Wisden overview
Sivaramakrishnan's is the perfect example of a career cruelly cut short in its prime. He first served notice of his talent with a precocious career-best 7 for 28 on his Ranji Trophy debut for Tamil Nadu against Delhi. A season later, still only 16, he made it into the 1982-83 team which toured Pakistan. At 17 years 118 days Siva became the youngest Indian to play in Tests. And at 18, in only his second Test, he proved himself a matchwinner with 12 for 181 against England, and followed that up with a third successive six-wicket haul. Six Tests and seven wickets later it was all over - a potential epic ended in a tragic precis. But while it lasted Sivaramakrishnan's career was a testament to the heights to which natural talent alone could take a player. Apart from being a terrific legspinner, he was a useful batsman with five first-class centuries to his name, and a superb fielder. When he was on song, Siva's smooth, classical action was magic to watch - the way he baited proficient players of spin like Javed Miandad down the pitch to their deaths is the stuff of legend. As, indeed, is the premature end of his career, which is discussed in Indian cricket circles with the same mystified reverence that Marilyn Monroe's death still evokes in Hollywood. Bishan Bedi provided a fitting epitaph when he said that if he been blessed with the talent of the boy whose name combines those of three Hindu deities - Shiva, Rama and Krishna - he would probably have doubled his career wicket tally. H Natarajan

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