The Fast Bowler from Mylapore picks up 21 wickets this season
Former TN Bowling Coach DJ Gokulakrishnan helps him to a great bowling season in the Dutch Cricket League
Mylaporean Vidvath Viswanathan, who schooled at Gill Adarsh and graduated in Bio Tech Engineering at Sastra University, works in the cancer treatment space at a multinational pharma firm in OSS, in the province of North Brabant in South Netherlands. He has a PhD EngD in Netherlands.
During the weekends, he plays for Concordia in the Netherlands Cricket League. In what has turned out to be a great season for him, the fast bowler took 21 wickets and on Sunday evening received the Best Bowler award at an event held in Delft.
His top performance in league cricket in Netherlands follows a series of one on one coaching sessions he had earlier this year under former TN Bowling Coach DJ Gokulakrishnan (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2017/03/gokulakrishnan-j.html) at the Mylapore Club.
Talking to this writer from Den Bosch where he resides, a jubilant Vidhvath credits Gokulakrishnan for the transformation in his bowling “While I played tennis ball cricket during my school and college days, I did not get learn the art of fast bowling professionally. I just used to run in and bowl naturally. During the multiple coaching sessions I had with him, he taught me the finer aspects of fast bowling from the importance of the run up to the delivery stride, from the movement of the two arms when I delivered the ball to the follow through. I had never thought about these until then. I began to be conscious about these aspects during the matches I played this year and found where I was going wrong and why.”
“My run up has definitely improved. I have a lot more control in my bowling and am able to pitch the ball where I want to.”
In a number of matches, 31 year old Vidhvath was given the task to bowl at the death. He reposed his captain’s faith in him by picking up crucial wickets to help his team win each of those matches including fashioning a last over win.
An Umpire and A Professional Scorer as well
In addition to working on life saving drugs during the weekdays and playing cricket over the weekends, Vidhvath has also been certified this year as an umpire in Netherlands after completing a formal course. His cricketing association also extends to professional scoring and was a reserve backup for the U19 World Cup that concluded recently. He has been an official scorer at a U18 Netherlands match, the Dutch Women’s league and a Women’s T10 match this season.
Into Vedic Learning
Vidhvath is also now being initiated into the Vedas with some additional encouragement and motivation coming in from 'Kapali Theevatti' Ramkumar, a former World Bank consultant and now a consultant to the PMO (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2023/07/kapali-theevatti-pmo-consultant-v.html?m=1).