Ritesh Misra, Mumbai, 12 August 2025
The world of Indian cricket was blessed to have 6 amazing spinners at the same time. Four went on to have illustrious careers, and two of them, Rajinder Goel and Padmakar Shivalkar, were unlucky to miss out. We at The Nirvik have featured Bishan Singh Bedi, BS Chandrasekhar, and Erapalli Prasanna in our Icons of India series. The 4th, namely, Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan, is featured today.
Venkat Sir, as he is popularly called, was widely respected as a thinking cricketer and captain who went on to become a top international umpire. For the purpose of this article, I will refer to him as Venkat, though he is always Venkat Sir for all of us.
An interesting aspect of the four icons is their longevity. Since all four legendary spinners played at the same time, it is but natural that they could not play as many tests as they normally would have over such a long and illustrious career. An additional factor was that fewer test matches were played at that time. It isn’t easy to comprehend that Bishan Singh Bedi, BS Chandrasekhar, and Erapalli Prasanna played just 67, 58, and 49 Tests in 15, 15, and 16 years, respectively. Venkat, in fact, had the longest career span amongst the quartet. He played for as many as 18 years but played only 57 Test matches.
Let us take a quick look at the Icon’s career, as a cricketer, as a captain, and as an umpire.
Like his illustrious offie colleage, Prasanna, Venkat was an engineer as well. He had a sparkling start to his test career as a teenager at 19. Versus the touring Kiwis in 1965, he took 21 wickets in four test matches. In the final test at Delhi, he took 12 wickets, and dismissed each New Zealander once, a feat achieved earlier only by Jim Laker. However he played only three more tests in the next three years. This kind of start-stop selection would continue throughout his test career. One would think there was only one reason for the same – 4 legendary spinners at the same time. In 231 Test matches, they together took 853 wickets, but in a long period of 15-18 years, they played only one test together, which was the Birmingham test versus England in 1967. Usually, it was either Prasanna or Venkat who missed out, as most captains preferred to have only one off-spinner in the team.
In his 57 Test matches, Venkat took 157 wickets. He took 5 wickets in an innings three times and had a ten-for once. Statistics do not do justice to his ability, and the same holds good for his illustrious teammates as well. His best bowling figures were 8-72 versus New Zealand at Delhi in his debut series. As a bowler, he was famed for his accuracy and he was highly penetrative as well. As a team player, he was expected to keep things tight so that the other two spinners in the team would come back fresh and pick up wickets. This nugget of an analysis has been done by none other than Sunil Gavaskar who had both captained Venkat, and was also captained by him. He was also a domestic giant, finishing with 530 wickets, and only Rajinder Goel with 637 wickets had more. Both Bedi and Venkat had long stints in the English county circuit and, as a result, both had more than 1000 first class wickets, with Bedi having 1560, and Venkat having 1390.
As a batsman, Venkat was considered gritty, though he had only two 50s in test cricket. In first class cricket he had a century and over 6000 runs, but at an unflattering average of less than 18. He was, however, an excellent fielder, certanly the best of the quartet. He was captain of the Indian team for both the 1975, and the 1979 ODI World cups. Unfortunately, the team did not fare well though. Overall, he played 15 ODIs and in his final ODI he had the wicket of Viv Richards, the best batter in the world then in a typically accurate spell of 1-24 in 8 overs. This match was the first time ever that India defeated West Indies in an ODI.
After his career as a cricketer was over, Venkat continued his association with the game in various ways. He was a commentator, columnist, Indian team manager, selector, match referee and then a celebrated umpire. He was umpire in as many as 73 Test matches and 51 ODIs. He was an umpire in the Semi-Final of both the 1996 and the 1999 ODI world Cups, and also the TV umpire for the 1999 ODI world Cup Final. As a player and a Captain, he was known for his temper, but as an Umpire, he was cool, calm, and collected, and he earned tremendous respect.
Venkat Sir has been honoured with the Padma Shri. As a fitting tribute, all the 4 icons, namely Bedi, Prasanna, Chandra, and Venkat were together honoured with the CK Nayudu Lifetime Achievemenr trophy in 2004.
Sir, you are an Icon of India. Much love and regards.
