| Full Name | Vangipurapu Venkata Sai Laxman |
| Date of Birth | November 1, 1974 |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Height | 1.85 m |
| Role | Middle Order Batsman / Right hand Batsman |
| Past Team(s) | |
| Family | V. Shantaram (Father), G. R. Sailaja (Spouse) |
| - | Test | ODI | IPL |
| Matches | 134 | 86 | 20 |
| innings | 225 | 83 | 20 |
| Not-Out | 34 | 7 | 1 |
| Runs | 8781 | 2338 | 282 |
| Highest Score | 281 | 131 | 52 |
| Average | 45.5 | 30.76 | 14.84 |
| Balls faced | 17785 | 3282 | 267 |
| Strike Rate | 49.37 | 71.24 | 105.62 |
| 100 | 17 | 6 | 0 |
| 200 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 50 | 56 | 10 | 1 |
| 4s | 1135 | 222 | 33 |
| 6s | 5 | 4 | 5 |
Vangipurapu Venkata Sai Laxman or commonly known as VVS Laxman is a former Indian cricketer who was born on November 1,1974 in the city of Hyderabad.
He was a right-handed batsman and one of the best also. He was also a part time right-handed off break bowler. He was also popularly known as Very Very Special Laxman for his name VVS Laxman.
Background
Laxman made his debut for India U-19 team against Australia in 1994. He had a good match there while facing the bowling attack of Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie who too were making their debut.
He played domestic career for Hyderabad. He played his first match against Punjab but was out for a duck. After good performances in Under-19 cricket, he came back in Ranji Trophy for 1994-95 season where he amassed 532 runs in just five games which soon helped him to make international debut.
Debut
VVS made his Test debut for India against South Africa in Ahmedabad 1996 and he had decent outing there with a fifty in the second inning.
But after that he could not find a stable position in the middle order of the team because of heavy-named players present there. He was in and out from the team and went back to domestic cricket to regain the position in the national team.
Rise to glory
In 1999-2000 Ranji Trophy season, he scored staggering record breaking 1415 runs with eight centuries in just nine games. This made his comeback to the Indian team with a series against Australia.
In the second match of that series, he scored a massive 281 runs which involved a record breaking partnership of 376 runs with Rahul Dravid. This turned out to be his career making knock and he became one of the best and most important batsman of the Indian cricket team.
Low points
After suffering from poor form in the initial days of his career, his career again went for a downfall in 2004-05. In the series against teams like Sri Lanka and Pakistan, Laxman was not able to carry on his form and score big runs.
He kept on fighting and with a century against Sri Lanka in another series, he managed to find his old form back.
Club career
In the first two editions of IPL, he captained the Deccan Chargers team, but was dropped in the second season due to the poor form of the team.
In the 2011 edition, he was bought by Kochi Tuskers Kerala but he was injured in the early matches so from there also he was ruled out
From then onwards, he was appointed as the mentor for the Sunrisers Hyderabad side and is still a part of them.
Records
His knock of 281 against Australia in Eden Gardens in 2001 has been rated as the greatest Test performance of the last 50 years. Along with Rahul Dravid, he also has the record of highest partnership (376 runs) in the third inning of a test match.
He was awarded with Arjuna Award in 2001 for his excellent cricketing performance. He was also named as Wisden Cricketer of the year 2002. He 2011, he was awarded the India’s fourth highest civilian award, Padma Shri.
Retirement
Due to overseas series defeats against both England and Australia in 2011, and his poor performances and calls from the public and media , VVS Laxman retired from international cricket on 18th August, 2012.
Like other retired players, he too went to commentary in 2016 and since then he has been a regular part of the Hindi commentary panel.
