Vangipurapu Venkata Sai Laxman (born 1 November 1974), commonly known as V. V. S. Laxman, is a former Indian cricketer.Laxman represented Hyderabad in domestic cricket and played for Lancashire in English county cricket. He was the captain of the Deccan Chargers team in the Indian Premier League in its first year before being replaced by Adam Gilchrist for the next year.In 2011, Laxman was awarded the Padma Shri award, India’s fourth highest civilian award from the Government of India. VVS Laxman’s knock of 281 against Australia in Eden Gardens in 2001 has been rated as the greatest Test performance of the last 50 years.
Laxman bats right-handed and occasionally bowls off-spin. He is noted for his superb timing and the ability to hit against the spin, reminiscent of his role model Mohammed Azharuddin. Laxman is particularly noted for the skilful use of his supple wrists, which allow him to flick the ball to various places, but usually through the leg side. This also helps in his catching, and he typically fields in the slips or in a bat pad position.VVS Laxman is one of the batsman in the “Great Indian Batting Quartet” along with Tendulkar, Dravid and Ganguly who took Indian batting to great heights in the late 1990s and the early 2000s.
Laxman is widely considered one of the best batsmen India has ever produced in Test cricket.Laxman is noted most for his batting against Australia, in both Tests and One Day Internationals. Six out of his 17 Test hundreds, and four out of his six ODI hundreds have come against Australia.He has two double-centuries in Tests, both of them against Australia: his personal best of 281 at Kolkata in 2000–01, and 200 not out at Feroz Shah Kotla in 2008–09,and in 2002 he was named one of Wisden’s five Cricketers of the Year. In 2012, Laxman retired from international cricket.
Laxman was born in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh (now Telangana).Laxman’s parents are, noted Physicians Dr. Shantaram and Dr. Satyabhama of Vijayawada-Guntur.Laxman studied at Little Flower High School, Hyderabad. He then enrolled as a medical student but chose cricket as a career over medicine. He was awarded an honorary doctorate degree on 4 February 2015 by Teri University, New Delhi.
He married G. R. Shailaja from Guntur, who is a post-graduate in computer applications on 16 February 2004.They have two children – a son, Sarvajit and a daughter, Achinthya.
Laxman is related to India’s second President Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan.
(Ref:www.in.com & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V._V._S._Laxman & NDTV.com)