Ravi Krishnamurthy, 53, can’t get a chant out of his head since the time he returned to his home in Wellington after the short trip to India to watch his son Rachin Ravindra play the World Cup.
The software engineer, who migrated to New Zealand in the ’90s, was at M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru when Rachin, playing Pakistan, smashed his third century of the tournament. Shouts of “Raachin, Raachin” echoed around the stadium and Krishnamurthy’s mind wandered to the famous “Saachin, Saachin” cheer he would be part of when his hero, Sachin Tendulkar, would walk in to bat at the same venue.
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Speaking to The Indian Express from Wellington, Krishnamurthy calls it a “truly unique and heart-warming experience”. For a father who named his son after Tendulkar and his other cricketing idol Rahul Dravid, it was a truly emotional moment.
“Listening to these chants stirs up a sense of nostalgia for me, as I, like many others, had the privilege of witnessing the greatness of Tendulkar, and I was among those who passionately chanted his name in the stadiums. For Rachin, the chants serve as a reminder of the high standards and dedication that Tendulkar epitomised throughout his career,” says Krishnamurthy, who runs a cricket club, Hut Hawks, in Wellington and spent most of his waking hours thinking of ways to make his son a better cricketer.
In Mumbai on Wednesday, when India plays New Zealand for a place in the World Cup final on November 19, skipper Rohit Sharma will hope to get the in-form Rachin out early. With 565 runs and 3 hundreds, the Kiwi all-rounder is placed second on the highest run-getters list. He is New Zealand’s most-trusted match-winner and easily the find of the tournament.
Coach Dravid will be in the Wankhede Stadium dressing room and Tendulkar, too, is expected to be in the stands. Since New Zealand had knocked India out of the World Cup four years back, Rachin’s runs could decide if they can repeat the feat.
Krishnamurthy steers away from making any comment about the big game. Before the high-stake game, Rachin’s Bengaluru-based grandparents too avoided the media. However, a social media clip of his grandmother performing the “drishti rituals” to keep away the evil eye has gone viral.
Along with the New Zealand cricket ecosystem, Bengaluru also played a role in the making of the batsman, who Sunil Gavaskar has hailed as the “superstar of the next decade”. During the winters in New Zealand, Krishnamurthy would travel with his son to India so that there was no gap in his training. On those annual trips, Rachin trained with local coaches at Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam and Anantapur. It is a practice he continues. Last year too, Rachin was in Bengaluru, and the experience would come in handy for him for the World Cup.
Bengaluru-based coach A R Suresh recalls the extremely focused father-son duo. “Since they don’t have much cricketing space in the winter, they have made it an annual stopover here. It helped them to get used to the conditions. This time, when he came here, Rachin focussed a lot on power-hitting, with match simulations put in place. More than the matches, it is about using the net facilities, because you can’t train there in the winter. And even if he gets out in a game, he will quickly go down to having a hit at the nets, which will at times even last an entire day with short breaks in between,” he says.
Krishnamurthy also revealed how, during the formative years, he spent hours to figure out the right technique that would suit his son. “Our coaching approach wasn’t focused on emulating a particular player or regional style. Instead, we drew inspiration from the techniques and approaches of cricketing geniuses from all around the world. Rachin watched countless hours of cricket, and during his upbringing, there were iconic cricketers like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting, Matthew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist. This process involved numerous repetitions to ensure that he grasped the finer nuances of the game,” he says
शिमला में पत्थर मेले की धूम: दिवाली के अगले दिन लगा पत्थर मेला, डेढ़ युवाओं ने एक-दूसरे पर पत्थर बरसाए
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