Know W.V. Raman
W.V. Raman’s journey in cricket spans four and a half decades – from his early days as a player to becoming a respected coach and mentor. With a deep understanding of the game and leadership, he has guided aspiring cricketers and professionals toward excellence. Besides, he has spent more than a decade and a half in the Corporate World with highly reputed companies, working at different levels and across functions. Raman has utilised his unique blend of experience gained from both sport and business to author a book on leadership and life lessons. Further, he has embarked on guiding leaders and corporate managers on leadership and management.
Former India Opener
Raman started off as a left arm spinner and by a sheer quirk of fate went on to become an opening batsman. The paradigm shift from a left arm spinner to a top order batsman happened on a pleasant morning in Rajkot. Mohinder Amarnath opted out of the ODI against the West Indies as he was indisposed. So, with limited options available at the last moment, Ravi Shastri asked Raman if he would go up the order. Raman took up the offer and since then, he tried to perform to the best of his ability and courage in the sporadic chances he was given in International cricket.
He was the first Indian batsman to score an ODI century in South Africa when India toured there in the 1992-93 season. He broke the 45 year old record of Rusi Modi in the Ranji Trophy for the highest aggregate when he scored 1018 runs in 1988-89 Ranji season. He was rated a very highly talented cricketer who could have played a lot more than he did, but he has made a reasonable impact in his checkered career.
Elite Coach
Raman pursued a career in coaching after completing the Level III coaching course, conducted by the Australian Cricket Board in 2000. His first assignment was with the senior Bengal team as the Head Coach in the 2001-02 season. Since then, he has coached Elite teams and across verticals. He was the batting coach of KKR when they won the IPL title in 2014 under Gautam Gambhir’s captaincy. Tamil Nadu won the inaugural edition of the Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament under his guidance and they also won back to back Vijay Hazare titles in 2008-09 and 2009-10 seasons. He then shifted to Bengal and guided them to win the Syed Mushtaq Ali and the Vijay Hazare titles in 2011-12 and 2012-13 respectively.
Raman has a hundred percent success record as the India U-19 coach across different decades. He was also the Head batting coach at the NCA from 2016-2018 and during that assignment, he guided the emerging teams and the India A teams with sustained success. In early 2019, he became the Head coach of the Indian women’s team and they made progress in the T-20 format by climbing the ICC rankings during his tenure. They reached the final of the ICC T20 World Cup in 2020 and that has been their best campaign so far in the shortest format.
Author
Raman was always one to share his knowledge, and true to his nature, he embarked on an uncharted path as far as sports persons are concerned. He made his debut as an author with a book titled “The Winning Sixer” which focussed on leadership and life lessons. This book was published in 2020, and it went on to become a best seller and was highly acclaimed as a very thought provoking book. He does seminars and lectures on leadership based on the principles he wrote in the book. The program is called the “The Winning Sixer” as well and he is much sought after for his unique way of mentoring leaders and managers.
His second book “The Lords of Wankhede” was about the strides India made in cricket on and off the field. Raman co-authored this book along with R. Kaushik, arguably the best cricket writer in the last two to three decades. The Lords of Wankhede provided insights into the significant events that happened in Indian cricket between the two famous World Cup victories in 1983 and 2011. Once again, the book was a great hit and the fans of cricket have enjoyed reading about the events brought to attention in that book.
Mentoring Leaders
Raman’s foray into writing a book on leadership was almost a natural progression. As a player he captained the sides he played for, for most part of his career and then as a coach he was a part of the leadership group. However, what made him a tad different was the experience he gained in the Corporate World across functions like sales & marketing, exports, business development, corporate communication, PR & events. Raman blends the rich experience he has gained from different spheres of life into a powerful concoction to guide the business managers and leaders facing challenges in the ever changing landscape of business. The remarkable feature of his leadership programs is the impact they make on the attendees, because of the structure of the programs.
Commentator
Raman finished with his tenure as the Head of the Indian women’s team in Mar 2021. He went back to commentating, something that he did in the immediacy of his retirement from active cricket. Then he ventured into coaching for a period of two decades. However, during the summer of 2021, WV, as he is known the broadcasting fraternity, made his return as a commentator.
He has been a part of some of the marquee international tournaments like the ICC women’s World Cups, IPL, WPL and other leagues. His ability to be multi-faceted comes forth in this role as well, doing commentary in more languages than one.