Before Sreesanth, there was Tinu Yohannan from Kerala

On December 3, 2001, Tinu Yohannan made history as he became the first player from Kerala to play for the Indian cricket team. On a hazy morning at the PCA Stadium in Mohali, he took the new ball against England in the first Test of the series and bagged his first wicket in only his fourth ball; Mark Butcher caught at slip. It was a dream start.

“Is it 20 years already?” asks Yohannan when indianexpress.com called him up.

“It doesn’t feel so. Maybe it’s because I have always been involved with the game with coaching and all even after I retired from first-class cricket,” says Yohannan, who is currently the coach of the Kerala senior men’s cricket team.

While S Sreesanth may have since gone on to become more famous, Yohannan remains the trailblazer for Kerala, largely a cricketing backwater, especially back then. Son of legendary Olympian TC Yohannan, who held the national record in long jump for nearly three decades, Tinu Yohannan believes it was a blessing that he had become the chosen one from his state.

“A lot of players before me had hoped to become the first player from Kerala to play for India. Some really deserving men (like KN Ananthapadmanabhan) had missed out. You can call it fate, destiny or whatever, but I had the privilege, finally, to play for India. I have always been truly grateful to God for that,” says the man who represented India in three Tests (5 wickets) and three ODIs (5 wickets).

“When I look back, I feel everything fell into place for me. I had quite a good run in Ranji Trophy leading into that series, with 20-25 wickets in each of the two previous seasons, and had some good outings in the Duleep Trophy and the Irani Trophy. And the selectors were looking to make changes after India had lost to South Africa in the away series,” says Tinu who was one of the three players — Iqbal Siddiqui and Sanjay Bagar being the other two — who debuted for India in that Mohali Test.