VVS Laxman

Vangipurapu Venkata Sai Laxman (born 1 November 1974) is a former Indian international cricketer and a former cricket commentator and pundit.

A right-hand batsman known for his elegant stroke play, Laxman played as a middle-order batsman in Test cricket.

Laxman is currently the Head of Cricket at the National Cricket Academy (NCA), and the head coach of the India Under-19 and India A teams.

Laxman made his Under-19 debut for India against Australia in February 1994.

Batting at six, he made 88 in his debut innings against a bowling attack that consisted of Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie, both of whom were making their debuts too.

In the second game of the series, Laxman scored an unbeaten 151 in the first innings and 77 in the second innings to help his team register a 226-run victory.

He continued his good form as he scored 36 and 84 in the third game to end up as the leading run-scorer of the series.

In a 2001 test against Australia and promoted to no. 3 in the second innings from his first innings position of 6, he scored 281 to take India to a huge lead after following on.

Though Laxman was ideally suited for No. 3, Rahul Dravid was always preferred over him to bat at one-down, while Sachin Tendulkar was established at No. 4. As a result, Laxman played around 63 percent of his Test innings at No. 5 or 6.

This meant that Laxman often found himself batting with tail-end batsmen, and is reflected in his final statistics, which show that he has a relatively high proportion of not out innings (34 of 225, or 15 per cent — for comparison, Tendulkar finished not out in around 10 per cent of his Test innings, and Dravid in 11 per cent).

Laxman was a member of the Indian team that was one of the joint-winners of the 2002 ICC Champions Trophy, which the title was also shared with Sri Lanka.

Laxman is one of the few players to have played 100 Test matches, without ever appearing in a One-Day Cricket World Cup.

Despite being a relatively slow runner between the wickets, Laxman compensated with his stroke play and fast scoring.

In 2002, he was named one of Wisden's five Cricketers of the Year.

In domestic cricket, Laxman represented Hyderabad.

He also played for Lancashire in county cricket.

He was also the captain of the Deccan Chargers team in the Indian Premier League during its inaugural season.

Later, he played for the Kochi Tuskers team.

He was the mentor of the Sunrisers Hyderabad until 2021.

He is popularly called as the 'God of 4th Innings' for his exploits.

He married G. R. Shailaja from Guntur, Computer Applications graduate, on 16 February 2004.

They have two children.

Laxman is known for his fluid style, technical soundness and aggressiveness.

Sambit Bal of ESPN Crincinfo writes: "At his sublime best, VVS Laxman is a sight for the gods. Wristy, willowy and sinuous, he can match – sometimes even better – Tendulkar for strokeplay... [He] has the rare gift of being able to hit the same ball to either side."

He was equally skilled against both pace and spin, with great timing and outstanding ability to place the ball splitting the tightest field positions.

Laxman was particularly skillful in using his wrists (reminiscent of his role model and fellow Hyderabadi, Mohammed Azharuddin) that allowed him to place the same ball to different areas of the field.

Standing tall and still at the crease, Laxman had a keen awareness of the off-stump and a polished ability to dispatch the bad ball.

He plays with a high elbow and a steady stance and a textbook technique with natural elegance and flair.

At the start of his career, Laxman was rated by Geoffrey Boycott as one of India's best players of the hard (new) ball.

However, Indian selectors played around with his batting positions, whenever India felt a lacuna regarding any batting number.

He was forced to play in almost every position, including opening.

Laxman found his home in the middle order, where he played most of his best innings, batting at numbers 3, 5 and 6.

Nevertheless, Laxman batted particularly well with non-specialist lower-order batsmen, and was able, with their support, to save and win numerous matches for India (for example, the Mohali 2010 Test against Australia).

In 2011, Laxman was awarded the Padma Shri award, India's fourth highest civilian award.

In 2012, Laxman retired from international cricket.

Laxman was born in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh (present-day Telangana).

Laxman's parents are physicians Shantaram and Satyabhama of Vijayawada.

Laxman is the great-grandnephew of India's second President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan.

Laxman studied at the Little Flower High School, Hyderabad.

Though he joined a medical school for his undergraduate studies, Laxman chose cricket as a career.