BCCI Production Team Enquired About Well-Being, Claims Laxman Sivaramakrishnan: "It Created A False Hope"

Laxman Sivaramakrishnan, former India spinner, chose to speak out on a subject that many sidestep - colour discrimination, racism, and the resulting humiliation. It all started with a post on X last week where he declared he was retiring from commentary. He went on to reveal "colour discrimination" that forced him to call it quits from his commentary profession. Sivaramakrishnan, who played nine Tests and 16 ODIs, bared it all in a lengthy interview with The Indian Express on the treatment meted out to him.

He spent 23 years as a cricket commentator but was never assigned a toss or post-match presentation. The former cricketer asked a producer about the reason. "He said, 'We have been instructed by our bosses not to put you.' They said it is to do with me not being presentable," Sivaramakrishnan said.

He also claimed that recently the BCCI production team checked on his well-being through friends. "It created a false hope. I used to wait for calls. It is what I'd faced during my cricketing career. It is what caused me all the trauma. If they were not interested in giving me work, why call my friends to check on me? I didn't want to make the same mistake again. A sponge can only soak up to a level, after that it will break. How much more can I - and should I - take?" Sivaramakrishnan said.

"From the age of fifteen to sixty - forty-five years. I have been traumatised by all these things. I have had enough."

According to the interview the former India spinner gave to The Indian Express, the first scar came at the tender age of 14. Sivaramakrishnan had joined the Indian camp as a net bowler at Chepauk. Still in uniform, he rushed straight to change in a small room at the stadium when a senior India batsman called out to him. A senior Indian player allegedly asked him to come and clean his shoes.

Stunned by the comment, Sivaramakrishnan recalled: "I just looked at him and said, 'That's none of my business, you just do what you need to do.'"

He clarified that the senior player had mistaken him for ground staff. "I didn't know what racism or colour discrimination was. I was just wondering why this man had to react like this."

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