New Delhi: ‘VB Bro’. That’s how streaming service Hotstar’s Tamil cricket commentary box usually welcomed V.B. Chandrasekhar, the former Indian batsman whose lively smile and cool energy became his trademark.
On Thursday, the torchbearer of Tamil cricket commentary was found dead at his residence in Chennai. An initial probe confirmed Chandrasekhar’s death as a suicide, speculated to be due to rising debt. He owned the VB Kanchi Veerans franchise in the Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL), and was reportedly going through a difficult period due to his team’s financial standing.
The former India ODI cricketer may have found an unfortunate end, but his contribution to cricket amounted to much more than commentary.
On the field
Born Vakkadai Biksheswaran Chandrasekar to a leading lawyer on 21 August 1961 in Madras (now Chennai), VB completed his graduation in mathematics before being pushed to a bachelor’s degree in engineering in Coimbatore.
He returned to Chennai during his engineering days to play first-division cricket, managing to convince his father who wanted him to do post-graduation in the US.
“I asked my dad to give me one year’s time and within that I would play in the Ranji Trophy. When that happened, he asked me ‘What now?’ I said, ‘Give me one more year, I will play for India’. And I did play for India,” he wrote in ESPNCricinfo in 2016.
Chandrasekhar’s cricketing career took off at the age of 25 when he made his first-class debut in the 1986 Ranji Trophy and scored 81 runs against Hyderabad.
“When I got back to Chepauk, there was this manager called Santhanam in the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association. When I met him, he said: ‘it’s good you got out for 81’. I was so upset because a hundred on debut would have been special, and asked him why he said that. He said batsmen who scored a hundred on debut for Tamil Nadu never played more than five or six matches. I actually ended up playing for a very long time [81 first-class games],” wrote Chandrasekhar.
Aggression wasn’t a characteristic that existed in Indian cricket, but Chandrasekhar and his Tamil Nadu opening partner Krishnamachari Srikkanth changed this in the late 80s. Chandrasekhar hit the fastest first-class hundred in Indian domestic cricket in 1988-89 against Rest of India in the Irani Trophy. The 56-ball ton remained a record up until 2016, when Rishabh Pant broke it in a Ranji Trophy match with a 48-ball ton.
Chandrasekhar played first-class cricket until 1998, scoring 4,999 runs in 81 matches at an average of 43.09. He captained the Tamil Nadu team many times until 1994-95, and then moved on to play for Goa.
He played seven ODIs for the national side between 1988 and 1990, but couldn’t cement his place.
In September 2004, he was appointed to the national selection panel, representing the South Zone. In July 2012, he was appointed the Tamil Nadu coach — his first coaching spell with the state, which ended within a year due to the team’s poor performance.
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Search for talent
Just before his career as a player ended, Chandrasekhar established the VB Cricket Academy at the Guru Nanak College in Velachery. The academy has been moulding young men and women between the age of 10 and 21 since 1997.
Four years later, he founded VB Nest, a residential facility that gives modern training and simulation sessions to the youngsters. His academy has developed a sizeable number of players for the Tamil Nadu state team.
During his stint as Tamil Nadu’s selection committee chairman, Chandrasekhar spotted and then pushed wicket-keeper Dinesh Karthik. In 2005, when Chandrasekhar was in the national selection panel, his plea for giving ‘one more chance’ to Dinesh Karthik wasn’t considered and M.S. Dhoni made his Test debut.
A couple of years down the line, when it came to putting together the Chennai Super Kings franchise in the Indian Premier League, Chandrasekhar brought Dhoni into the team. The rest is history.
In 2016, the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association started TNPL to try and replicate the success of the IPL at the state level. Chandrasekhar saw an opportunity and bought a franchise for Rs 3.46 crore — the VB Kanchi Veerans.
However, in a 23 July video from a TNPL venue, Chandrasekhar was visibly upset about his team’s performance this season, even though he maintained his trademark smile. In the video, he said, “I am an individual and other teams are run by seven corporates. For me, you are important and you have a future. That’s the reason I am sitting here.”
Tamil commentary pioneer
Indian cricket didn’t have much space for commentary in Indian languages apart from English and Hindi for the longest time. Chandrasekhar became one of the pioneers of Tamil commentary, and helped shaped it.
The recent IPL and ICC World Cup were prime examples of his simple yet eloquent commentary in his mother tongue.
The impact of Chandrasekhar’s death will be felt by up-and-coming talent, as well as fans of his voice.
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