T.E. Srinivasan.

T E Srinivasan, Cheema or T E to one and all, had quite a cult following during his long career for Tamil Nadu, starting from the 1972-73 season, when he made his debut.

In his time, he was a brilliant player of fast bowling, his better innings reserved for the big occasion. He was completely self-made, an original who honed his batting technique on the concrete wicket at the Nungambakkam Corporation School ground.

Even as a youngster playing for Vivekananda College, when I was turning out for Presidency College, T E had the foresight and ambition to realise that he had to play pace well if he wanted to play international cricket. Towards this end, he regularly hired bowlers from the neighbourhood to bang them in from 15 to 18 yards on the fast surface.

He set Madras grounds on fire in inter-collegiate and league cricket whenever he overcame his initial diffidence against spin bowling. It was perhaps this feature of his batting early in his career, together with insufficient opportunities, that made him a bit of a late bloomer in first class cricket. Strangely, T E was moved around in the batting order, often the last of the specialist batsmen in his early years. Still, he had quite a few unbeaten innings, especially against Karnataka, against whom he made a second innings 72 at Bangalore in the 1973-74 season. It was against the same team that he made his first Ranji Trophy hundred (130 not out), when he was involved in a 233 run partnership with V. Sivaramakrishnan (169) for the fifth wicket. The match proved a turning point in T E’s career. It was a spectacular assault on a Karnataka attack that included Prasanna and Chandrasekhar; he had apparently overcome his inhibition s against the slow stuff.

T E turned on the magic in some important games for Tamil Nadu. I was fortunate to watch some of his better knocks, such as his electrifying 87 as an opener partnering K.  Srikkanth against Delhi in the 1981-82 quarter final, giving Tamil Nadu a real chance to win the match. They lost in a close finish thanks at least in part to some dubious umpiring decisions. Earlier, he made a crackling 90 against Hyderabad, whose skipper, Abid Ali, tried to trap him in his strong point (!), by asking his medium pacers to bowl short at him – with disastrous results.

In the Duleep Trophy, Srinivasan made a brilliant hundred against North Zone at Bangalore in the 1977-78 season, just before the Indian team to tour Australia under Bishan Bedi was selected. He was not included in the Indian squad, but he was for the first time a serious candidate for national honours. His hero, M.L. Jaisimha, on whom he modelled his attire and gait for a while, was the South Zone representative in the national selection committee, and he began to take T E seriously. As one of the shrewdest captains and a deceptive purveyor of off-spin, he had dismissed T E a few times in the Ranji Trophy – by the sheer force of his power of suggestion rather than any serious revolution of the ball – and he had not hitherto been convinced of T  E’s class.

T E went on to play many more attractive innings in the Duleep Trophy, against touring teams – including a spectacular 108 against Imran Khan & Co. at Hyderabad for South Zone in 1979-80 – and 45 and 101 in an all important Irani Cup match which earned him a berth in the Indian team that toured Australia under the captaincy of Sunil Gavaskar. By this time Jaisimha was a convert and so were his colleagues in the selection panel that ignored a brilliant double century by Surinder Amarnath in the same match, but found merit in Kirti Azad’s alleged off spin and his attacking batsmanship in fair weather. T E played only one Test on the tour, that too in the second half, in New Zealand. He made 29 and 19 in Auckland, and never played for India again.

T E was also one of the characters of the game, quick-witted, mischievous and blessed with a zany sense of humour, bordering on the wild. Some of his theories on the game were unorthodox, but his technique was pure. He loved to hit the ball on the up and deal in boundaries rather than do anything as tiring as running between the wickets. He is famous for his verbal jousts, sometimes with opponents feared by his colleagues. Teammates cannot forget the expression on the face of Aussie paceman Rodney Hogg when T  E cornered him after the first day’s play of a tour game at Hyderabad and told him, “Why don’t you stop bowling off spinners and try to bowl fast instead?” He is also reputed to have informed the media as soon as the 1980 Indian team landed in Australia, “Tell Dennis Lillee T E has arrived.”

My favourite T.E. Srinivasan story is a true one recorded by none other than Sunil Gavaskar, whose concentration had been disturbed by loud laughter from the pavilion during a Test in Australia. The annoyed opener later found out that T  E’s practical joke on Yashpal Sharma had caused the uproar. He had persuaded a security guard to tell Yashpal that he would be arrested if he did not stop staring at women spectators through binoculars. Yashpal’s panic on being so sternly warned had been the cause of the mirth. It also earned him the nickname ‘Doorbin,’ Hindi for binoculars.

T E died in 2010 after battling brain cancer with great courage and good humour. When I said to his wife Mala, “We all admire you for the way you took care of T E; how incredibly brave you have been,” she said, “On the contrary, T E looked after me even when he was desperately ill. He kept my spirits up with his good cheer, never complaining of his pain or suffering.”

Judged by his single Test appearance, T E was perhaps an underachiever, perhaps the selectors did not give him his due, but he gave spectators and colleagues sheer joy with his stylish batting, his bravado, his raffish gait reflecting his hero-worship of Jaisimha. He was unique.