SportsMechanics will be back providing technical support to the Indian team. Either S. Ramakrishnan or C.K.M. Dhananjai from the technology company will travel with the team to South Africa.
One of them will come in for Ashish Tulli, who had a tie-up with Agaram InfoTech. Incidentally, Tulli had replaced a representative from SportsMechanics in the support staff in 2016.
With several important overseas campaigns coming up over the next two years, it is learnt the Indian players and team-management were keen on a video analyst from SportsMechanics returning to lend them back-room assistance.
Both Ramakrishnan and Dhananjai are residents of Chennai. Ramakrishnan is the founder of SportsMechanics, apart from being its CEO.
A source told The Hindu , “SportsMechanics has a huge amount of data, has a history of so many different matches across formats in various countries. It will be very helpful to the Indian team when it faces challenging series in South Africa, England and Australia over the next two seasons.”
SportsMechanics’ role will be three-pronged — support the team with data, engage in consultations, and provide technical assistance.
Ramakrishnan seems likely to join the team at this point since Dhananjai is the analyst for Mumbai Indians and has to resign from that role before taking up the India job to avoid a conflict of interests.
In fact, S. Ramakrishnan, the founder of SportsMechanics, was the first video analyst of the Indian team, joining the side in 2003. He was a part of several memorable series such as India’s Test and ODI triumph in Pakistan in 2004.
He has provided assistance to several Indian giants such as Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid, V.V.S. Laxman, Sourav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan.
Former India coaches John Wright and Greg Chappell were appreciative of Ramakrishnan’s inputs. In 2007, Ramakrishnan handed over his India job to Dhananjai to play a more “hands-on” role in running the company.
An affable character with a ready smile but with an eye for dissecting technique on video, Dhananjai was popular with the Indian team.
He was with the side when it triumphed in the ICC World Twenty20 in 2007, the ODI World Cup in 2011 and became the No. 1 Test side in 2009. In 2014, he made way for Sandeep Rajan, another representative from SportsMechanics.
Tulli replaced Sandeep Rajan in 2016. Now the wheel has come a full circle.
