On occasions that are getting rarer by the day, I find time to turn over the pages of Sunil Gavaskar's 'One day Wonders' and the one thought that inevitably comes back to me each time is: "What exactly happened to that audacious nut of a keeper called Sadanand Viswanath?"
Pre-Ganguly, chirpy players were a rare breed in India and Sadanand Viswanath is absolutely the earliest bird of that feather that I can remember (naturally, as I started cricket viewing in 1985). His mannerisms and energy are amongst the few remaining memories of that victorious 1985 World Series Cup campaign by India.
The mid eighties was a strange time for Indian Cricket. Quite a few young cricketers with obvious calibre gatecrashed into the Indian cricket team with remarkable initial success but then almost all of them disappeared from the scene just as quickly. Laxman Sivaramakrishnan the leggie (and brilliant fielder), Maninder Singh the left arm spinner (and brilliant fielder), Narendra Hirwani the leggie (not as great a fielder, perhaps). The quickest of those shock demises that set Indian cricket by a few years must have been Sadanand Viswanath's.
Here's a long-awaited chat with 'Sada' (as we all referred to him back in our household and neighbourhood during his glory days) that Sportstar has thankfully managed to come up with. He shares a few memories of his honour and his misfortune in the tete-a-tete.
2 comments:
The link doesn't work Angshu. I have read a lot of articles on Sada from old sportstars and sportsweeks. Would love to read this new piece..
Oops -the link got changed upon archival of the issue. It works fine now.
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