Nivethan Radhakrishnan Tasmania Tigers

Nivethan Radhakrishnan, son of former TNCA league player Anbu Selvan, was set to make cricketing waves at Chepauk such was his talent. He had scored 30 centuries by the time he was into his mid teens but frustration here with the TNCA and the lack of proper opportunities led his father to take him to Australia to further his cricketing interests in a professional set up there. In a significant development, 18 year old Nivethan has last week bagged his first professional cricket contract in Australia. The left hand bat, who bowls spin with both hands, has been roped in by Tasmanian Tigers for the 2021-22 Season and is likely to lock horns with the who’s who of Australian cricket in the Sheffield Shield tournament. This follows Nivethan's strong performances in the first grade New South Wales Premier league in Sydney. He will now move from Sydney where he has been residing for a large part of the last decade to Tasmania for the new season that starts in a few months time.

Just under a decade ago, the then 26 year old Sriram Krishnamurthy based in Madras elicited interest to play the role of a high performance coach. As a Southpaw, he had played for an Indian Cements run team in the first division league under former South Zone batsman JR Madanagopal, now an IPL umpire(https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2021/05/jr-madanagopal-ipl-umpire-2021-and.html).This section had written a story in 2012 asking the question if the TNCA would utilize his services, lest he be grabbed by overseas talent hunters. The TNCA did not and Sriram moved to Australia and then later to England and has now finally settled in New Zealand. He has been credited with the development of opener Devon Conway, who has been making waves this month with an extraordinary start to his test career. 

Similar to Sriram Krishnamurthy, Anbu Selvan too had faced frustration during his playing days in the 1980s at not being able to break through in any of the age group teams despite running up good scores. Undaunted he played cricket for close to three decades even flying in from the US to play league matches. He also managed several league teams in the city mentoring youngsters, in addition to playing league cricket as an opening batsman. 

He initiated his second son Nivethan Radhakrishnan (named after Anbu’s parents) very early into cricket – at the age of three!!!. He bagged a hat-trick with his right arm off spin aged 8 and scored a century in a U12 match off just 60 balls a year later. The special talent that he was, Nivethan was already a junior Olympiad winner in Maths and Science from Sri Sankara School by then. 

Just when things seemed to be going in the right direction, a new rule brought out by the TNCA restricting players below 13 years to be registered in the league frustrated Anbu Selvan. Nivethan was just 9 years old and was performing well in cricket. This new rule was likely to put him out of league cricket for another 4 years. Angered at this age restriction, Anbu Selvan went overseas to Australia and his son began practising and playing cricket there.

Aged 11, Nivethan had become one of the youngest to play in the U 16 league in the Green Shield in Sydney. Thrilled at his talent Aussie legend Greg Chappell called Ryan Harris to take a look at him. When a MRF trainee tried to bounce Nivethan out at the nets session at the academy in Madras, he was promptly dispatched away prompting Glenn McGrath to remark ‘You will have to try the spin tricks with him. Bouncing him up will not work on the lad.’ 

At 14, Nivethan came back to Madras from Australia and registered for the TNPL selections for Karaikudi Kaalai. After Robin Singh watched his stroke play in the selection match, he signed him up for the TNPL that season. However, soon after Robin left for the Caribbean PL and Nivethan did not get to play any of the matches in the TNPL. There were not too many takers for him in the TNCA league as well though he did play a few league matches here before returning to Australia.

Former Ranji Trophy winning captain and current Chairman of Selectors of TN S Vasudevan (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2020/06/vasudevan-tn-ranji-trophy-retirement.html) watched him closely in an inter academy tournament organised by the Gandhi Nagar Sport Club a few years ago just before Anbu Selvan decided to leave for good.  Vasudevan recalls left hand bat Nivethan scoring a lot of runs in that tournament and found him to be extremely talented allrounder and very useful especially also with his ability to bowl well with both hands.

Frustrated at the way Nivethan was being discarded here and seeing that the special talent was not being recognized in the way it should, Anbu Selvan did not want his son’s career to go the way of the father and hence moved away permanently to Australia much like another left hander Sriram Krishnamurthy(https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2012/05/high-performance-coaching-is-tnca.html), who has now settled down in New Zealand after moving away from his home town following a lack of acceptance of his services. Sriram has coached New Zealand A and U19 teams and been with the Northern Districts (Williamson, Southee and Watling, among others) in the last few years.

While he has achieved fair amount of success in New Zealand, Sriram Krishnamurthy says that the passion and desire to serve Tamil Nadu cricket is still intact, a decade after he left Madras for good!!! He even has his support staff ready, in addition to the documentation of the purpose of what the state needs to do to achieve its goal. 

Sriram’s model is to nurture a cricketing system that produces confident and well rounded young men who care about others and are passionate about playing for the state which he feels is missing now. He is hoping that one day in life he would get that opportunity to do some cricketing work for his home state. He says if it does happen, that homecoming would be the homage to all those people who motivated and inspired him(Madanagopal, RBI’s S. Ramesh and N.S. Ramesh, the late PK Dharmalingam and CB Selvakumar). 

Just over four decades ago, India's batting legend Gundappa Viswanath invited opening batsman from Madras S Kedarnath (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2021/06/kedarnath-s-opener-from-1970s.html) to move to Bangalore so he could play Ranji Trophy cricket for Karnataka. When Kedarnath reported the delightful news to his father at his home on Nair Road, his enthusiasm and hope came crashing down for his father asked him to stay put in Madras and rejected permission to move to Bangalore. And that ended Kedarnath's Ranji hopes aged 22.

Credit to his father the fiery Anbu Selvan, who played TNCA league cricket for over 25 years and at one point in his career managed as many as 7 teams, Nivethan had no such restrictions. Many a time, parents are confused on the cricketing path and opportunities that lie ahead for their children. At an early stage, when Anbu found that things were not going in the right direction in Madras, he took a bold decision in cricket leaving the TNCA, with whom he had been associated for almost three decades and moved to Australia to showcase his son’s cricketing talent there. Also around that time, he quit a high profile job at JP Morgan Chase in the US and has since spent all his time entirely on developing his son’s cricket. 

In the last four years, Nivethan has made rapid strides in Australia. He has been part of the New South Wales Elite Pathway programme that spots and nurtures extraordinary talent. 

In the 2019-20 Season, he scored over 600runs for first grade team Hawkesbury topping the batting charts for them scoring at an average of 52 in the longer version of the New South Wales Premier league. He also topped the batting aggregate in the Poidevin Gray Shield scoring over 150runs in six matches in addition to picking up 6wickets.

In the season just ended (2020-21), playing for Sydney University Cricket Club, he was on the top of wicket takers list picking up 23 wickets including a best of 4/24 in addition to scoring close to 200runs. In the Poidevin Gray Shield, Nivethan was the highest wicket taker with 12wickets including a best of 5/20. He was also among the best batsmen notching up 125runs including a half century.

Like former Tennis Star Nirupama Vaidyanathan(https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2021/05/nirupama-vaidyanathan.html), who quit academics at 17 to pursue a professional tennis career in the 1990s, Nivethan too has quit academics as a teenager to focus full time on professional cricket in Australia. With discipline, commitment and hard work as his hallmark and a burning desire to succeed at the highest level, he has performed well in the first grade in New South Wales and has now been suitably rewarded with Tasmania picking him as a rookie in the state squad for the upcoming domestic season.

With a strong performance in the Sheffield Shield, this ambidextrous bowler and the top order batsman from Madras could stake a claim to the Australian National Team sometime in the near future. One will have to wait and watch as to how he shapes up in the new domestic season in Australia.

This section will track his progress in Australia.