Raghavendra D.
Credit: Special Arrangement
A skinny man, a traffic policeman and a school van driver walk into a bar…
It sounds like the beginning of an inappropriate joke which no one really wants to know the end to, but can’t help but listen to. Only, this isn’t a joke, appropriate or otherwise.
This is the story of three principal members of the Indian cricket team. This is the story of how serendipity knocked on the door of three down-and-out men and showed them that silver linings aren’t the same as Unicorn.
Karnataka’s Raghavendra D, Kolkata’s Dayanand Garani and Sri Lanka’s Nuwan Seneviratne are all India’s side-arm throwdown specialists.
And there’s an argument to be made that if it wasn’t for them and their specialities, Indian cricket would not have evolved at the rate at which it has the last decade.
Superfluous as it reads, the truth is that these men - often seen maintaining the hygiene of the team literally and figuratively - are integral components of a complex operation, so much so that every cricketer in the team acknowledges their contribution every chance they get.
And you can tell that it isn’t forced either because they know, firsthand, how impossibly hard these three men (surely there are more but restricted to these three for the sake of this piece) work in order to get the side’s batters prepared, amongst other things.
The fact is, it’s something that they would choose to do given their past.
Raghavendra’s passion for cricket had him sleeping at bus stands, a Hanuman temple and eventually a graveyard in Hubballi, mostly on a diet of bananas and water for days, until the Uttara Kannada boy was roped in by the team in 2012.
Garani, the son of a debt-riddled farmer, was manning traffic lights in Kolkata as part of his everyday role with the Kolkata Police before he found his way into the team after Raghavendra was down with Covid-19 around three years ago.
Seneviratne played for the Nondescripts Cricket Club, Maitland in years growing up, but fate can be cruel to those most in need, and he fell out of favour with the cricket gods, ending up as the driver of a school bus in Colombo to keep him and his family afloat. Fast forward to 2018, he is the left-arm throwdown specialist with the Indian team.
In spite of, or maybe because of, their backgrounds, these three men give it their all at a job which, according to biomechanics expert Ramji Srinivasan, can be as taxing as those who play the sport.
“They have to train and be as mindful of their body as much as the cricketers themselves,” says the former Indian team physiotherapist. “They have to be so precise and at the same time remain quick for extended periods of time. Even bowlers can take their foot off the pedal a bit, but these guys can’t. Their backs and their shoulders take a solid beating.
“Also, the kind of variations they have is insane. They can do all the things fast bowlers can do and do it at much greater speeds. These guys are just so passionate about cricket and their team. Even now when I think of it, it brings tears to my eyes because Raghu (for example) will do literally anything for the team."
Charith Senanayake, a former Sri Lankan batter who first noticed Seneviratne’s abilities, says: “People often only see his success. They don’t see the countless hours he spent improving his skills with the sidearm, and the hours he spent in the gym to be able to do that.”
The story is the same with Raghavendra who spent days and nights figuring out the dynamics of a sidearm before he figured it out well enough to now use it as an extension of his arm. The same with Garani.
That’s one way of overcoming getting beaten up by cops for trespassing, or handling Kolkata’s incorrigible traffic, or tackling annoying school kids on a bus - that too on an empty stomach while looking into an emptier wallet.