THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala Cricket Association has bagged the services of C S Suresh Kumar, batting coach at the National Cricket Academy to train the Kerala Ranji Team and groom the junior players. A former India Under 19 and Tamil Nadu Ranji player, Suresh Kumar would take over as coach on September 1.
“It’s a challenge I’m looking forward to as Kerala has plenty of talent and just need to build on self confidence and killer instinct to become a champion team.” Suresh kumar told Express over phone from Chennai. A humble and easy going person, Suresh hopes to win the confidence of the players and get to interact with them very well. Interestingly Suresh kumar’s highest Ranji score was against Kerala, at Palakkad in January 1983. As a right hand opening bat he made a thumping first class debut scoring five hundreds in his first nine matches.
He has also played two Youth test matches against Pakistan (Under-19) in January 1979 and two tour matches against West Indies in 1983/84.
Suresh is an admirer of the sporting greats from Kerala like P T Usha, Shiny Wilson and I M Vijayan and is confident that Kerala has similar talent in cricket as well and they just need to be groomed and guided. He also speaks highly of players like K N Ananthapadmanabhan, Sreekumar Nair and Sunil Oasis, who according to him missed the Indian colours due to sheer bad luck.
“My task is to deal with strategies and improvement in technique of the Ranji side and also work with the juniors for about two months and nurture them. I also plan to bring in the services of experts like Dr. Kinjal Suratwala (Head, Sports Science & Coach Education) whose ‘Mental Toughness training for cricketers’ is highly popular.
“We were looking for a professionally trained coach and at the same time someone who can understand the ground realities of the state and its players, and Suresh was the ideal choice,” Kerala Cricket Association Secretary T C Mathew said. “Suresh is a level 3 coach and batting consultant to the Indian Under 19 team. He is highly rated by the National Cricket Academy and BCCI.’’ he said.