Arguably the nation's fastest-ever bowler, Javagal Srinath heralded a

period of awakening for Indian pace bowling, after Kapil Dev's swing

had fired popular imagination. And when he retired from international

cricket of 11 years in 2003, Srinath was second only to Kapil in number

of Test wickets by an Indian paceman.

On his day, Srinath was outstanding. With a strong shoulder action, he

hit the pitch with force, and bowled mainly incutters and inswingers,

though in the right conditions he could move it the other way. As

much as the slips, Srinath brought into play the man at short leg. On

the dustbowls of India, he learned to harness the power of the old ball

off the seam rather than in the air, the finest demonstration of which

was his 6 for 21 at Ahmedabad in 1996-97 to bowl out South Africa in

the fourth innings.

Late in his career - perhaps later than should have been - Srinath

added variations to his bowling, in particular using the leg-cutter and

the slower delivery to good effect in one-day cricket. In these final

years, he played big brother to India's rising seamers, and himself

excelled in India's World Cup campaign, Srinath's last international

outing.

Srinath has been one of the proponents of introducing technology into

sports. He was instrumental in convincing the Indian cricket team in

embracing technology. The first ever video based match analysis tool

was developed in 2000 and the same core is still used in the current

Cricket team. Srinath is actively involved in promoting technology in

the game and is presently on the Elite panel of Match Referees of ICC.