Tamil Nadu kicked off their Ranji Trophy campaign in 1999-2000 with an away fixture against Andhra at Visakhapatnam. With S Ramesh and Robin Singh doing duty in the ODI series against New Zealand and S Sriram away in the Caribbean with India A, Tamil Nadu's bench strength was going to be sorely tested. Vidyuth Sivaramakrishnan, still a month short of his 19th birthday, was one of the youngsters pressed into service on the occasion.

It was a moment to savour for Vidyuth when he walked onto the field on his first class debut, following in the footsteps of his father to play for Tamil Nadu. Inducted as the second spinner after the seasoned Aashish Kapoor, it was the biggest stage yet for him to showcase his skills in a nascent career.

Andhra chose to bat on winning the toss and Vidyuth came on second change. The home team were chugging along merrily at 81/1 when he struck to despatch one-drop Nagini Kumar who was snapped up by J Gokulakrishna. Indeed the same scorecard entry, c Gokulakrishna b Vidyuth, was repeated three more times with monotonous regularity, as the Andhra batsmen were clueless against the young left arm spinner's mesmerising flight and turn.

For good measure, Vidyuth also trapped H Watekar leg before and when the Andhra innings, 251/7 overnight, terminated on the second morning at 305, Vidyuth was the proud possessor of figures of 5/61 in 35 overs. The rest of the match was a blur as far as he was concerned. Tamil Nadu were made to struggle before outpointing their rivals on first innings thanks to a fine century from the blade of Vasant Saravanan. On a pitch that was increasingly easing out, Andhra sailed to 307/6 in their second knock.

Vidyuth was not amongst the wickets this time and it must have been a lesson to him that the breaks aren't going to come his way all the while. But the immense confidence gained by a bagful of wickets in his maiden bowl in the Ranji Trophy did him no end of good as he took those first few steps towards establishing a foothold in the competitive cauldron of first class cricket.