S. Sreesanth

Shanthakumaran Nair Sreesanth (, born 6 February 1983) is an Indian former cricketer and film actor who played all formats of the game.

He is a right-arm fast-medium-pace bowler and a right-handed tail-ender batsman.

In first class cricket, he played for Kerala.

In the Indian Premier League (IPL) he played for the Rajasthan Royals.

He is also the first Kerala Ranji player to have played Twenty20 cricket for India.

Sreesanth was born on 6 February 1983 to Santhakumaran Nair and Savithri Devi.

He has one elder brother and two elder sisters.

His brother Dipu Santhan owns a music company in Kochi and his eldest sister Nivedita is a television actress in Kerala.

Sreesanth's elder sister Divya married Madhu Balakrishnan, a famous South Indian playback singer.

Following in the footsteps of fellow Kerala fast bowler Tinu Yohannan, who earned selection to the National Cricket Academy in 2000, Sreesanth was selected for the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai.

He then made his first-class debut against Goa in the 2002–03 domestic season, claiming 22 wickets in seven matches in the Ranji Trophy and winning selection for South Zone in the Duleep Trophy squad in the same season.

He was selected for India-A side in a tour match against the visiting New Zealand side at Rajkot.

He claimed one wicket in twelve overs after being restricted with a hamstring injury.

He also missed five Ranji Trophy games in that season, although he still travelled with the side for away games.

This led to rumours that an astrologer convinced him to take a break from competition to preserve his longevity in the sport, which Sreesanth categorically denied, maintaining that he was training only to regain his fitness.

In November 2004, Sreesanth entered the record books when he took a hat-trick against Himachal Pradesh in a Ranji trophy game.

He was selected to represent India B in the Challenger Trophy in October 2005, a domestic limited-overs tournament.

He performed impressively in that tournament, earning the Man of the Series award and being the leading wicket taker (7) with the third best bowling average.

This led to his selection to Indian team for the home ODI series against Sri Lanka.

Sreesanth was given the new ball in the first ODI against Sri Lanka in Nagpur.

After being punished early by Kumar Sangakkara and Sanath Jayasuriya, Sreesanth returned to claim his first two ODI wickets at the end of the match.

He was left out of the team and was later recalled for the fourth, fifth and sixth ODIs as coach Greg Chappell tinkered with the line-up.

He was retained in the squad but did not play in the 5 match series against South Africa, but played all five matches in the tour to Pakistan, recording a haul of 4/58 in the fifth ODI against Pakistani cricket team in Karachi.

A good home series against the England in April 2006, in which he claimed 10 wickets at an average of 16.3, including a career best 6/55 in the final match at Indore (in which he was awarded the man of the match award ), led to him subsequently being awarded a BCCI contract, in the C-grade in May.

His disappointing economy rate led him to be left out of the ICC Champions Trophy squad of 14, with the beneficiary being R. P. Singh.

He made an unexpected come back to the blue squad due to the injury to Ajit Agarkar later in the tournament.

He was also out of the Indian ODI team for the England tour.

Sreesanth was selected for his first Test squad in the home series against England in March 2006, in place of Zaheer Khan.

With India, Sreesanth was a member of the team that won both the 2007 T20 World Cup and the 2011 Cricket World Cup, where in the 2007 final, he took the winning catch.

In the 2011 Cricket World Cup, Sreesanth was selected due to injury to Praveen Kumar.

He was expensive in the first game going wicketless at 53 runs in 5 overs.

He was selected in the final where he gave away 52 runs in 8 wicketless overs.

Sreesanth was initially banned for life after spot-fixing in the 2013 IPL, however, the ban was reduced to seven years in August 2019.

On 12 December 2013, Sreesanth married his girlfriend Bhuvneshwari Kumari of Jaipur's Shekhawat family at Guruvayur Sri Krishna temple in Kerala.

Bhuvneshwari Kumari aka Nain Shekhawat is the daughter of Hirendra Singh Shekhawat and Muktha Singh.

Sreesanth initially was a leg-spinner in his childhood, modelling his action on India's leading Test wicket-taker Anil Kumble, who was to become his Test captain.

However, his habit of bowling yorkers led him to convert to fast bowling, after being encouraged by his elder brother.

In 2018, he participated in the popular reality show, Bigg Boss and became the runner up.

In 2020 he was selected for the Kerala cricket team and resumed his career in national cricket.

In March 2022, Sreesanth announced his retirement from domestic cricket.