Why Laxman Sivaramakrishnan spent more time in West Indies dressing room than India in the 1983 tour

Marshall and Haynes took him out almost every evening during the Test series. They showed him Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados. They went to Marshall’s house and watched old West Indies matches — Colin Croft bowling, the old footage crackling.

Former india leg-spinner Laxman Sivaramakrishnan

Sivaramakrishnan says even Gordon Greenidge, who rarely spoke to anyone — not even his own teammates — opened up to him. “He had personally told me that this is what I went through in England and that’s why I just mind my business, play my cricket and just go.” Two dark-skinned cricketers from different hemispheres, finding each other through the same wound.

Sivaramakrishnan (back row, second from right) was part of the India team that won the 1985 Benson & Hedges World Championship of Cricket in Australia.

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Sivaramakrishnan spent most of his time in the West Indies dressing room. During lunch he would walk in, say hello to Clive Lloyd — who’d just nod his head — and sit with Haynes or Holding or Andy Roberts. Gavaskar was stunned that Roberts, who never opened his mouth to anybody, had conversations with the boy.

Having previously been part of the Indian team that toured Pakistan, Sivaramakrishnan made his Test debut in Antigua, where at 17 years and 118 days was the then youngest player to play Test cricket for India.