Tamil Nadu appoints Lakshmipathy Balaji as player-coach

Balaji has ample amount of international experience

Former India international medium pacer Lakshmipathy Balaji has been appointed as player and bowling coach of Tamil Nadu for the 2015-16 domestic season. He will take up the role on October 1 when Tamil Nadu face Baroda in Chennai, for the first match of their Ranji Trophy campaign.

The 33-year old featured only in 8 matches for Tamil Nadu last season picking up 15 wickets in the process. He is expected to be used in a similar role this season along with the added responsibility of mentoring and bringing up the young TN bowlers. After reaching the 2014-15 Ranji Trophy final and finishing runners-up, Tamil Nadu will be looking to go one better this season.

His international career spanned a duration of 10 years from 2002 to 2012 during which he played eight Test matches, 30 One Day Internationals and five Twenty20 Internationals. In this period, he was able to get 71 international wickets.

Although Balaji had an unmemorable debut, he showed his true potential in the historic 2003-04 tour of Pakistan. He was the smiling assassin to the Pakistani batsmen as he consistently troubled them with his away swinging and straightening deliveries, which led him to get his then career-best of 4 for 63.

In 2005, Balaji had to go through injury phases which almost ended his cricketing career. He was almost entirely out of action for around three years. Despite having gone through such circumstances, Balaji never gave up and persisted by performing well domestically.

After producing an economical performance for the Kolkata Knight Riders in the 2012 edition of the Indian Premier League, Balaji was recalled to the Indian Twenty20 squad that faced New Zealand at home and played the ICC World Twenty20.

Tamil Nadu have retained Abhinav Mukund as the captain for the domestic season ahead with Baba Indrajith as his deputy. Mukund had played five Tests for the Indian national team in 2011.

Two more players - U Sushil and M Kaushik Gandhi - will be joining the Tamil Nadu squad for the second and third matches to be played against Madhya Pradesh and Mumbai respectively.

What impact will Lakshmipathy Balaji’s appointment will have on the Tamil Nadu bowling performance this season remains to be seen. Tamil Nadu will be hoping to avoid a repeat performance of the 2014-15 Ranji final when Karnataka amassed 762 runs in one innings to win the trophy by an innings and 217 runs.

Tamil Nadu squad: Abhinav Mukund (Captain), Baba Indrajith (Vice-Captain), K Bharath Shankar, Baba Aparajith, Vijay Shankar, R Prasanna, K Dinesh Karthik (wk), Malolan Rangarajan, Rahil Shah, DT Chandrasekar, L Vignesh, M Mohammed and Jagannathan Koushik