The 34-year-old former Ranji player first noticed Cariappa at an under-18 camp three years ago, impressed with the boy’s spinning ability as well as his astute cricketing intelligence.
ET Bureau
By Umesh Yadav
BENGALURU: Sudhindra Shinde wasn’t the least surprised when his protégé Konganda Charamanna Cariappa was picked by the Kolkata IPL team. After all, Shinde says, he had carefully planned the career path of this mystery spinner – the Rs 2.4-crore surprise of this year’s IPL auction.
“Cariappa has been practising hard for the past two years, and especially in the past six months for the IPL,” Shinde told ET. What probably surprised him was the astronomical sum the Kolkata team agreed to pay for Cariappa – at 24 times his base price.
Much has been written about the young Bengaluru cricketer since then, but Shinde, responsible for shaping Cariappa’s career as his personal coach and mentor, has been happy to stay away from the highlights.
The 34-year-old former Ranji player first noticed Cariappa at an under-18 camp three years ago, impressed with the boy’s spinning ability as well as his astute cricketing intelligence. He asked Cariappa to join his cricket coaching centre, and later took him into the Karnataka Premier League’s Bijapur Bulls team that he captained.
That’s where Cariappa began to draw the attention of the big league scouts as he foxed even senior batsmen with a deadly carrom ball, googlies and his ability to spin both ways. In the 2014 edition of the league, the 20-year-old took 11 wickets in just six matches, with an enviable best of 419. It just so happened that the Bijapur Bulls’ video analyst was also a talent scout for the Kolkata IPL team.
Cariappa’s first reaction on landing the IPL contract was to credit Shinde for his unexpected bounty. “Sir helped me both career-wise and financially,” said Cariappa, whose father Charamanna is a security su pervisor at Kodava Samaja in Bengaluru. “I stay 25 km away from the camp (at Chinnaswamy stadium). Sir gifted me a bike so I can spend more time practising.“
Much before the IPL players' auction this month, Shinde had managed to persuade the Kolkata IPL team to sponsor Cariappa and com mit to bid for him. After the KPL tournament, the Kolkata team invited Cariappa to hang around with its players during last year's Champions League tournament. He got to bowl in the nets alongside West Indies ace spinner Sunil Narine.
Anil Kumar, a former R anji playe r, s a id Shinde has a special ability to identify talent. “He takes good care of his boys and even helps them get financial support if necessary,“ said Kumar, who now plays for the KPL's Mysore Warriors.
Shinde, an offbreak bowler, no longer plays in the Ranji Trophy , instead dedicating himself to coaching young players.
“I like giving good players to society. That's why I opened a club to discover new talent.“
ET Bureau
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