I see a cultural change in Tamil Nadu cricket because of change in natural habitat, insists Lakshmipathy Balaji

Ravichandran Ashwin, Sai Kishore, M Siddharth, Murugan Ashwin, Washington Sundar. The list is unending as Tamil Nadu brace themselves for the challenge by the trial by spin. It was central to their success in the limited-over tournaments like Vijay Hazare Trophy and Syed Mushtaq Ali - where the team reached the final - but it hasn’t helped them big-time in the Ranji Trophy so far. If anything, the state team’s fortune is a direct mirror image of Chennai Super Kings. The franchise stuffed their side with spinners of all trades, with the likes of Imran Tahir, Harbhajan Singh, and Karn Sharma making inroads for the team. CSK also went all out to buy the services of Piyush Chawla, shelling out over 6 cr for the leggie. 

“So it has to do with naturally a lot of things because the weather here is very hot and cricket here in Chennai is played for 12 months and corporate cricket is huge. So it is very hard to maintain a fresh wicket to have the fast-bowler kind of generation to come forward,” he added.

A successful comeback to the national side followed when Munaf Patel sustained a groin injury during the five-ODI series in Sri Lanka in January 2009 and kept at it to represent India in the 2012 World T20. Rewinding the clock back, Balaji revealed how he had to go through a compensatory mechanism to preserve his back.

“When you keep metal in your back, it does not allow your back to rotate. Like if a brace you, there will always be a compensatory mechanism to preserve your back. So when I have a screw and metal in my back, my natural tendency is to focus there. Bowling is the elasticity of every part of your muscle and bone. So if elasticity is restricted for your protection, then you end up losing the strength, your pace and velocity.”

“If the body is responding to your demand then you need to respect it. If you misuse it then the consequences would be even bigger. In the first stage, the body gives minor setbacks like a bone reaction that Bumrah has got and then it leads to fracture and stress fracture,” the 39-year-old, who played eight Tests and 30 ODIs for India, said.

“Injury management itself is a problem because when you don’t have data and more research then it is hard to treat. If you have a heart issue or any organ issue then you have the best of the doctors in India. But sports injury because the details of each organ have been studied by students for 40-60 years the cricketers can be upfront with their problems because in the recent past the money and professionalism have come in. So now is the time to educate and research that needs to be done like why this has happened, or your kind of preparedness or your body is not prepared for it, etc. “

While the injuries had been forever part of the Balaji tale, he was more than just that. His unwavering grit was a thing of the lore while his whippy and quick-arm action endeared him to the cricket fans world over, with Peshawar the crowd even chorusing the famous chant: 'Balaji Zara Dheere Chalo’. His career might never have materialised the same way as he would have liked but like many things with the Tamil Nadu pace-man, he is happy doing what he eventually did in his cricket career.  

“I played 15 years and made four comebacks from injuries so what more do you expect as a cricketer. I am not a big numbers guy. I like to contribute with whatever I can and whatever knowledge that I gained with the players in my playing days. Whatever the game has given me I need to give it back to the next generation because the evolution happens like this. Javagal Srinath, Zaheer Khan and others have passed it on to me and it is my responsibility to pass it onto the next generation of cricketers,” Balaji signed off with a smile that made him a hero, briefly yet incandescently.