Bhagwat Chandrasekhar Profile

Full Name: Bhagwat Subramanya Chandrasekhar
Born: May 17, 1945, Mysore, Karnataka
Major teams: India, Karnataka, Mysore
Batting style: Right-hand bat
Bowling style: Leg break

Achievements:

Bhagwat Subramanya Chandrasekhar, also known as Chandra, has been one of the best Leg Spin specialists India has ever produced. He was one among the four India Leg Spinners who together formed the famous Indian Spin Quartet that ruled the world of Spin Bowling in the decades of 1960�s and 1970�s. The other 3 bowlers were E.A.S. Prasanna, Bishen Singh Bedi and Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan.

Early Life:
Chandrasekhar was born and brought up in Mysore, a city located in Karnataka. At quite an early age he got attracted towards the game of Cricket. Although nature played a cruel joke with him when his right wrist was badly affected by a Polio attack in his childhood, Chandrasekhar turned this shortcoming into his strong point by using his left arm for bowling that eventually led him to become one of the most successful Leg Spinners in the history of the game.

Key Bowling Attributes
As a bowler, Chandrasekhar was famous for taking a very long run-up, and used to bowl at medium pace usually. During his career, he played 58 Test Matches and grabbed 242 wickets. He found the Batsman Ken Barrington from England to be the most difficult one to bowl to.

Test Cricket Record
Chandrasekhar began his career in Test Cricket in a match played against England at Bombay (now Mumbai) in the year 1964, although he gave his best performance in a match against England played at The Oval Cricket Ground on the 23rd of August 1971. He managed to take 6 wickets for 38 runs in this match, which eventually got India the coveted victory in the Series.

Amazingly, Chandrasekhar was never confident of his bowling and said that he was more likely to deliver a mediocre ball instead of a good one. Still, he was considered to be the most difficult bowler among the Spin Quartet, and helped India see a number of victories in international Cricket.

Achievements & Recognitions
Wisden awarded him with Cricketer of the Year award in the year 1972, and the Best Bowling Performance of the Century award in the year 2002, for his best performance against England at The Oval in the year 1971, where he took 6 wickets for 38 runs.

Batting Nightmare
On the batting front, although, Chandrasekhar really didn�t fare quite well. He had a batting average of 4 runs, and highest percentage of ducks (0 runs) in the history of Cricket with 23 ducks scored by him throughout his career. Interestingly, he also created a world record by scoring less number of runs in his Test Cricket career with 167 runs, than the number of wickets that he took during the period with 242 wickets.