He’s a businessman who runs a textile manufacturing unit that employs round 1,000 individuals in Tiruppur and exports to most of Europe, the Oceania area and North America. A former Tamil Nadu athlete within the 110m hurdles at nationwide championships, he additionally holds an MBA and an MS in Psychology.
However then, that’s probably not why V Ramesh Kumar is beneath the highlight within the cricket circuit.
The 44-year-old is the top curator of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Affiliation (TNCA), the person answerable for the pitch on the iconic M A Chidambaram stadium in Chennai — and now, all set to supervise preparations for the upcoming ODI towards Australia and the IPL.
It’s an fascinating journey that’s taken greater than a decade.
Kumar says it began someday round 2010, when he was unable to discover a curator to make a turf pitch at his personal academy, Tiruppur Faculty of Cricket. “So I enrolled for the BCCI course (to develop into a licensed curator) in 2016. And right here I’m now,” Kumar instructed The Indian Specific.
Kumar first grabbed eyeballs when he ready pitches for India’s two Take a look at matches towards England in Chennai final 12 months. For a curator who had by no means earlier been concerned in making pitches even for First-Class matches, it was a leap of religion by the TNCA. However now, as 2023 approaches, Kumar has a extra busy schedule forward of him — other than the Australia recreation and IPL, the BCCI has lined-up a number of extra turf assignments in view of his capability to roll out balanced and format-suited pitches.
A cricketer until his school days, Kumar’s foray into the sport at a critical degree started along with his academy, which is likely one of the hottest such centres in western Tamil Nadu and at present has about 90 college students enrolled.
Out of these 90, virtually half of the wards are coached freed from price and the academy takes care of their faculty and school charges, too. 9 gamers, girls and boys, from the academy are a part of the Tamil Nadu facet throughout age-groups. Kumar has additionally given jobs to the unemployed mother and father of some of those kids.
Whereas these preliminary years have been restricted to his academy, the TNCA first approached him to help in a number of age-group matches in Tiruppur, says Kumar. With these pitches receiving spectacular suggestions in successive seasons, the state affiliation moved to rope him in as the top curator on the M A Chidambaram Stadium. However Kumar had a situation: he’ll supply his providers freed from price.
“We have now been making an attempt arduous to persuade him to cost at the least a minimal payment. However he’s hell-bent on not taking even a single penny,” says R I Palani, TNCA secretary.
Says Ramesh, “I’m not right here to generate income. Who would cost for following a ardour?”
With the affiliation rolling out new venues in Salem, Coimbatore, Tiruppur and Dindigul, and one other arising in Trichy, Kumar will get to spend “little or no time at residence”, leaving the duty of operating his enterprise to his spouse Malarvizhi Giri, a chartered accountant.
As of late, says Kumar, Malarizhi single-handedly runs the enterprise, whereas he affords assist solely when he’s at residence, other than caring for their three-year-old daughter. “I’ve no alternative however to depart it to my spouse. And it’s only due to her encouragement and assist that I’m ready to do that,” he says.
On Tuesday, Kumar’s expertise have been evident on the SNR Faculty Floor in Coimbatore, when Andhra ended up making 277/5 on Day 1 of the Ranji Trophy second spherical match towards Tamil Nadu, with the pitch providing good and constant bounce.
“It is advisable to have a pitch that has all the pieces for everybody. That’s what I learnt from (well-known curators) Ashish Bhowmick (Bengal), Tapas Chatterjee (Rajasthan), Sunil Chauhan (Himachal), Daljit Singh (Punjab), P R Vishwanath (TN) and Prashanth (Karnataka). These guys inspired me rather a lot as a result of I used to be the youngest after I did the course in 2016,” says Kumar.
Over the previous few years, each time Kumar has flown overseas for enterprise, he has made it a degree to go to a number of grounds there, too. “After I’m within the UK, I take permission from a number of counties to be with their groundsmen after they make pitches. After I went to Australia, I went to Perth to know why there may be lots of bounce there,” he says.
When Coimbatore hosted the Duleep Trophy earlier this 12 months, the pitches he produced acquired the thumbs-up from former India star Ajinkya Rahane, who captained West Zone to the title. However for Kumar, the largest applause got here from the Indian group in 2021 for the pitches he made at Chepauk towards England.
“There was only a three-day hole between two Exams, so there was little time to organize for the second match. It was beneath the solar when the primary Take a look at was on and in the long run, everybody favored it. Virat Kohli, R Ashwin, Rohit Sharma, Ravi Shastri all signed a hat and despatched it throughout. As a result of bio-bubble protocols, I couldn’t meet them. It was fantastic of them.”