Tamil Nadu and India’s cricket fraternity were in for a shock on Thursday, when the news about the sudden demise of the former opener and national selector VB Chandrasekhar. In the evening, police said he had committed suicide by hanging himself. The body was taken in custody for post-mortem.
In addition to donning many hats as a cricketer, selector and a commentator, VB Chandrasekhar also played an integral part in the formation of the Chennai Super Kings (CSK). In fact, he was the one who selected the core CSK team during the first season.
Earlier in the year, during an interaction with Behindwoods, VB Chandrasekhar shared interesting details about CSK, MS Dhoni and the first IPL auction.
He said, "When IPL was launched, CSK owner N Srinivasan called me and said that he was going to buy a team and wanted me to play an integral role in developing the team. At that time, I did not even know what position was going to be offered to me."
Following which, Chandrasekhar was provided with a responsibility to buy players for CSK at the IPL auction 2008.
He said, "Srinivasan said everyone involved with CSK that no one should interfere with VB's choice of players no matter how much it might cost. He called me and asked who I wanted to pick up first. I immediately said Dhoni, mainly because there was no star icon from the state. Srinivasan suggested that we go for Virender Sehwag, who was at his prime at that time. I felt that there was an icon for each team, be it Sachin Tendulkar for Mumbai, Rahui Dravid for Bangalore, VVS Laxman for Hyderabad and 'Dada' Sourav Ganguly for Kolkata, but there was no one from Tamil Nadu. I told that we had to go for MS Dhoni as he is a future youth icon. I just went with my gut feeling."
CSK fans would definitely be happy that Chandrasekhar went with his intuition, as the 'Men in Yellow' led by MS Dhoni was one of the most successful teams in the T20 league, with having won multiple IPL titles.
During the course of interaction, Chandrasekhar also provided interesting details, on how he brought Dhoni to CSK's fold during the auction.
The charismatic Tamil Nadu batsman said, "I had set USD 1.1 million as the maximum amount to be spent on purchasing Dhoni. But, many teams including Mumbai Indians, Rajasthan Royals were fighting for Dhoni. I knew that they will not go after a certain fixed amount, but I was scared that they might increase the price of Dhoni and make sure that we (CSK) don't than enough money to buy other players."
But, his quick thinking during the auction ensured that Dhoni went on to don the yellow jersey.
"After a few rounds, I stopped to bet for Dhoni, while other teams kept fighting to bring to their club. At one point, everyone thought that it was all done, when the auctioneer was about to hit the gavel for the third and final time and sell off Dhoni to another team, I raised my hand at the last second and said USD 1.5 million. And that's how Dhoni came into CSK. But, today CSK is synonymous with Tamil Nadu cricket, " he said.
It will indeed be a sad day for the cricketing world, especially CSK fans as they have lost one of the masterminds of the club.