Remember Muscles?
Venkatapathy Raju, part of India's spin trio in the early 1990s, reminisces his early days when he shared Irani chai and samosas with friends, caught two buses everyday to get from Ramanthapur to Gymkhana, his school days and watching the Mithun
Kanishkaa Balachandran
25-Feb-2013
Venkatapathy Raju, part of India's spin trio in the early 1990s, reminisces his early days when he shared Irani chai and samosas with friends, caught two buses everyday to get from Ramanthapur to Gymkhana, his school days and watching the Mithun Chakraborty-starrer Disco Dancer 15 times. Neeraja Murthy of the Hindu catches up with the former left-arm spinner, nicknamed Muscles, now the Hyderabad coach.
Raju's teacher Anjaneya Sastry played a key role in shaping the cricketer in him. “Initially, the lure for us to play cricket was the announcements made in school assembly about the students who played well in inter-house matches. It was a high to receive the applause and appreciation. There was no pressure from my parents so it was easy to balance cricket and studies,” he smiles.
Kanishkaa Balachandran is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo