The 2012-2013 cricket season has been a triumphant one for The Sanmar Group, for the Chemplast cricket team won a major national level title when it defeated India Cements in the final of the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) all-India Corporate Trophy.
This was the crowning glory of the season, after Jolly Rovers beat Vijay CC to emerge victorious in the TNCA first division league for the Palayampatti shield.
It was a superb team effort, though highlighted by brilliant individual performance by the likes of all rounder Piyush Chawla, M Vijay, R Sathish, skipper C Hemant Kumar, Napoleon Einstein, Nilesh Subramaniam, Anand Subramanian, M Prabha and Prashanth K Varma.
Jolly Rovers, Alwarpet Cricket Club and Chemplast Sanmar are the names of the Sanmar-sponsored teams participating in various tournaments in India. Among the players representing these teams, M Vijay and Piyush Chawla have recently made comebacks into the Indian squad.
For Sanmar, supporters of the game in the city for nearly five decades, cricket has been a way of life since the time the late Chairman Emeritus KS Narayanan was instrumental in India Cements taking Jolly Rovers under its wing in the 1966-67 season of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association league.
Graeme Wood, captain of the Western Australia cricket team with KS Narayanan during the match versus Tamil Nadu for the MG Kailis – Chemplast Trophy (1989).
Jolly Rovers won the first division league in the very same season.
PK Belliappa, the captain of that star-studded team (see group photograph on page 6) once told Matrix how personal and caring KSN's involvement in the team was.
KSN was a constant and inspiring presence in the matches the Sanmar teams played in the 1960s, as were Sankar and Kumar in later years. Fast bowler B Kalyanasundaram remembers how KSN found him in the office one morning and not at the cricket ground, nursing an injury in his left hand. “You bowl with your right arm. You can surely play today,” KSN told him and packed him off to the ground where Jolly Rovers was playing a match. Kalyanasundaram played a stellar role in the team's win that day.
KSN it was who pioneered the idea of scouting for talent outside the state of Tamil Nadu. Among such “imports” that made the Jolly Rovers of the 1960s a star-studded outfit were brilliant cricketers like KR Rajagopal and Najam Hussain of Bangalore, not to mention such dedicated specialists as KVR Murthy, and V Balaji Rao, each of whom brought a special skill and match-turning ability to the team.
And KSN not only had the knack of talent-spotting, but was a great motivator of men as well. To quote Belliappa again, “We knew we enjoyed the confidence of the management and always stepped on the field in a positive frame of mind.
KS Narayanan with Neil Harvey who dedicated The Sanmar Pavilion at the IIT-Sanmar cricket ground (1998).
We attracted the best of talent, too and it all made for a winning combination.”
Sanmar's magnificent obsession:
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“We always had the best of gear in our playing days. KS Narayanan would personally bring us Gunn & Moore, Gray Nicolls or Autograph bats (the best known brands then, not easily available in India).”
Not only has Sanmar treated cricketers with care and concern for their future, compensating them well for their efforts on the field, the Group has ensured that the players enjoy the best facilities. With its lush green outfield and a red-bricked English village type dressing room, dedicated by Australian Test great, Neil Harvey, the IIT-Sanmar ground is Chennai cricket's pride.
KS Narayanan with Steve Waugh, brand ambassador, AMP Sanmar
Life Insurance (2002).