Tamil Nadu Ranji captain R Sai Kishore is a bag full of surprises.
For a cricketer who comes across as disciplined on and off the field, he is hard to predict. Sai Kishore best describes himself as ‘paithiyakaran’ (eccentric). He has a reason for it too. “I don’t know what I’m going to do next. I’m very unpredictable and hard to understand. I will do something, because the thought strikes my head. There is no reason behind it,” the Ranji skipper says.
It is a notion even some of his teammates agree to.
There are reasons for it. In 2021, having spent three weeks in a bio-secure bubble as a reserve player of the India white-ball squad at the end of West Indies series in Guwahati, Sai Kishore didn’t pack his bags and head home to spend time with his family. Instead, he dropped a text message to his family and took a trip down to remote places in the North east, exploring the local culture, before finding a serene spot in a hilly terrain, somewhere between Assam and Nagaland, to meditate.
“I just went to explore the places and found myself in a totally remote hilly region. Except for the sound of the birds, there was nothing else and I started to meditate for a while,” he tells The Indian Express. “When I opened my eyes, there was a monk for company. Once we finished meditation, we walked for a few hours, where he shared about his journey. He had by then walked more than 1500km, which was stunning. And I joined him for a couple of hours,” he says.
This isn’t a one-off. Sai Kishore, who is spiritual, has a habit of taking off to temples and hilly terrains. One can often find him at Tiruvannamalai temple, which is four hours by road from Chennai. It is the place he frequents these days, where he will cover the 14-km long girivalam (walk around the hill).
It sounds common, but he doesn’t end there. He will meditate for hours and rest with the hermits, sleep on the floor, using his elbow as his pillow. The mornings are spent cleaning the mutt and the spots he hung around, before he indulges in annadhanam (serves food) in the afternoon. “There is so much calmness and positive vibe over there. I like such places. Just like our dressing room. This is all Iraivan arul (God’s grace),” he says pointing skywards.
Knows words’ worth
Like all spiritual souls, he is philosophical too. To drive home his thoughts, Sai Kishore often leans on late Tamil lyricist and poet Na Muthukumar’s words for inspiration. Donning the role of a RJ, certain nights at the team hotel tend to become in Sai Kishore’s words “Na Muthukumar iravugal” (Muthukumar nights) where some of his lines are used to best define the moment the team finds itself in.
“I’ve always believed lyrics are under-rated. But that is where the beauty is. Everyone remembers the actor and music director and the visuals. But not the lyrics or lyricist. Without that, there is no soul in the music.”
The evening then invariably drifts to Ilaiyaraaja and AR Rahman songs with Sai Kishore strumming his guitar. These days, they have also included a few Arjit Singh’s romantic melodies and invariably have become a tight-knit bunch. “I knew we would be spending a lot of time away from home. We need to enjoy each other’s company and nothing unites us like music. I don’t believe in forcefully having a team bonding session. If there is a team, there will be different types of personalities and they will mingle accordingly. The young boys in the team may not enjoy our company and would like to do something on their own. So why stop that?” he says.
It is this unpredictable, looking at things from a different perspective, abandoning the common methods as captain, that has seen Sai Kishore take this team to its first Ranji Trophy semi-finals in seven years. When he took over the reins this season, it looked like the Ranji campaign would end similar to the previous six years. And this time they had more reasons as well.
Under new head coach Sulakshan Kulkarni, for a team that is known to be white-ball giants, TN made a group stage-exit in Syed Mushtaq Ali T20s. In the Vijay Hazare, they were saved by Dinesh Karthik, who carried them to semi-finals. And when the Ranji commenced there was no hope. The team was yet to embrace Kulkarni’s methods. The likes of Baba Indrajith, Vijay Shankar, N Jagadeesan found themselves in a perform-or-perish moment. All of it signalled towards another catastrophic season. But Sai Kishore turned the tables around with the help of these three players, who the powers-that-be wanted to push away.
“To be honest, we haven’t done anything different to last season. We were unlucky not to qualify last year. This time, certain things have gone our way though compared to last season, we are a bit inexperienced this time. We have had three new batsmen and one bowler who are just starting off. We can’t expect them to deliver match-winning performances straightaway. So between us (seniors), we have shared the responsibility,” Sai Kishore says according to the reports published in indianexpress.com .
As they face heavyweights Mumbai at the BKC grounds, TN are happy to be considered underdogs. And Sai Kishore riffs off Muthukumar to describe the mood in the TN dressing room. “Karai varum neram parthu, kapalil kathirupom, erimalai vandhal kooda yeri nindru por thodupom (As we wait patiently in the ship for the shores to arrive, if we happen to land on a volcano, we will wage a war).
