The tragedy of Laxman Sivaramakrishnan is often included in the cautionary tales of Indian cricket, the narrative of a teenage prodigy who took the world by storm at 19 and disappeared at 22. We are told he lost rhythm, loop and ultimately discipline. We were told he was an alcoholic.
But the real story of the boy they called LS is not found in the scorecards of the 1985 Cricket World Cup. It is of the 16-year-old trembling outside a Mumbai hotel, terrified of being turned away because the doorman refused to believe that a dark-skinned boy could be an Indian cricketer, one of many harrowing incidents he recalled in his interview with The Indian Express.
Read the full story
Sivaramakrishnan’s international career remains one of cricket’s most haunted flash-in-the-pan trajectories. After making his Test debut aged just 17 years and 118 days in 1983, he reached his zenith during the 1984-85 home series against England when he dismantled them by 12 wickets in Mumbai. His global arrival was cemented during the 1985 Cricket World Cup in Australia, where he finished as the leading wicket-taker with 10 dismissals, leading India to the title. However, the decline was as rapid as the rise; at the age of 21, his Test career was virtually over. He ended up with just 26 Test wickets, a tally that paled in comparison to the 500-wicket haul that many, including Gavaskar, had predicted.
FIRST JIZNA
The unraveling began long before the broken leg escape left him. At just 14, still in his school uniform, LS was a net bowler for the national side in Chepauk. In the sanctity of the dressing room, the senior Indian batsman allegedly mistook him for the ground staff and ordered the child to clean his shoes.
“I just looked at him and said, ‘It’s none of my business,'” Sivaramakrishnan told The Indian Express.
He didn’t have a word for racism at the time. He was just confused as to why the hero would treat the boy like that.
At 17, he was the baby of the team on the tour of Pakistan. Sunil Gavaskar, his captain and protector, ordered a cake to celebrate the milestone. It was supposed to be a basic memory of joy; instead it became a scar.
The teammate reportedly joked, “Hey Sunny, you ordered the right color cake. Like a dark chocolate cake for a dark boy.”
Sivaramakrishnan cut the cake in tears. The miracle was being dismantled from the inside, one “joke” after another.
The mid-80s was supposed to be the period of Siva mania. He was a rock star with a wrist that could charm the best. Yet, while he should have been concentrating on drifting and googling, he was battling the “Kalia” chorus from the stands in Mumbai, Jalandhar and Pakistan. Even officials were not immune; he recalled being given a torturous time on the field by umpire Shakoor Rana, prompting Gavaskar’s intervention.
“Because of my dark skin, people would reject me. Every time it happened, I felt hurt. I always wanted to forget, forget, forget, but deep down it’s always rooted and it comes out. All these things put me in a position where I had very low self-esteem at a very young age, it’s very difficult to build self-confidence,” he said.
This erosion of confidence is the missing link in his career statistics. For a leg spinner, confidence is the very air they breathe. Without it, the loop becomes a long jump.
ALCOHOLIC
As his form dipped and his international appearances dried up, the cricketing ecosystem found an easy label: “alcoholic”. It was a convenient way to explain the disappearance of a genius. While LS has since been open about his struggles with addiction later in life, the narrative arc often ignores the reason.
The unwinding was a response to decades of being told he didn’t quite belong by teammates, crowds and society. He carried that tremor for decades.
Shadows haunted him in the second innings as well. After more than two decades as a respected voice behind the microphone, Sivaramakrishnan recently announced his retirement from commentary in March 2026 compares allegations of racial bias within the broadcast setting. He claimed that despite 23 years of service, he was constantly overlooked in blue-ribbon roles such as the lottery or post-match presentations because of his skin color, sending the full circle of his career into the same jitters he felt as a teenager.
BRIEF CONSOLATION
Ironically, the only place LS felt seen was in the Caribbean. Between West Indies legends – Malcolm Marshall, Desmond Haynes and stoic Gordon Greenidge, his skin color was no longer a point. Greenidge, a man of few words, shared his own scars from racism in England with the young Indian.
“He was 17. He was happier in the opposition dressing room than in his own,” the report added.
Laxman Sivaramakrishnan’s story is often remembered as a loss of technical rhythm, but it was the quiet, steady erosion of the young man’s confidence that remains the most defining shadow of his career.
– The end
Issued by:
Akshay Ramesh
Published on:
March 25, 2026 1:38 PM IST
