Mangalore: Meeting Former Cricketer Venkatesh Prasad Thrills City Youngsters
Pics: Dayanand Kukkaje
Daijiworld Media Network—Mangalore (RS/CN)

Mangalore, Oct 30: Former Indian Cricketer and recently sacked Indian team bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad advised children on facing matches citing the example of his first match and said, “If you have studied the whole book well, it will be easy to write the exam; otherwise you will be under pressure”.

He was replying to questions from aspiring young cricketers at an interactive meet on Thursday October 29 in the city at Hotel Deepa Comforts.

“When I played my first match for India I was very happy to play for my country. I was under a lot of pressure to play well and there was a lot of responsibility. Pressure and responsibility made me play well and I felt good in my first match in 1994”, he said, adding, “pressure is always good”.

“I did not start playing cricket at an early age”, he said replying to an 11-year-old’s question. He said that he had to play with a tennis ball instead of a leather ball unlike young players today. 

The former fast bowler of the Indian team suggested that the youngsters wear helmets and pads to ensure maximum safety when playing.

“I wanted to become a pilot” was the reply to another question. Prasad added, “I was in the air wing at my school, so I aspired to be a pilot. I studied commerce and the other option was doing chartered accountancy (CA)”, he added. 

"I was taller than others in my class and so, I was supposed to play basketball but I did not as I had no interest in that”, said Prasad.

“Coaching is different from playing cricket. A batsman concentrates on himself but a coach should concentrate on all the players of a team and convert the weaknesses to strengths of the player. A coach should know the mindsets of the players and he needs to understand their abilities”, he said.

He named Virendra Sehwag, M S Dhoni, Kumar Sangakkara, and Ricky Ponting as his favourite cricketers.

The interaction session was arranged by Hangyo Ice Creams Private Limited as part of the celebration of its ISO 22000: 2005 certification. 

The cricketer handed over the certificate to managing director Pradeep G Pai in the presence of Suresh Pai from Axis Bank. The students interacted with Prasad for 15 minutes and also took photographs with the player besides getting his autograph.