150 wickets, something that was not entirely new to TN cricketers. In the previous generation, Kalli and his mentor S Vasudevan too did not play for the Zone. 

It was the above performances in 92-93 that finally led him into the Duleep Trophy too he picked up 5 wickets on his debut against North. However, his Zonal stint was short lived. For a man with close to 300 first class wickets, he just played 6 Duleep Trophy matches. Even the lone ROI match he played was a last minute call after the original choice spinner Utpal Chatterjee became unfit. That was the closest he came to national reckoning. He was never selected for India A!!!

Your guys don’t back him- Brijesh in the 1990s

Two decades after his retirement he recalls to this writer the conversation his Chemplast boss PS Vijayakumar had with Karnataka legend Brijesh Patel “When he boldly asked Brijesh about my non selection for Zone, the latter quipped ‘Even your state selectors don’t back him.” Sunil found that the Karnataka selectors were always solidly behind their players while the same could not be said of those here in the 1990s. "Even when Raju was on national duty, a left arm spinner from Goa was picked ahead of me for the Zone despite me picking all those wickets over a long period of time", says Sunil, of his times from the 1990s.

Sunil - A Maverick

Former TN middle order batsman and now a match referee, Arjan Kripal Singh was one of Sunil’s closest friends in Cricket. The two of them played at age group level from U19 and for the State, where they were roommates on many occasions. “He was a terrific bowler and should have played at a higher level than he ended up doing. His performances on the field warranted opportunities at the next level but he was not backed by the state at that time.”

However, Arjan is critical of some of his traits “As a personality, Sunil was a maverick. He was a very moody guy and made comments at the wrong moments that he could very well have avoided. He was not a diplomatic guy for sure and may have rubbed people that mattered the wrong way. It is difficult to say though if his ill timed comments were the reason for TN not backing him at the Zonal level.”

1994 Buchi Babu match - His Best

He counts the Buchi Babu semi final against Sungrace Mafatlal comprising of Tendulkar, Kambli and Sugwekar as his best “Led by VBC, we shocked them in the semi final with me picking up 9 wickets and scoring 85. I took Sachin’s wickets in both the innings and also his wicket the only time I came up against him in a Ranji match.”

Loses Ranji Final, moves to the UK League

After TN lost the Ranji final against Karnataka in 1996, when Sunil went wicketless, he felt he had missed the ‘national’ bus especially with Sunil Joshi coming into prominence. He wanted to take a shot at the lucrative UK league and took the call against the wishes of his bosses at Chemplast. He recalls the decision “Warne and Maninder Singh had been the first two choices. Aussie spin legend pulled out at the last moment while the passing away of Maninder’s dad led him to withdraw.” 

Beats Sobers' three decades record

He went on a record breaking spree capturing over a 100 wickets in the process surpassing Sobers’ decades old record of 97wickets. His century of wickets helped Stone Cricket Club with the championship after 15 years and he was on a high. After his extraordinary performance for Stone, three counties evinced interest in him for the next season.

But by the time he came back, he had lost his job at Chemplast. N Sankar (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2020/11/jolly-rovers-n-sankar-75.html) who passed away last month was firm that an exception could not be made. And after almost a decade of first division cricket, he was left without a club. Being away from office and the first half of the cricket season was not acceptable to the management and they had made it known to him before he made his decision to play in the UK league.  Bharath Reddy clearly remembers the conversation he had with Sunil “The policy was clear at that time and Sunil exactly knew the repercussions of his decision to be away for such a long time. He was a star bowler at that time and I could not have replaced him with another star bowler for a certain number of matches till he came back.”

He was already 29 and with a young family. It was not an age where he could take chances and hence he neither went back to the league nor explored the county options. 

Plays Second Division Cricket!!!

As seen in last month’s story on PC Prakash(https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2022/04/pc-prakash-tn-ranji-1980s.html), HCL took to cricket in 1996 and supported a 2nd division club. In the year that PCP moved out of SPIC after a decade and anchored the building of this team, he had God’s blessings coming his way quite unexpectedly. Sunil was jobless and with half the season gone, there were no takers for him in the first division. “We were looking to take Kohinoor to the first division and the fact that Sunil was looking for a club was a blessing in disguise for me. In a normal situation, it would have been highly unlikely for a player of his stature to be playing for a 2nd division club but we signed him up and he did very well for us not just in cricket but as a staffer at HCL. Everyone at work seemed to like his hard working style and he earned a good name for himself at HCL.”

Always shared his cricketing knowledge

The two had played together the year Sunil joined SPIC and PCP had a special liking for him. “I knew him from his KV days. He was a very committed guy, meticulous and organised in everything he did. He had great regard for elders. Only those who were close to him knew how sweet he was. He was very intelligent and had good values. Many a time he bordered on over confidence and this may have reflected in the way he spoke. People felt he was brash but it was just that most often he did not take things lying down.”

“He has always been someone who was willing to share his knowledge with others. At HCL, even after we entered the first division, he was a great cricketing guy to have. One could throw the ball at him anytime and he would grab it with delight and work towards providing the breakthrough.”

The TN spin twins of the 1960s and 70s were equally matched by the trio (Sunil, Ramana and D Vasu) of the 1990s. Right till the end, he continued to be TN’s highest wicket taker of the season including in 95 and 96 seasons. Injury towards the later part of the 1990s meant that he faded away quietly for TN. He played for Assam for a year as a professional helping them reach the knock out but injuries had taken a toll on him and he quit cricket never to enter a ground for many years. 

He looks back at his dozen years in first class cricket with great happiness “I always gave my best and went after wickets. While I was angry at different points of time in my career, I understood that selection was not in my hands.”

Long ago, Spin Legend S Venkataraghavan (Venkat @ 75) had told this writer that in cricket, the number of matches one plays really depends on circumstances, team composition and such factors. Sunil may have been unfortunate that the combination of these factors did not work in his favour in the 1990s.

A Glorious Working Phase at India Pistons

Much against the trend of the players from the 1990s, Sunil moved away from cricket to a full time corporate role at India Pistons where he took care of their aftermarket sales and collections. “I did not want sympathy as almost every cricketer in that phase remarked that I should have played for the country. It did not sit well with me.”

The first decade of this century was a glorious working phase for Sunil completely away from cricket. Interestingly he was joined there by another cricketing maverick his TN team mate S Mahesh (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2020/08/s-mahesh-tn-all-rounder.html).

Sunil travelled the length and breadth of the country creating a new market for the manufacturing major.  “I did not enter a cricket ground for several years. I was given complete independence and created a new strategy at IP to boost their aftermarket performance. My appa had worked in the Air Force and I had travelled a lot in my childhood. I was comfortable with multiple languages and hence I grabbed the opportunity to play a national role at IP at a time when people in Chennai did not fancy taking up roles elsewhere. I asked for Mahesh to be moved to my team. He was an outstanding performer and the two of us would even lift the boxes at the warehouses all by ourselves. There was no work that we did not do there.”

Back to cricket 

After over a dozen years, by when he had also made peace with himself and cricket, Sunil quit India Pistons to return to the cricket field and full time coaching. Over the last decade or so, he has been associated in various engagements including at the TNCA academy. He also worked with R Ashwin during challenging phases in his life.

The First Professional Manager of the Indian Team

He had great similarities with Ravi Shastri- the height, action, determination to succeed and thriving in a challenging scenario. With the number of wickets he took early in his Ranji stint, he should have been an ideal choice for the zone and consequently to move up the cricket ladder. But it was not meant to be.  In his second innings in cricket, in a scenario where cricket and cricket management has become lot more professional, he bagged the coveted administrative manager’s post after going through a stringent interview process.

It was the first time in Indian Cricket history that a professional manager was being appointed and Sunil was proud that he was picked from a wide range of candidates from across the country. While he did not get to play for India alongside Ravi though he was right up there with the sheer number of wickets he took over several seasons, three decades later, he did manage to sit alongside him for 120 international games as the first professional manager of the Indian team. It was his greatest cricketing experience as he shared the same dressing room with Ravi Shastri and his former Chemplast and TN team mate B Arun. 

When LS (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2016/04/l-sivaramakrishnan.html) saw Sunil bowl in the early 90s, he remarked to Bharath Reddy “You have one more test cricketer in your pocket’. Alas that was not to be. Sunil ended up not even playing for India ‘A’ quite a shocker for someone with close to 300wickets who bowled well in all conditions and was especially good on flat wickets. He took five wickets in an innings 20times, 7 wickets in an innings 7 times and on four occasions picked up a 10 wicket haul in a match. In a fortnight, he will be completing 55 and is raring to go further in his second innings in cricket. With the professionalism that has come into domestic cricket, Sunil can now look forward to donning the role of a professional manager of the TN team sometime in the future, given the rich experience he has had with the Indian team over a two year period.