He is soft-spoken to a fault, but M Venkatesh is no introvert.
From his opening day as a first-class paceman for Karnataka to his debut press conference at the M Chinnaswamy stadium, you can tell he just takes some time to warm up to things.
When he loosens up, he’s quite effective as a bowler and rather amiable as a personality.
He is, however, oddly tight-lipped about his family – a musical one at that.
Turns out, his mother – Dakshayini Muralidhar – is a trained dancer and a classical singer, as are Venkatesh and his younger brother Yogeshwar.
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Moreover, his paternal grandmother – Vidushi Sarojini – is among the better-known Carnatic singers to come out of Mysuru. “She used to perform at the Palace too,” reveals Dakshayini about her mother-in-law.
But while his brother looked to woo audiences with his singing in Kannada shows, Venkatesh chose to steer away from the limelight. Well, kind of.
On Tuesday, the 22-year-old medium pacer was front and centre of Karnataka’s dominance against Uttarakhand on the opening day of their Ranji Trophy quarterfinals by picking up five wickets on debut.
Venkatesh remained as sheepish walking off the field to the applause of his team-mates as he was when he cluelessly stuttered into the media room to face a handful of journalists.
“My father insisted I focus on cricket,” he says at the end of the day’s play. “I was trained to be a singer, I got my junior grade as a singer, but cricket was my calling. My brother chose to focus on singing and he still does it.”
On the back of father Murali’s passion for cricket, after all he had played the sport at the club level when younger before turning into a civil engineer, Venkatesh started off his career as a left-hand bat with a penchant for quick runs.
He showed plenty of promise along the way as a southpaw batter, but his right-arm medium pace was quite the revelation – discovered after his natural throwing arm happened to be his right while fielding – to the coaches at JoJo Cricket Club in Mysuru.
From there, he climbed the ranks with consistent performances at the Under-19 level, before making it to the senior side last season with a debut in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy against Meghalaya in October.
He then played four Vijay Hazare Trophy games in his white-ball debut season, and three games this season before the management told him to gear up for his red-ball debut on Tuesday morning. Pacer V Koushik pulled out with a back spasm so Venkatesh was going in.
“I had no idea I was going to play, I was scared when the day started but my team-mates gave me a lot of confidence and I’m glad I did well,” he said. “After the first wicket, I eased up a bit, but I was very nervous until I found my rhythm.”
Venkatesh has surprising bounce and good control of line and length though he could with adding extra yards to his pace. All this and more, but only when he gets over the jitters.
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