Ranji Trophy wicketkeeper-batsman, junior selector, KCL coach, IPL commentator: Deepak CM has seen cricket from just about every angle. Now he brings all of it to SPSA as our Director of Cricket, along with a few stories he’s never told on camera before.
In the first episode of SPSA Dugout, our new podcast featuring the coaches who train our players every week, host Amal Joy sat down with Deepak to talk about his journey, from Kerala’s Ranji Trophy dressing rooms to the Kochi Blue Tigers in the Kerala Cricket League, and now to SPSA.
The full conversation is below. Short on time? Here are the highlights, from how a leg-spinner ended up with the gloves to what he tells young players who are thinking of giving up.
In this episode
- 0:55 How it all began
- 1:39 From leg-spinner to wicketkeeper
- 4:13 The Ranji years and a historic hundred
- 7:11 Mumbai, Wasim Jaffer and Vinod Kambli
- 8:46 Dhoni, Raina and the big names
- 10:46 Sanju Samson at Kochi Blue Tigers
- 11:45 The Basil Thampi story
- 14:42 Commentary alongside legends
- 17:16 Life as a selector
- 19:18 Why SPSA
- 20:49 Cricket in Dubai vs India
- 23:02 Rooming with Sreesanth
- 24:51 Two days keeping, then a duck
- 26:16 Advice for SPSA kids
- 28:07 How Sanju prepares
- 30:35 Rapid-fire round
From leg-spinner to wicketkeeper
Did you pick the gloves, or did the gloves pick you?
“Neither, really! I started as a leg-spinner and batter, and played two years of state under-13 cricket as a leg-spinner. In the second year, one of the keepers didn’t turn up for the final selection. I was going to be in the team as a batter anyway, so they asked me to fill in. I’d never touched the gloves before, but it felt comfortable. The next year I gave it a proper try, and I’ve been a wicketkeeper ever since.”
It’s a lesson he passes on to every young player: “Don’t specialise when you start. Keep all your options open. I was a leg-spinner and ended up a wicketkeeper, and there are so many cases of a fast bowler becoming a spinner. You don’t know what’s in store.”
A hundred that made history
Take us through that famous hundred against Vidarbha.
“It wasn’t planned at all. It was only my second Ranji Trophy match, and I usually batted in the middle order. The team wanted to fit Sreesanth in, so they asked if I could open. I opened and got a hundred, and Sreesanth took six wickets. Everything changed for both of us. It was only about ten years after I stopped playing that people told me I was the first Kerala wicketkeeper to score a Ranji Trophy hundred. I didn’t believe it at first!”
The two were roommates for that match, and Deepak made his hundred with Sreesanth’s bat. There are more stories about rooming with Sreesanth in the episode.
Up against the big names
You kept wicket behind some of the biggest names in Indian cricket. Who stood out?
Against Mumbai in 2003, Kerala had the champions six or seven down on a green-top wicket, Wasim Jaffer among them. Then Vinod Kambli walked in. “He was past his prime and out of the Indian team, but the way he handled the bowlers on that tough wicket was remarkable. He scored a hundred. I saw it from very close, and I didn’t like it!”
Then there was a young MS Dhoni. “We were only just hearing about him. When he swung and missed, the bat made a sound like a badminton racket swishing through the air. That’s the bat speed he had. I could feel this was someone special, and I was sure he would play for India.” Deepak also remembers an under-19 Suresh Raina playing a match-winning knock on a raging turner at Palakkad.
Sanju Samson, up close
What’s Sanju like in the nets and the dressing room?
“Sanju has an aura. When he’s around, everybody wants to listen. He’s full of one-liners in the dressing room, but at practice I’ve never seen anyone so serious. If you try to joke with him in the nets, you’re in trouble! That focus, and the way he switches off afterwards, is something everybody should learn from.”
Deepak’s favourite example: during last year’s KCL, with the Asia Cup in Dubai coming up, Sanju took coaches and bowlers to a separate ground after team sessions to practise on a matting wicket with a softer ball, because Dubai pitches are slower than Kerala’s. “He was preparing for the next tournament in the middle of this one.”
The young bowler who nearly quit
Basil Thampi was a fast bowler playing tennis-ball cricket for Swantons, the Kerala club Deepak ran. After finishing under-19 cricket, Basil decided to stop and move to Dubai with friends to play tennis-ball cricket for money. “I had seen him bowl, and I thought, that shouldn’t happen.”
Deepak sat with him for almost an hour and convinced him to stay. Then he and his friends paid out of their own pockets to send Basil to Chennai, where former Kerala cricketers, including Tinu Yohannan, took him under their wing. From there, Basil went to the MRF Pace Foundation, played in the IPL for Gujarat Lions and won the IPL’s Emerging Player award.
Watch from 11:45 to hear how Deepak got Basil to come and see him in the first place.
What selectors really look for
You chaired Kerala’s junior selection committee. What are you looking for in young players?
“Being a selector opened my eyes. As a player, the easiest thing is to blame the selectors. When I became one, I realised the challenges my own selectors must have faced, and my respect for them changed. It’s never about scores alone. We look at the team combination, the conditions, attitude, and whether a player can handle pressure. There are always players good enough who miss out, because you can only pick 15.”
Why SPSA
What excites you most about being at SPSA?
“It starts with the structure. There’s a good training structure here, and a good set of programs. Then the infrastructure is great. I don’t think there’s an indoor facility like ours anywhere, and at Oud Metha we have natural turf wickets, which isn’t common among academies. We have lots of teams in the ECB league, plenty of match opportunities, and a ground in Ajman where we take kids for real match scenarios. Even in India, setups like this are rare. And the management is ready to do whatever the coaches need. With a system like this, if good cricketers don’t come up from here, it’s very difficult for them to come up anywhere. Now we just need to do our work.”
The missing piece in Dubai cricket
What’s the difference between young cricketers in India and Dubai?
“The kids are the same. The difference is that in India, careers take off at 15 or 16. Here, most cricket happens between the ages of 6 and 12, and many stop just as they’re getting physically ready to play. If we can give emerging cricketers a good pathway from 13 and 14 onwards, an 18-year-old should be able to keep pursuing cricket. I think that will come in the next few years.”
A message for every SPSA kid
“You started playing for the love of cricket. If you still love it, keep playing. You might score a hundred and then three ducks in the next three matches, and you have to come back stronger. Cricket teaches you life lessons. Develop into a cricketer, and a good human.”
“Keep cricket simple. It’s a game. Never give up. Enjoy. Have fun.”
Deepak CM, SPSA Director of Cricket
Coach’s Tip: make every net session a match
“Most players take practice casually. They think five hours in the nets will make them succeed. It won’t. One or two quality hours are enough. Treat the nets like a match: if the bowler is bowling short at you, you won’t get to play a cover drive, so respond to the situation. Bowlers, don’t just bowl full because you feel like it; work out how to get that batter out. The better the quality of your preparation, the better your chances in a match.”
Rapid-fire
- Gloves or bat? Bat
- Best wicketkeeper of all time? Wriddhiman Saha
- Favourite shot? Inside-out over cover, against spinners and fast bowlers
- Test or T20? Test
- Pre-match superstition? A favourite wristband he carried everywhere (it was a different colour by the end of his career)
- Best ground? Chinnaswamy
- Favourite current cricketer? Shubman Gill
- Commentary box or dressing room? 50/50
- Kerala food or Dubai food? He played it safe: “I need to go home!”
- One word for SPSA kids? “Love” — whatever you do in life
About Deepak CM
Deepak CM is SPSA’s Director of Cricket. A former Kerala wicketkeeper-batsman, he played Ranji Trophy cricket for Kerala through the 2000s and later chaired the Kerala Cricket Association’s Junior Men’s Selection Committee. He is Director of Coaching at the Kochi Blue Tigers in the Kerala Cricket League, a BCCI-level 2 certified coach and an IPL commentator. At SPSA, he leads coaching across all age groups and teams.
Train with Deepak and the SPSA coaching team
At SPSA, we coach young players with one aim: to build real cricketers, not just league players. Our coaching team brings first-class and international experience to every session, at our indoor centre in Dubai Investment Park and our outdoor ground in Oud Metha.