The author is a cricketer born and brought up in Madras, amidst cricket-crazy friends and relatives. Hailing from a family of accomplished cricketers, Ramnarayan and younger brother V Sivaramakrishnan went on to play first class cricket. A lefthander who opened the innings for Tamil Nadu, Siva became its highest rungetter in a 15-year long career.

An off spin bowler, Ramnarayan was a contemporary of world-class spinners Prasanna and Venkataraghavan, his senior in Chennai cricket by a couple of years. He almost did not play any first class cricket, as Venkat was a Test cricketer even before he (Ramnarayan) entered college, and kept him out of the university and state teams. After moving to Hyderabad, Ramnarayan eventually played in the Duleep Trophy, Deodhar Trophy and Irani Cup in the seventies, though it was always an uphill task with the kind of competition he had to face. Yet, the off spinner managed to make it to the national selectors' shortlist of Test 'probables' on more than one occasion.

Ram was fortunate to rub shoulders with some great cricketers in Hyderabad and on the national stage. In this column, he relives his days under the sun in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad, with their uniquely laidback cricket culture.

This is Ramnarayan's second cricket column for Chennai Online. His earlier column "Curdrice Cricket" ran for over a year. Chennai Online readers are also familiar with his "Chennai Chat".

Last year, after nearly a decade of newspaper and web journalism as a freelancer, 54-year-old Ramnarayan joined the Sanmar group of companies, where he is Vice President-Corporate Communications.