Not a Fast Bowler, No Masters Degree – 'A Life with Dogs and Cricket Strategy'
TA Sekar was the fastest Indian bowler of his time and had the legends of Pakistan at the peak of their powers hobbling at the crease in January 1983 at Lahore and Karachi. If not for the shoddy slip catching, his Test Career may have charted a completely different path. But a result of those ‘drops’ meant his international playing career was short lived. In the 2nd phase of his cricketing journey starting 1988, he carved a name for himself, as the architect of the MRF Pace Foundation, helping create the next generation of fast bowlers along with Dennis Lillee. And over the last decade, he has been on an even more exciting phase first as the Director of Delhi Dare Devils and now for many years with the Mumbai Indians in the IPL actively involved in identifying and selecting the players at the auction.
Being the son of once India’s fastest bowler and a man credited with producing several fast bowlers in India, it would have been normal and expected of TA Adhishwar to have followed in the footsteps of his father. He tried for a brief while but quickly accepted failure on the playing front but much to the delight of his parents, he has carved a niche for himself in two contrasting arenas. He has turned into a successful entrepreneur having set up in his teens ‘Hotel for Pets’, a venture he is now looking to expand across the country, and closer to his parents’ interests, signed up a lucrative deal with the biggest name in the IPL when he was just 22.
Now 25, he is currently in the West Indies, working as the strategic analyst for Barbados, the Champions of the Caribbean Premier League, where he has worked closely with the likes of Christ Gayle and Andrei Russell over the last three years. Here’s the story
The birth of Adhishwar
TA Sekar and his cricket crazy wife Prabha had been quite depressed after they found 10months after the birth of their first son, Abhijith, that he was not going to be a 'normal son'. Medical facilities that decade was still quite primitive in India. The late 80s, when there was so much buzz around Sekar and the launch of the MRF Pace Foundation, was a tumultuous period on the personal front for in those years he visited several hospitals to seek a turnaround for Abhijith.Later, Sekar took him to Australia and Sri Lanka but those proved to be of no avail and they resigned to the fact that Abhijith would not be able to sit, stand or walk all his life.
It was during that depressed phase that Rathnam, the then head of cricket operations at MRF (and many other well wishers) advised Sekar on a more positive outlook to life and thus the idea of a second child cropped up. It was against this background that Adhishwar was born. In fact, Sekar was not present during the delivery for he was away in Maritius with his cricket team. In the early phase of Adhishwar's life, he missed a normal sibling and thus began his interest in pets.
Father’s fast bowling vision for the son
When Adhishwar was just 2 years old, he was already 3 feet tall and with the scientific theory that he would double his height to at least 6 feet, Sekar believed that he would be suited to fast bowling. His mother, Prabha, was a cricket crazy fan right from her school days. The only matches she did not watch in her teenage years were those in the Blue Star tournament!!!
For all the success of his father in the cricketing arena and his mother being a diehard cricket fan, Adhishwar’s early interest was not on cricket but ‘cars’. He would read every car magazine in the country and would ‘go-karting’ every weekend on the ECR (maybe that’s the reason one finds multiple cars and car brands at the parking lot of Sekar’s house in Sastri Nagar these days).
Leggie becomes a Fast Bowler
It was only later that he went up to his parents and asked if he could join a summer camp. He started off as a leg spinner for he idolized Anil Kumble (he was not yet 5 when the legendary leggie took all 10 wickets in an innings) who too was tall for a leg spinner. But soon, his father talked his way into fast bowling citing his height. Thus he became a fast bowler, though he is still a leggie in his mind.
While he did take some wickets, working under the guidance of Abdul Jabbar at his academy in CLRI, his mother spotted in him a different kind of skill ‘In the tournament at his school, he would go about organizing water for the day, umpires for the tournament, pickups and drops for the boys that soon the entire responsibility was bestowed on him. He used to organize everything around cricket’ she remembers of Adhish from just over a decade ago.
Into his mid teens, he continued with his fast bowling and made it to the round robin stage in the city squad in the U14 category. Like all teenagers and with his father as a fast bowling coach, he too nourished ambitions of playing for the country as a fast bowler. But serious injuries threatened him right through that phase. From shoulder to ankle, he encountered in a matter of a few years all the injuries that a fast bowler would be prone to in an entire career.
Grew up fostering Stray Dogs
By this time, he had become passionately attached to something that has been close to his heart right from childhood. As one growing up without much of a personal interaction with his sibling (elder brother Abhijith has been physically challenged right from birth), Adishwar had developed a special bonding towards pets and used to foster the stray dogs in the Adyar neighbourhood from when he was a young boy. Much before he entered his teens, he pushed his parents for a pet at home. But given the challenges at home, they were not too keen on a dog at that time.
Munaf Patel gifts a Rottweiler
During the 2010 IPL, he met with India fast bowler Munaf Patel and began chatting about dogs. When Munaf told him that he had a Rottweiler pup at home, Adishwar’s interest grew for he had always cherished having a Rottweiler. And one day, much to the surprise of his parents, Adishwar introduced Krugar (who passed away recently after almost a decade at home), the Rottweiler sent to Adishwar as a gift by Munaf from Surat.
Turns a ‘Pet’ Enterpreneur
And soon began his first entrepreneurial venture when he was just in his teens. Adishwar teamed up with another cricket Shravan Krishnan to run ‘Hotel for Pets’ on ECR. It was meant to be a high class ‘resort’ where owners could leave their pets while on vacation. The demand increased exponentially. There have been times especially in the summer when he has not been able to accommodate the request of pet owners, such was the demand. Following the success in Madras, he expanded this concept to Bangalore, setting up the infrastructure there almost single handedly.
Aged 20, he received the Student Start up award from the TATA Group for developing the hotel for pets into a successful business model.
Injuries halt his playing interests
Serious injuries during his teenage years meant that the fast bowling vision of his father did not take off in the way he would have liked. But Adishwar was not too concerned for, apart from continuing his entrepreneurial venture, he had already begun to take ownership of his career in another area within the cricketing arena,
With his father’s interactions with the world’s top players at the pace foundation through the 1990s and early 2000s and his association with the IPL right from inception, Adhishwar had access to the best players in cricketing world. He was good with technology and gadgets from an early age and with his background research began tipping his father on players.
The First IPL Tips - Suggests Nannes and Pietersen
Talking to this writer from the West Indies, where he will remain posted for the next month guiding the 2019 Champions Barbados with his inputs, he looks back with delight on his first tip to his father in the IPL “Based on my research, I suggested Dirk Nannes to my father when no one else knew about him in India and insisting that he pick the fast bowler for the Delhi Dare Devils.”
This surprise pick turned out to be one of the successful bowlers in the early years in the IPL.
It was also Adhishwar who presented to his father the value of Pietersen to the Delhi team given their composition at that time and convinced him to go for the English great. His father was truly impressed by the research done by Adhishwar and ever since has looked up to his son for ‘player’ ideas ahead of the auction.
Adhishwar is grateful to his father for encouraging him and considering seriously the suggestions made by him. He considers it a big boost, one that created the early interest in him to pursue the research on cricketers “It was after my father accepted the suggestions on Nannes and Peterson that I began to take things very seriously. Ahead of every auction, I went about my research on players and began providing my inputs to him.”
One of the differentiators at that very early stage was of Adhishwar envisaging what other teams would do and how his father (DD /MI) could outwit them. The efforts of his son left even the seasoned TA Sekar surprised “Spotting and unearthing a talent is one thing. But Adhishwar went one step ahead which really took me by surprise. He analysed the other teams in the IPL, understood their line of thinking based on past trends and presented to me as to the choices they are likely to go for. This helped me a great deal in my preparation.”
Academics vs Cricket?
And then as he went past the teen, that typical dilemma stuck its neck up again in this family too. By the time he graduated, there was pressure on his parents from close relatives to get Adhishwar to do his Masters and focus on academics. He had not made much of a progress as a player and they wanted him to pack his cricketing kit and turn his attention to perhaps a corporate career. Adhishwar followed their advice, but only partly. He did pack off his kit but remained associated with cricket.
His mother, Prabha, a home maker who supported several remote temples in Tamil Nadu for almost a decade through this writer, has been a source of inspiration for Adhishwar right from his childhood ‘When I have been confused with life, she’s the one who advises me on the direction to take and I usually listen to her for she has a practical approach to life. Importantly, while she presented her thoughts, she always allowed me to make my own decisions and that independence and freedom has really helped me with my decision making skills of today’ says Adhishwar on the contribution of his mother in him chalking out his career path.
By 2015, the intensity of his global research on players had increased manifold. He was breathing cricket almost the entire time, outside of his work with the pets. He has been present in the ‘outfield’ at every auction, first at Delhi Dare Devils and then at Mumbai Indians. He says that mingling with the team, speaking to the world’s best players and coaches has had a huge positive influence on him.
And then the Biggest Break!!
Through a cricketing agent, he managed to break through into the Caribbean Premier League where he came in close contact with Gayle, Carlos Brathwaite and Andrei Russell. In the last three years, he has had the experience of working with three different teams – Jamaica, St Kitts and now Barbados.
The biggest break in his life came in 2017 when Akash Ambani, son of Mukesh called him in for a chat in his room. So impressed was he with Adhishwar’s incisive knowledge of the premier league teams and cricketers across the world, that within 10 minutes of the meeting, he offered him a one year contract with the Mumbai Indians as a Strategic Analyst. He was just 22 then. It was the best moment of his life for he was to work officially with the Super Stars of world cricket. He was particularly happy that the contracts, both with Mumbai Indians and in the Caribbean, came on his own based on merit without the influence of his father.
His performance in the first year led to Akash handing him a longer term and a more lucrative contract that has meant that he finally put to rest the pressures of the relatives and has become firmly entrenched into the IPL as an analyst of one of the best premier league sides in the world.
Father’s Support - Massive
While Sekar was not involved in putting in that 'word' for his son at Mumbai Indians, he played a role in the formative years of Adhishwar that the son considers as being massive. While his father wanted him to be a fast bowler and the best at that, Adhishwar says that his father’s message to him has always been to ‘give the best in everything you do’. As he looks at the decade gone by, he realizes that his father’s association with the IPL and the consequent presence at the auctions and the matches has thrown open big opportunities for him to interact, learn and improve in his teenage years. All along, the discussion with his father has always centered around cricket and more specifically on scouting for talent, technical aspects of cricket, the auctions and its impact on the team composition.
‘My father has been my biggest sounding board’, says Adhishwar. When in 'cricketing' doubt, his father has been the first person he has reached out to.
Adhishwar has not rested on the laurels of the IPL and the CPL. He has simultaneously also qualified as a level 2 coach from Cricket Australia. He has tried to understand indepth and imbibe the fast bowling knowledge from his father, especially on the technical aspects of fast bowling.
Not a Fast Bowler, No Academics - Dogs, Cricket and Adhishwar
Not so long ago, his father wanted him to become a fast bowler of repute, his relatives tried their best to convince him into academics while his mother believed he had great organizational skills. Adhishwar has surprised all of them by signing into the IPL as a Strategic Analyst and that for a top notch team with high expectations every year. A couple of decades ago, it would have been unlikely for youngsters in India to have jumped into a non playing career in cricket at 22. But that is what IPL has offered – a financially lucrative career alongside the superstars of cricket and globally renowned business people.
The real turning point for Adhishwar came when someone told him a few years ago that the thought of converting a passion into profession would never work. He probably considered it outdated thinking and it was just the kind of trigger he needed to prove the thought process wrong. Since that day, he has worked with the belief that “if you’re passionate about something and pursue it with all sincerity, there is a good chance that you will be successful.” And that is what this 25 year old is seeking to achieve - a distinctive mark for himself in the Cricketing Arena in a really challenging and high pressure scenario.
On the non cricketing front, the two ‘pet resorts’ have become so successful that Venture Capitalists have expressed interest to pick up stake in his firm. Adhishwar is just waiting for the restrictions of the lockdown to be lifted for him to roll out the expansion of 'Pets Care' business.