Javagal Srinath is a former Indian cricketer who represented his country in number of Test and ODIs. During his playing days he used to be a handy pace bowler for India and until his retirement he happened to be the second Indian pace bowler after Kapil Dev, to bag 200 Test Match wickets. During the South Africa tour in 1996, he bowled one ball that measured 156 km/h (97 mph). He also clocked 154.5 km/h (96.0 mph) at the 1999 World Cup

Early Life of Javagal Srinath
Srinath was born on 31st August 1969 in Mysore, Karnataka. He was a cricket maniac right from a very early stage of his life. Though he had an ambition of representing Indian Team in future, that did not made him neglect his studies. He is an engineer by qualification and holds Bachelor of Engineering degree in Instrumentation Technology from Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering, Mysore.

Career of Javagal Srinath
During the initial part of his career Srinath was a batsman. It was during a club match that he caught the eye of the great former Indian batsman Gundappa Viswanath, who later inspired him to take the game seriously. Srinath made his first class debut for Karnataka against Hyderabad in the 1989-90 seasons. He took hat trick in the first innings and ended the season with 25 wickets in 6 matches. He followed the good run with 20 wickets in the next season. This season he displayed his art of swing bowling against Maharashtra at the Nehru Stadium in Pune, where he took 7 wickets for 93 runs and sent the home team packing for 311 runs in reply to 638 runs scored by Karnataka on a good batting deck.

Srinath made his debut at ODI for India in 1991 at Sharjah in the Wills Trophy. He became first bowler to take 100 ODI wickets in a short span of time, reaching the landmark in 3 years and 19 days after his debut. He is also one of the lethal bowlers for India at World Cup championships, bagging 44 wickets in 34 matches. He still holds the prestigious record of reaching the 300 wickets mark by a fast bowler from India in ODIs. Other bowlers who have done it from India are Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh, who are spin bowlers.

Javagal Srinath made his Test match debut for India in the year 1991/92, when India toured Australia. He played his first Test at Gabba in Brisbane where he took 3 wickets for 59 runs. He took an overall 10 wickets in that entire tour. In South Africa tour he was given the new ball and he did not disappoint his captain and bowled an economical spell to bag 4 wickets for 33 runs in 27 overs. He ended the tour with 12 wickets. Critics say that Srinath have been unlucky with the bowling conditions that are available in India, which are mainly spin friendly. After the retirement of Kapil Dev, Srinath took over the mantle of spearheading the pace attack for India, and went on to provide solid start to the team right at the beginning.

Playing for his state side, Karnataka, Srinath took over 500 first class wickets. He joined Gloucestershire in1995 and took 87 wickets, including taking 9-76 against Glamorgan. He has also played English county cricket with Durham and Leicestershire.

Though he did not have an impressive batting average but he has played quite a few dazzling innings for India and helped his team win. He vital knock of 30 runs off 23 balls against Australia in the 8th match of Titan Cup series (1996) in Bengaluru, was something very special, which at the end helped India qualify to the finals. In the same series he also scored a 50 against South Africa in Rajkot.

After the 2003 ICC World Cup he retired from international cricket. In the last World Cup he played he displayed some wonderful bowling performances until the final against Australia, where he appeared to be overwhelmed by the pressure of the occasion, conceding 87 off his 10 overs.

Batting and Fielding Averages

	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Ave	BF	SR	100	50	4s	6s	Ct	St
Tests	67	92	21	1009	76	14.21	2037	49.53	0	4	110	8	22	0
ODIs	229	121	38	883	53	10.63	1109	79.62	0	1	62	17	32	0
First-class	147	191	34	2276	76	14.49			0	7			62	0
List A	290	157	47	1153	53	10.48			0	1			49	0

Bowling Averages

	Mat	Inns	Balls	Runs	Wkts	BBI	BBM	Ave	Econ	SR	4w	5w	10
Tests	67	121	15104	7196	236	8/86	13/132	30.49	2.85	64.0	8	10	1
ODIs	229	227	11935	8847	315	5/23	5/23	28.08	4.44	37.8	7	3	0
First-class	147		28618	14027	533	9/76		26.31	2.94	53.6		23	3
List A	290		14981	10684	407	5/23	5/23	26.25	4.27	36.8	9	4	0

Life as Match Referee and Commentator for Javagal Srinath
Javagal toured England with the famous Lashings World XI team in the summer of 2005, and also served as a commentator for the India-England Test series in 2006. Since then has taken up random commentary assignments for various sports channels.

International Cricket Council selected Srinath as a match referee on April 2006. He officiated in the 2007 ICC World Cup.

Awards and Honours by Javagal Srinath
He received Arjuna award in the year 1996.