SVS Mani Cricketer Selector Coach

This is a story of a Mylaporean, who went through a financially challenging phase in the 1950s and yet, made it to the South Zone squad in the 1960s. Much later, in his first year as the selector of the state team, Tamil Nadu won the Ranji Trophy in 1988. He was the coach of the India Cements team till he was 70 years, a golden period for the club side. The unassuming SVS Mani, who will be completing his 81st birthday next Wednesday, has just twisted his ankle on a walk in the terrace at his home in Adyar and is stuck in his room, with the doctor advising a month’s rest leaving him to track the first international match in 4 months, the one involving England at Southampton, that brought back unforgettable memories of the knock he played against them way back in 1962 in Bangalore figuring alongside legends such as ML Jaisimha, EAS Prasanna and his mentor AG Milkha Singh. It also brought back memories of the Pongal test match at Chepauk in 1964 when he was a test reserve (as the best fielder at that time in Tamil Nadu) on a specific request from MAK Pataudi. 

Here’s the tale. 

It was on Appar Swami Koil Street in Mylapore that SVS Mani learnt his early cricketing lessons. He began playing tennis ball cricket with a bunch of boys who were his neighbours and challenged them to get him out. In return, those boys threw up a couple of unique challenges at Mani that was to later turn him into one of the best fielders for Tamil Nadu. Handing him a small stone, they asked if Mani could pick up the lamp post that was at a distance. And then the boys would point to a specific mango on a tree and ask him to get that for them with a direct hit. He was also the one to always go for the catch in ‘Gilli Dhanda’. He relentlessly focused his efforts on these exercises.

While the boys were delighted at enjoying the mango, this seemingly innocuous exercise helped Mani improve his fielding skills. A decade later, another seemingly innocuous exercise of a young boy swimming in the Cauvery in Kumbakonam led to stronger shoulders that contributed to him becoming one of the best fast bowlers for Tamil Nadu - the hat trick man of TN cricket (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2011/08/kalli-b-kalyanasundaram.html). 

As a 9 year old boy, Mani remembers watching the legendary West Indian Everton Weekes (who passed away last week) nearing a record 5th century in Madras in 1948 before he was run out. 

By the time he was in his teens, he was already seen as a compact batsman in the school circles. He had also begun playing in the lower division league in the city. He was so prolific that he was selected for the state juniors where he scored a century against Mysore, an attack that comprised of EAS Prasanna. That innings led him to a place in the South Zone Schools that went to Pune for the all India tournament. Current Chairman of Wheels India Ltd, S Ram was part of that team (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2020/06/tvs-ram-s-cricketer.html). 

Legendary leg spinner VV Kumar (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2007/07/cricket-tales-exclusive-with-vv-kumar.html) was a few years senior to SVS Mani at PS High School and watched him closely right from the early 1950s and remembers him as someone who was ‘abnormally good’ for his age “He exhibited a maturity and finesse far beyond his age. As a batsman, he was a predominantly an onside player with a funny back lift and a peculiar swing of the bat and was good against both fast and spin bowling. He was an excellent fielder and had safe hands.” 

But it was around this time, that his father, Kothamangalam Seenu, went through a severe financial crunch. He had acted in movies for 15 years from 1932 but the opportunities dried up in the early 1950s and he spent that decade acting in dramas that were not remunerative. Mani did his PUC at Vivekananda College, a year in which the team won all the four tournaments. If his batch mate S Ram quit cricket for academics soon after his schooling, Mani quit academics to earn the daily bread for his family. He joined Madras Motors Company while he was still in his teens at a monthly salary of Rs.70. He was the only earning member of the family and his attention, unfortunately at an important phase in life, turned from playing college cricket for three years to working hard at Madras Motors and subsequently at William Jacks and Co to keep the family running. He had many sisters and their weddings to take care of and it fell on him to financially sustain his family in that phase. 

The fact that he could not pursue his degree and play college cricket did not diminish his passion for the game and he continued to play in the TNCA league. In that phase, it was the Secretary of Milky Way Cricket Club, Devarajan, who encouraged him and kept him going in cricket. Also, Viswanathan of Enfield saw the cricketing talent in him and motivated him to continue playing. If not for them, he could have easily let go of cricket in that phase such was the scenario in the family. It was this early encouragement that led him to perform well in the lower division league and by the early 1960s he had moved on to play in the first division for BRC for whom he scored consistent runs. 

On the back of having played for South Zone schools earlier and the runs he scored for BRC, he was selected for the state team and made his Ranji Trophy debut in August 1961 against Kerala at the age of 21 but did not get to bat in that innings even though Tamil Nadu lost 7 wickets. He made useful contributions against South Zone’s Top teams – Mysore (Karnataka) and Hyderabad - in the next two matches against top notch bowling attacks. This earned him a place in the South Zone team for the newly introduced Duleep Trophy. He scored 40 against North Zone in the Semi Final, a match in which another of VV Kumar’s magic spell helped South bundle out North for less than 100 and Mani followed it up with ‘some’ runs in both the innings in the final against the West Zone in Bombay. 

Legendary Indian batsman Vijay Hazare who watched that match was impressed with his performance and picked him for the Board Presidents XI against the Ted Dexter’s English side that was touring India that winter. While he did not get to play in the XI in Hyderabad, he did play for South Zone against England in January 1962 in Bangalore where he once again got a start before giving it a way, an attribute that was to become a feature of his batting all through that decade in Ranji Trophy cricket. He was always a ‘30s and 40s’ man and that may have stifled his progress in cricket.

His fielding abilities came to the fore at the national level when he held a brilliant one handed catch to get rid of Surendranath in the Semi Final against North Zone. His Ranji team mate and captain at SBI VV Kumar has vivid memories of those two matches “He was compact and impressive against two strong bowling attacks. But once again, he did not go on to play a big innings. His fielding was always exceptional and in his career took many a catch that helped turn around matches.” 

In January 1964, he scored his only Ranji century against Andhra. A couple of months later, he was part of the Madras team that went to Colombo for the Gopalan Trophy match. On a green top in swinging conditions against a top bowling attack comprising of Fredricks and Chanmugham, among others, Mani scored a classy century, the first by a TN batsman in the Gopalan Trophy, a knock that he rates as his best in first class cricket as well as his best moment in cricket. Exactly a year later, in the match in Madras he scored a half century against the touring Ceylon. VV Kumar, who was part of that team, rates that innings in Colombo as a terrific century on a difficult wicket “Anyone who saw that knock would have known the potential of Mani. He could have been nursed in a better way for he had it in him to play at a higher level.” 

By this time, he had joined SBI, for whom he played in the first division for over a decade alongside VV Kumar. During his cricketing days with SBI, the bank that was a strong cricketing unit in those decades won the Palayampatti shield and the Sports and Pastime tourney several times. 

Looking back on that phase in the 1960s, VV Kumar says that it was not a great cricketing decision by Mani to join SBI in the early 1960s “We both played together both for SBI and TN through the 1960s. I would say that while the bank job gave him security, it went against his cricket. Both SBI Madras and the All India SBI teams were very strong in batting and he did not get the chances that he deserved. If he had played first division for another club, he would have been able to develop and showcase his batting skills much better, but he went for job security at that time.” 

Mani was a highly talented leg spinner as well but he was not used by the state till his very last Ranji match. In his decade long cricketing sting for SBI, he also took a hat trick with ball against YMA. VV Kumar bemoans the fact that he was not better utilised as a bowler“Mani was a penetrative leg spinner. He had both the drift and the turn but not many captains used him. When I was the captain at SBI, he got us many crucial wickets for us in the league. Though he was a talented leg spinner as well, he lost interest in bowling when he did not get the chances he deserved with the ball.” 

Interestingly, when he was recalled to the TN Ranji team for the 1970-71 season, Mani ended his cricketing career exactly 50 years ago with the wickets of GR Viswanath and Brijesh Patel in his last Ranji Match against Mysore, ones that he distinctly remembers “I was given the ball in my the last match that I played for TN. I was down with cough and fever in that match. I can now look back with great fondness at having got the wickets of two legends of the game with my leg spinners.” 

That last Ranji match of his also brings back memories of losing his wicket to two great spinners “Yes, Chandra got me in the first innings and Pras in the second. So, I took wickets of two legends and I got out to two legends in my final Ranji Trophy match, probably a rare occurrence in domestic cricket.” 

                              Mani standing 2nd from left

Because of the situation of his family, he restrained himself from promotions at the bank and remained in Madras through the almost four decades of his service. In 1987, an unexpected opportunity came his way. The Chairman of Selectors AG Kripal Singh passed away and Venkataraghavan, who was the Secretary of the TNCA that year, was keen for Mani to be the selector that year. And thus he became a a state selector for the very first time. In his first year as a state selector, TN won the Ranji Trophy in 1988 under the captaincy of S Vasudevan (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2020/06/vasudevan-tn-ranji-trophy-retirement.html). Three years later he was the coach of the TN team with Srikkanth as the skipper. He was also the manager of the South Zone team a year later. 

For well over a decade, he was the coach of the India Cements first division team in Chennai that won several trophies under the captaincy of VB Chandrasekar. Former South Zone fast bowler DJ Gokulakrishnan (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2017/03/gokulakrishnan-j.html) who made his debut for Tamil Nadu with Mani as the coach way back in the early 1990s, was the kingpin of the India Cements bowling attack during its glory days in cricket and he remembers the role of Mani “He had a unique way of motivating our players. Each time a batsman scored a hundred or took 5 wickets, he would celebrate by handing a special fresh juice to the cricketer. Over time, we all wanted to do well and get that ‘special juice’ from him. While VB took care of the tactical aspects of the game, it was Mani who played the role of the motivator within the team."

With a tinge of sadness, Kalli says that while SVS was a very dependable batsman, he could not convert his knocks into hundreds “SVS should have played longer and possibly higher levels of Cricket than what he finally achieved.” 

Kalli saw in Mani great human qualities and consider it an honour and privilege to have played with him ‘He was ever ready to help out youngsters.’ He also points to a hidden facet in Mani ‘Not many know that SVS is a brilliant singer and capable of imitating a few well known singers.” 

                 

Mani laughs it out looking back at those days of singing for his Ranji Trophy team mates ‘While my father was a real good singer who performed alongside Kothamangalam Subbu, my grandfather was a Mridangam Vidwan and my daughter is one with a Masters degree in music, I only sung for fun in Ranji and league matches when my teammates wanted me to entertain them.’