“This is the best season I had with the Kerala team” – Sachin Baby all praise for his side after fabulous performance in domestic season [Exclusive]

Sachin Baby made his debut for Kerala against Andhra on November 3, 2009, during a Ranji Trophy encounter. He has represented Kerala across all three formats since his debut in 2009. The 33-year-old player scored his maiden century against Hyderbad in December 2014.

Overall, Sachin Baby has played 75 first-class, 84 List-A and 88 T20 matches for the Kerala side. The Indian batter has scored 3536, 2842 and 1671 runs across all three formats, respectively. He also led his side from the front in the recently concluded Indian domestic season.

FirstSportz caught up with Sachin Baby for an exclusive interview. Here are the excerpts from Sachin Baby’s interview:

Excerpts from Sachin Baby’s interview

Q. The Kerala team recently played in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, Vijay Hazare Trophy and Ranji Trophy. The team performed pretty well across all three formats. However, in the Ranji Trophy, the team missed out on qualifying for the knockouts stage due to the NRR. The team would have been unhappy and quite sad. How did you boost their morale? 

I said this is my 10th year. Probably, my 11th year with the Kerala team. This is the best season I had with the Kerala team because we had a very good side. We had a nice blend of senior and young players in the side. When we missed making the semi-final and quarter-finals in the last two years, I was sad. But this year I am not feeling like that because we played some amazing, good cricket. We dominated all the 3 games, but there is a lot of scope for improvement. I am very very happy with how the Kerala team has performed this season.

2. Q. There are lots of youngsters in the Kerala side, as you said there is a mix of youngsters as well as experienced players. Could you just name a few players who you think can go on to become great players and break into the IPL, National team in the coming years?

Not only IPL, but we also have the talent to play for the country actually. Players like Rahul B, Vathsal Govind, Eden Apple Tom and one more guy; Sijomon Joseph, the left-arm spinner, then Nitish and one guy who didn’t play any game but still he will be taking the Kerala team forward his name is Varun Nayanar, These are the youngsters that we got from U19 and they performed really well. I think these are some of the players who can make it big in the near future.

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Q. So you said Kerala cricket is evolving and we are having a lot of youngsters coming in, so who do you think has played a key role in this change?

I would say that is the Association and the coach, Tinu Yohannan. This thing happened in 2003 when I came into the picture (team). June, July, August it’s raining in Kerala, so we can’t practise here. The association then takes us to Chennai or Bangalore. We tour to Sri Lanka, We tour to Australia, We tour to South Africa, so all these years and efforts, now it is paying off. I should thank the association for giving us these kinds of opportunities. I know that no association in India has given such opportunities because I know the teams have started practising 1 week before the tournament.

The people used to tell me when I go to the IPL or some other tournaments that ‘You (Kerala) guys started preparing very early and what we had done at that time is now paying off. All the players who have been there are still there as senior players and the people who were there as youngsters were also there at that time. So we used to mix and conduct all these camps.

Now Tinu Yohanan is the coach of the team and because he is also an ex-player of Kerala, he understands the play very well, he knows all the characters of the play and S Sreesanth also makes sure to lead the team in a good direction and he motivates the team really well. When he is there, he is like a big brother, he takes care of all the discipline things. I always believed that the team needed discipline and we are always onto it.

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Note: Sachin Baby is exclusively represented by FairPlay Sports, a sports marketing agency with offices in Delhi, Noida, Bangalore, Baroda, Chennai and Jamshedpur.

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