27-year-old cricketer felicitated by HCA for scoring 102nd UPSC rank

Hyderabad: Cricketer M V Satya Sai Karthik, who secured the 102nd rank in the Civil Services Examination -2019, was felicitated by the Mohd Azharuddin-led Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) here on Thursday.

The 27-year-old, who represented Hyderabad under-19 team in 2012, said he was honoured to be felicitated by Azharuddin. “It is a dream for me,” said Karthik, who was on course to pursue a career in the game which he loved the most.

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“I even got admitted to All Saints for cricket. I was an all-rounder. I got good some scores and represented the Hyderabad under-19 team.”

Later, pursuing Computer Science as part of his engineering degree from Gangaraju Gokaraju College he continued to play cricket. Karthik represented JNTU in the inter-university tournament and led his college in the final year.

Around this time, he slowly began to move away from the game. He continued to play but before his third attempt at the Civil Services, he quit cricket. “I took this decision in 2014 and quit the game. I was seriously into my preparations before I could finally succeed in my fourth attempt.”

According to Karthik, cricket taught him to be disciplined. “The game helped me balance my life. In cricket every day is a new beginning. Even if you score 100, in the next match one has to start fresh.

That attitude helped me as I thought I should never be bogged down by failures. That helped me in the fourth attempt.”