Special Awards for VB Chandrashekhar and DJ Gokulakrishnan

The CSK's Super Kings Academy organized a special event in Chennai on March 24 to honour the late VB Chandrasekar and the late DJ Gokulakrishnan by naming special awards after the two former Tamil Nadu cricketers. Rachin Ravindra and KS Viswanathan, the CEO of CSK, along with the families of the former players, presented the awards at the function.

In the VB Chandrasekhar Super Kings Academy Cricketer of the Year (Boys) award, Akshay Sarangdhar, a member of the Tamil Nadu Under-19 and Under-23 squads, was awarded the trophy, while G Kamalini, a member of the Tamil Nadu senior team, received the DJ Gokulakrishnan Super Kings Academy Cricketer of the Year (Girls) award.

I had the pleasure of interacting with Ravindra and presenting awards to 19 state representatives from the franchise-based academy. In his response, he shared, "I find playing cricket to be a very enjoyable experience for me. As for me, it is probably one of the most important things in life that I would like to do, but I think what's important is that we maintain that perspective throughout. The fact that I am able to do what I love for a living makes me feel very lucky..."

According to the 24-year-old Kiwi batter, "...it's obviously easy to take things for granted because it is your goal to be as good as you can be, to be the best player in the world, etc., so you take things for granted.". But I think we all remember the reason why we first played cricket and that’s for me, I enjoy the game…”

Ravindra emphasized, “…I love cricket, I am batting, I love bowling, I love winning cricket games, I love helping my teammates out and for me, that’s what’s important. Runs and wickets are sort of a by-product of all the work you do in the nets. But that’ll come if you’re truly driven by your body, your heart to enjoy this beautiful game…”