'He was like a kid': Canberra cricket in mourning after Ravi Srinivasan dies during a game

Arshad Khan would hear it every morning at 6am, the gentle thud of a mallet colliding with a brand new cricket bat inside his neighbour's garage. Then at 7pm, maybe 7.30pm, he'd get home from work and hear it again.

Ravi Srinivasan hadn't played cricket for 25 years, yet on this day he felt like a kid again. A chance to play in his neighbour's team was giving him "a second life".

Within days, that life was gone.

Srinivasan died of a cardiac arrest four balls into his over during a Canberra City and Suburban Cricket Association fifth grade game in Deakin last Saturday.

MORE SPORT:

Sport is theatre without a script, but even the most cruel of writers would not craft a story like this.

A 14-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl have lost their father. A wife has lost her husband.

Srinivasan was a 47-year-old chef moonlighting as a cooking teacher. A family man whose day consisted of home and work, work and home. Laid to rest on Friday, Srinivasan will be honoured by his teammates at the Sultans Sports Club in their game at Bonner on Saturday. Few, if any, knew him quite like Khan, his neighbour of eight years.

"We were like a close family. He called me 'bhaiya'. In our language, that means elder brother," Khan said.

Srinivasan moved to Australia from India 16, maybe 17 years ago. Cricket had once been his passion. It was a game he drifted away from until about three weeks ago, when a work colleague asked if he would like to replace him in a lower grade fixture while he was away. It was as if he'd been waiting for someone to ask.

The next day Srinivasan took his wife Gouri to a cricket store in Fyshwick and bought $600 worth of equipment. Bat, pads, the lot.

Srinivasan didn't bat or bowl in his first game back, feeling a little dejected after being used as a substitute fielder in a team he was foreign to. Khan could sense how much he wanted to play. Come to the Sultans Sports Club, he told him, training is on Wednesday. Srinivasan was the first one there.

A niggling injury meant Khan had to miss the game on the weekend, so he took his kids to the pool instead. His phone lit up during the first break in play. It was Srinivasan, telling anyone he could reach that he'd picked up an early wicket.

"I got all the messages, my goodness. He was sending messages throughout the match to his wife, to his mum, to his father in India. 'I took one wicket, this and that'," Khan said.

"After the break he came back, the captain asked him if he wanted another over. He started bowling, he bowled four balls. For the fifth ball, he went through his bowling action and, straight away, fell down.

"And he was gone."

The messages of joy soon turned to a call of despair.

"I got a call from the captain Udith [Waleboda], he said 'Something happened to Ravi, he fell down'. I said 'I know, his ankle had an issue and it was swelling'," Khan said.

"He said 'No, it's something more than an ankle. We have to talk to his wife, it's an emergency'.

"When I reached his home [that afternoon], everyone was crying. His one son, his one daughter, they were hugging me, they were crying. I put my family into his home and I went to Deakin Oval."

You could read the MCC's laws of cricket as many times as you'd like, but nothing could prepare a player for something like this.

The game was abandoned after 25.4 overs, the Gymkhana Spartans' innings coming to a close at 4-61. Srinivasan finished with 1-9 from 4.4 overs.

But never, in a game fixated by numbers, have runs and wickets counted for so little.

Khan arrived at Deakin playing fields soon after police. After filling out a report, he packed Srinivasan's brand new kit into his car. He could almost hear Srinivasan's voice telling him about every purchase. Look, bhaiya, these are the pads, this is the bat. That bat, the one he heard his neighbour knocking in every morning and night.

"He used to keep his bat with him, even if they were watching television, he would keep his bat under his arm like a kid. He was so passionate," Khan said.

"Now I feel confronted, [wondering] why I had introduced him to my club. If I wouldn't have introduced him, it wouldn't have happened. Everyone is telling me 'Arshad, this isn't the case, his death was written in fate'.

"I don't know how to explain this loss. He was very close to me. He was not just a neighbour to me, he was more than that to me and my family. I start crying and cannot contain it when I see his daughter and son.

"He went with his passion and love for cricket, that is all I can say."

The Sultans play again on Saturday, this time in Bonner, because the game goes on. Khan will never play alongside his friend, but come Saturday morning when he wakes up to pray and when he comes home - if he tries hard enough - he may still be able to hear that gentle tap, tap, tap.

We've made it a whole lot easier for you to have your say. Our new comment platform requires only one log-in to access articles and to join the discussion on The Canberra Times website. Find out how to register so you can enjoy civil, friendly and engaging discussions. See our moderation policy here.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: