Raju Bids adieu

[imaginarydiva]

Courtesy www.rediff.com :
Venkatapathy Raju announces retirement

December 15, 2004 20:27 IST


Former India spinner Venkatapathy Raju, who is leading the Hyderabad Ranji team in the ongoing match against Uttar Pradesh, announced his retirement from first class cricket on Wednesday.

Sagi Lakshmi Venkatapathy Raju, who made his Test debut against New Zealand in 1989-90, played 53 Tests and took 93 wickets with 6 for 12 being his best.

Nicknamed 'Muscles', he claimed 63 wickets in the one-day internationals with 4 for 46 being his best during his six year international cricketing career.

Also called 'Lachchi' by his close friends, Raju is only the second player after Kanwaljit Singh to play 100 first class matches for Hyderabad.

The left arm spinner has so far played 102 first class matches and claimed 367 wickets. His 100th match against Maharashtra was incidentally the 100th cricket match played at the Gymkhana grounds.

Hyderabad has to play two more matches in the season.
............
Truly one of Hyderabad's greatest ever players.It'll be hard for the team to find someone to fill the void created by his retirement.I personally felt that the guy deserved more oppurtunities at the highest level.

[ashwini]

his battin skills...simply amazin....

[vvvrulz]

He was a handy player, was around for a long while !
Pity he wasn't persisted with, only came in and out.

[imaginarydiva]

Exactly my thoughts.Sometimes I feel the board is ruining the game in India.

[Nikhil]

I don't really feel bad for his retirement. He was never more than an average player.

But the thing I liked most about him was his physique (or the lack of it ). He was superb in that area. If he could become a cricketer, I can still harbour hopes of becoming a footballer . Won't forget his conversation with Big Merv Hughes in the '92 tour of Australia.

We all know Big Merv was extremely good and straight forward at sledging. Once he was coming down at Raju and Raju went to him after the over and requested "Big man, why do you have to sledge?" Lol. Merv was clueless .

Anyway, wish him luck for the rest of his life.

[vvvrulz]

I agree about the board. At least things have improved.

[ashwini]

Originally Posted by Nikhil

I don't really feel bad for his retirement. He was never more than an average player.

But the thing I liked most about him was his physique (or the lack of it ). He was superb in that area. If he could become a cricketer, I can still harbour hopes of becoming a footballer . Won't forget his conversation with Big Merv Hughes in the '92 tour of Australia.

We all know Big Merv was extremely good and straight forward at sledging. Once he was coming down at Raju and Raju went to him after the over and requested "Big man, why do you have to sledge?" Lol. Merv was clueless .

Anyway, wish him luck for the rest of his life.

i wud have loved to see merv's face...

[imaginarydiva]

But there's still a long way to go.Its really shameful that things are not upto the mark considering the popularity of the game.

Originally Posted by Nikhil

I don't really feel bad for his retirement. He was never more than an average player.

But the thing I liked most about him was his physique (or the lack of it ). He was superb in that area. If he could become a cricketer, I can still harbour hopes of becoming a footballer . Won't forget his conversation with Big Merv Hughes in the '92 tour of Australia.

We all know Big Merv was extremely good and straight forward at sledging. Once he was coming down at Raju and Raju went to him after the over and requested "Big man, why do you have to sledge?" Lol. Merv was clueless .

Anyway, wish him luck for the rest of his life.

LOL,he was more popular for his body than for his cricketing career.He's nicknamed 'muscles' bcuz of his personality.Abt the conversation,that guy actually speaks english?LOL!!!!!I heard him once and i couldnt unravel a single thing and i know he gives most of interviews in Telugu(OUR mother tongue) so its always a pain to interview him.No wonder most sports journalists are supposedly like 'who wants to interview him anyway.'But i still think he was a great cricketer.I hear a new cricketer has been drafted in from the inter university series.I know he had a couple of good knocks so will be interesting
to see how things go...

[ashwini]

hey u speak telgu?thts sooo cool...me tooo

[imaginarydiva]

Nizama?OMG!Thats ultra cool akka!Just kidding;Ash.