From Malad to San Francisco – it has been fairly a journey for Saurabh Netravalkar. The quick bowler, who performed a good quantity of home cricket for Mumbai earlier than shifting base to the US, had the most important second of his profession on Thursday as he guided the USA cricket group to an iconic victory towards Pakistan by way of a Tremendous Over in a T20 World Cup fixture.
Not many would have imagined the USA might pull off such a captivating feat, however the seasoned Netravalkar held his nerves and ensured that Pakistan stuttered in pursuit of its chase of 19 within the Tremendous Over, finally falling 5 runs brief.
As his team-mates celebrated the stupendous success, it was fairly an emotional outing for the quick bowler from Mumbai.
Rising up within the suburb of Malad, Netravalkar at all times dreamt of taking part in cricket for India. He was good at teachers, however cricket was his old flame. The hours spent bowling on the nets lastly paid off, with the tall left-arm seamer scalping 30 wickets within the Cooch Behar Trophy (2008-09) and breaking into the Indian group for the 2010 ICC Beneath-19 Cricket World Cup in New Zealand. Ok.L. Rahul and Mayank Agarwal, present internationals, have been his teammates then.
Regardless of rising as India’s main wicket-taker on the World Cup, it took him three extra years to earn a spot in Mumbai’s Ranji Trophy group. A 3-wicket haul in his first-class debut towards Karnataka was not sufficient to cement his place within the facet. By then, he had earned an engineering diploma from Sardar Patel Institute of Expertise in Andheri. In 2015, when an opportunity to pursue a Grasp’s diploma in pc science at Cornell College, New York, got here up, he determined to maneuver on.
“I needed to be a bit sensible, I wasn’t making it on the first-class stage and you must search for a Plan B,” Netravalkar had informed Sportstar earlier.
When he shifted base, Netravalkar thought his cricketing ambitions have been over. Actually, he didn’t even carry his kits with to the US. Initially, he considered simply specializing in his research. In a rustic the place cricket continues to be a distinct segment sport, Netravalkar needed to even depend on the tv or browse the Web to maintain tabs on cricketing affairs. He usually known as up his U-19 mates to speak, however by no means dreamt that he can be marking his bowling run-up in the future.
However the 32-year-old by no means gave up.
Whereas learning within the school, he got here to know concerning the American School Cricket and inter-college tournaments. “After my research have been over, I joined Oracle and moved to San Francisco. Sangram Samant, my coach in Mumbai, hooked me up with a membership there,” he had stated.
By 2018, Netravalkar was eligible to characterize the U.S. after the ICC lowered the minimal residency eligibility from 4 years to 3. That, certainly, was a terrific alternative and he made essentially the most of it and even went on to steer the USA, earlier than there was a change of guard.
Whereas issues bought powerful in the course of the lockdown, like a number of others, Netravalkar pursued his goals and continued his coaching classes and the teachings learnt within the Mumbai dressing room helped him battle the percentages.
Throughout his taking part in days, Netravalkar had shared the dressing room with Wasim Jaffer, Siddhesh Lad, Suryakumar Yadav and Shardul Thakur. He would prepare with Shardul and Lad, and people experiences helped him in the long term.
Again in 2010, he travelled to New Zealand with the India U-19 group for the World Cup. Beneath the captaincy of Ashok Menaria, the group completed sixth. Whereas he had a dream of graduating to the senior Indian group, that didn’t occur. However years later, he has lastly fulfilled his goals of that includes in a World Cup, albeit for a unique nation.
Netravalkar, absolutely, is having fun with each second of it!