NEW DELHI:
Sunil Subramaniam
could never quite put his finger on why he failed to break into the Indian team despite being one of the country's best left-arm spinners in the early 1990s.
It rankles, but the pain pales in comparison to the joy his most illustrious ward,
Ravichandran Ashwin
, brought to his life, years after he had quit playing competitive cricket.
The 57-year-old, who taught Ashwin the nuances of spin bowling in his formative years, takes great pride in saying that the senior India spinner "was born to play Test cricket."
"I had a lot of confidence that he would become a good Test player and a quality Test bowler, first a match-winner for the state then a match-winner for India," Subramaniam told PTI.
"At that time, it was difficult to say that his journey would be this long. As he was on his journey, it became obvious he would have a long career.
"I'd be lying to say that we think that he is going to end up playing 100 Tests. But, I certainly knew that we had a Test cricketer in the making, and a good one at that," he added.
Despite enjoying a fairly successful career in first-class cricket, Subramaniam is best known as Ashwin's childhood coach, but he has no qualms about it.
"When I met him in 2007, at the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association's bowler's camp, the journey started there. We had to discover the next generation of bowlers.
"Slowly, he progressed from first-class cricket to Test cricket, his bowling evolved, and he understood how to study the wicket.
"When you play first-class cricket, you have a different mindset compared to Test cricket; you take time to adapt to the environment, but he took no time at all, and it felt like he was born to play Test cricket."
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