KOCHI: Ahead of a new season of domestic cricket, City Express profiles three of this year’s Kerala Cricket Association award-winners — the best batsman, spinner and allrounder
Akshay Chandran opens up with Riyas Ali about his big break in Ranji Trophy
In the summer of 2004, at the Thalassery Municipal Stadium, the epicentre of cricketing activities in Malabar, local man Mazhar Moidu was holding his usual summer training sessions for kids. There were genuine cricket enthusiasts, wannabe players, and those only there to pass their boring vacation time, at his camp.
Also present was a lean, sprightly 11-year-old boy in whites with a willow in hand, obeying dutifully the instructions of the coach who kept a watchful eye on the trainees. The boy was carrying out a brief batting drill, and Moidu noticed an element of professionalism in his attitude and temperament at the ground.
“It was a bit of a surprise for me when I saw his positive attitude. Ever since I saw him bowl for the first time, I knew this kid was destined for some bigger things. He looked enthusiastic and dedicated, unlike the other boys. He came as a fast bowler to the camp with a nice action,” explains Moidu on the skills of his ward.
Today, he is the recipient of the KCA best allrounder award after an impressive season.
Akshay Chandran, the boy in question, has since then established himself as one of the more promising young talents to have come out of Kerala in recent times. After a good time with the under-23 team last season, he broke into the Ranji Trophy side to enjoy a dream debut.
“I was blessed to have a good year,” says Akshay.
The left-arm spinner was promoted to first class cricket in February, aged just 21, as a replacement to Monish K, in Kerala’s final league match. He duly proceeded to exceed all expectations, picking up seven wickets to play a key part in Kerala’s only victory of the season.
“If you ask me to pick a moment that I still hold dear, I would readily talk about my Ranji debut against Services in Thalassery. I had a six-wicket haul in the second innings and another in the first. It cannot get better on a debut as big as Ranji Trophy,” muses Akshay, a final year bachelor’s degree student at SN College, Kannur.
The left-hander, who built a match-saving partnership with Sanju Samson against Madhya Pradesh in a Cooch Behar Trophy under-19 match four years ago, believes Sanju, his roommate then, helped him get self-belief in his career. “He is my close friend. He has immense self-belief, and I learnt a lot from him,” he says.
But there is another inspirational figure in his cricketing life, who brought a clear focus to his batting style – coach P Balachandran.
“I met him during the C K Nayudu Trophy (under-23 tournament). He asked me to place a premium on my batting that helped me immensely. He is a great coach,” says Akshay who also led Kerala to victory in the P S Ram Mohan Rao Trophy under-25 south zone event in the 2013-14 season.
K Monish shares with Rahul Preeth the reason he became a left-hander
Right or left? It was a choice K Monish had to make when he was not even 10 years old. As an orthodox, he was naturally inclined to do things with his right hand. But the real question he faced was whether he wanted to acquire the elegance of southpaws like Brain Lara or to share the vapid grandeur of the right-handed majority.
Of course, the need to make that choice stemmed from his brother’s adoration of the legendary Lara. Coincidentally or not, he chose to be a lefty — a decision Monish attributes to his becoming the Kerala Cricket Association’s latest pick for the best spinner award, 14 years down the line.
There is a certain advantage to being a left-hander in a country where cricket is like a religion and everybody wants to be a player — either a batsman or a bowler, but mostly grooved for right-handed opponents.
It was, perhaps, this logic that drove K Varun, who is 10 years elder to Monish, to nudge his sibling into being a southpaw as they were growing up in Mumbai where his father was employed with the Indian Airlines.
“There is no particular philosophy that I bought while making that choice for him. To me, he was still a baby at that time, with a very impressionable mind. So, I thought, why not try and mould it to suit the better option,” Varun explained.
Thus began the journey of Varun’s little brother as a left-handed cricketer. “I started my career playing for a Mumbai club in Bandra. When I was little over 10, I was shortlisted to represent the Maharashtra under-15 team. But they didn’t let me play because I was told I was under-age,” Monish, who turned 24 last September, said.
Two years later, when he was 13, he made it to the under-15 Maharashtra team, primarily as an opener, who could bowl as well. Within a year, he was made the captain of the team, but couldn’t sustain the form as a fitness problem caught up with him for a brief period.
“My target then was to make it to the under-19 Mumbai team, but I couldn’t get through. I was in a college in Mumbai then, but came to Kerala to try my luck,” Monish said.
Staying with his grandparents at his ancestral home in Thrissur, Monish began playing for Century CC in Ernakulam. In 2009, he made it to the Kerala under-22 team as bowler, who could bat as well. That season, he took 22 wickets from five matches. Though the figure dropped to 13 in the next season, he emerged the third highest wicket-taker in the under-22 category in 2011-’12, claiming 30 wickets.
That got him the invite to the Kerala Ranji camp and eventually to the team, making a decent debut claiming two wickets and a half-century. “Fortunately, for the first time a Ranji trophy match was telecast live on TV and my brother was able to see it. That was like a moment of pride for both of us,” said Monish, who now plays in the Chennai League for the MRF team.