When Chennai-born Nivethan Radhakrishnan returned to his roots in August as part of a select group of Australian emerging players who trained at the MRF academy, he sensed that the city had changed.
Radhakrishnan had enjoyed stints in Chennai's robust league structure before moving to Australia along with his family in 2013. The recent trip to Chennai was his first since the Covid-19 pandemic hit. During this period, Radhakrishnan, now 22, has changed as a person and professional cricketer as well.
Just weeks after steering Australia to a third-place finish in the 2022 Under-19 World Cup in the Caribbean, Radhakrishnan made the step-up to the Sheffield Shield for Tasmania, batting at No. 7 and bowling spin. Not just your average spin - he can bowl both right-arm offspin and left-arm fingerspin. The only known male ambidextrous spinner in Australia's system has been trying to push the envelope even further in recent times by trying his (right) hand at wristspin.
Radhakrishnan has also moved up the order since and having learnt from Australia's next-in-line opener Jake Weatherald, he's keen to establish himself as a Tasmania regular in the upcoming domestic season. Since making his debut in 2022, Radhakrishnan has played just seven Shield games, scoring 317 runs at an average of 22.64 and taking three wickets.
While Radhakrishnan is an unorthodox bowler, he prides himself on being an orthodox opening batter. Some of the traits were on display during his 68, spanning 298 minutes and 243 balls against eventual Shield champions South Australia at the Adelaide Oval in February 2025. Radhakrishnan reckons that his old-school approach complements Weatherald's more aggressive ways.
"I've had the privilege of opening the batting with Jake Weatherald pretty much like every game I played last year and he was so ultra-aggressive with his feet," Radhakrishnan recalls. "It's not necessarily about just scoring [runs], but his movements are so sharp and precise. It's a learning for me - I might not be able to score as fast as he can but that's no excuse for me to not look to score like trying to be real aggressive with my footwork and still identify balls [to hit].
"So that's been a big focus for me in the pre-season. Just really nailing down traditional simple things like where's my off stump like, when to play a few balls on top of the bounce, when to score off the pads. As long as my feet and head are in a nice position, I think I should be sweet."
With the more experienced Matthew Kuhnemann, who has played ten internationals for Australia, likely to be Tasmania's frontline spinner in the Shield supported by former Under-19 World Cup-winning offspinner Raf MacMillan, Radhakrishnan is happy to play a support role with the ball.
"I'm trying to really sort of hone in with my bowling with the way Shield cricket is played," Radhakrishnan says. "Kuhnemann and Raf are more likely to be the first spinners, so my role might be a bit more defensive. Maybe a holding role to get us to the second new ball or just change it up to get a breakthrough."
While Radhakrishnan has played just one List A game so far, he believes that he has a lot more to offer with his ambidextrous bowling skills in white-ball cricket. On his List A debut against South Australia in Adelaide in February earlier this year, he knocked over right-handed batters Daniel Drew and Ben Manenti with left-arm fingerspin and bowled right-arm offspin to left-handed opener Mackenzie Harvey.
"From a white-ball perspective probably my biggest strength is being able to execute those two different skill sets," Radhakrishnan says. "It is an asset to a captain considering if I do execute with a certain level of consistency that's different match-ups that I can actually have a say in. I might be able to turn it the other way or bowl a particular ball to a particular batter and survive in that match-up."
Radhakrishnan has been keeping a close on eye on how other ambidextrous spinners such as Sri Lanka's Kamindu Mendis, who had also bowled with both hands in IPL 2025, are adapting to top-flight cricket.
"I think I was five or six years old when I started doing it [bowling with both hands]," Radhakrishnan says. "I see Kamindu doing it and a domestic spinner in India [Akshay Karnewar]. I've not seen Ben Kellaway do it but I see footage of Kamindu and Karnewar.
"What I saw was their actions literally look like mirror images whereas for me I feel like I'm a little bit more like Ravi Ashwin in the way I do change my action up a lot like depending on like what I'm vibing at the time and speaking tactically and technically, I might let my action evolve a little bit."
Radhakrishnan, who was recently in action for the Hobart Hurricanes Academy in the Top End T20 tournament, which also involved Pakistan Shaheens and Bangladesh A, is aiming to expand his variations and win his maiden BBL contract in the near future.
"I do bowl the odd leggie, especially with the right arm," Radhakrishnan says. "It's easy to bowl as a variation, but once you want to execute in a particular situation, it's a lot of pressure and you need to work on it more. But I do try to execute a leggie or a wrong'un or trying to a copy a Sunil Narine [or] Sikandar Raza like hiding the ball behind my back and stuff like that."
Having ticked off a number of boxes like fine-tuning his bowling, scoring a half-century against former Ranji Trophy champions Saurashtra and reconnecting with old friends in Chennai, Radhakrishnan returned to Australia with a bagful of happy memories and takeaways.