The India-USA T20 World Cup match promises to be a great reunion between old pals with as many as nine of the 15 members of the home squad born in India. Saurabh Netravalkar, who became an overnight sensation after his heroics with the ball in USA’s SuperOver triumph against Pakistan, is excited at the prospect of playing against his childhood buddy Suryakumar Yadav.
Not so long ago, the left-armer was one of India’s lead seamers in the U19 World Cup in 2010, and shared the dressing room with Test cricketers KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal and Jaydev Unadkat. But as fate would have it, Netravalkar kept waiting for his domestic debut when his U-19 teammates were expecting a call-up to the senior India team. His first-class debut for Mumbai was in December of 2013, which, sadly, turned out to be his only one.
A software engineer who even designed his own cricket app, Netravalkar decided to put his cricketing dreams on the backburner in 2015, and instead opted to pursue a Masters degree program in the US.
“How much cricket can I play? Till 35, maybe… but there is no guarantee. There is no growth too,” he said while backing his decision to take up the scholarship from a US university. The move, he thought, would be the end of his cricket career.
Back then, he had no clue that he’ll be ever playing cricket again, but as luck would have it, the Mumbaikar found himself back on the cricket field, and more than a decade later, he’s up and ready to take on his country of birth.
It was a West Indian, Lloyd Jodah, who rekindled the cricket dream in Netravalkar. “I never thought I will play cricket again but after coming to US, I got to know there was cricket in my college. There was a coach named Lloyd Jodah who saw me bowl and asked whether I played decent cricket. Then he recommended me to different clubs here,” Netravalkar said.
Ahead of the clash against India, the 32-year-old recalled his playing days for Mumbai while revealing about his friendship with Suryakumar Yadav.
“Suryakumar has been a close friend, actually. I’ve seen him since our under-15 days; we kind of grew up playing for Mumbai together. He was always special, scoring double hundreds and stuff in under-15 and under-17 matches,” Netravalkar said.
Netravelkar, however, expressed his surprise that SKY, arguably one of the world’s best T20 batters, got his India cap later than he had expected.
“He got a chance to play for India later than I expected, but I’m really happy for him. I’m excited to meet him, and it’s an opportunity to play not just against him but also against a lot of the guys we played with. I don’t know how to get Surya out, but I think I’ll just try to do my role, what the team needs me to do,” Netravalkar said.