Navdeep Saini

Navdeep Saini, the tall fast bowler’s journey from a tennis ball Yorker specialist to donning the India blues is nothing short of a fairytale. He is among those rare breed of fast bowlers in India who can bowl at 150 clicks on a consistent basis. In a short span of time, right-arm medium bowler has established himself as one of the future stars of India. 

Seeing his talent, it was former Delhi cricketer Sumit Narwal, who asked the youngster to attend the trials at the Delhi nets. He denied the proposal as he had a tennis-ball match the next day. However destiny had something else in store for Saini as the tennis ball match got cancelled and he attended the Delhi nets and the rest as they say is history. 

The right-arm fast-bowler was handpicked by none other than World Cup winning star Gautam Gambhir. The latter was very impressed with Saini's bowling at the Delhi nets. His ability to bowl deadly Yorkers at a searing speed makes him a potent weapon in any team he plays for. He is among those many players whose story from rags to riches is bound to inspire several budding cricketers.

It was the backing of Gambhir which eventually landed the pacer a place in the Delhi Ranji Trophy squad. As he hailed from Haryana, the selectors were skeptical about his selection. However, the former India player was totally convinced of his abilities and even had a heated argument with DDCA vice-president Chetan Chauhan. Eventually the selectors were forced to pick him and he made his first class debut for Delhi at the age of 21, in December 2013. 

In 2017,  the youngster was bought by Delhi Daredevils, however, he could not feature in a single game that season.

In the 2017-18 Ranji Trophy season, the pacer grabbed 34 wickets in eight matches. After a bidding war before the start of 2018 IPL, Saini was bought for a whopping INR 3 crore by Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). Although he did not feature in any game that season. Virat Kohli led RCB saw the potential and retained him for the 2019 season. After a long wait, Saini finally made his debut in the IPL 2019 against the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and bowled 4 overs conceding 24 runs. The bowler finished as RCB’s second-highest wicket-taker that season. In the 2020 season of IPL, Saini featured in 13 games and picked just 6 wickets but his various economical spells saw him retained by RCB again for the 2021 season. 

The fast bowler made his T20I debut against West Indies in August 2019 and bagged three wickets as he dismissed Nicholas Pooran, Kieron Pollard and Shimron Hetmyer. His ODI debut was against the same opponents (West Indies) in December 2019 and he impressed Indian fans once again by taking wickets of Hetmyer and Roston Chase with searing pace. He was also included in the Indian side for the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup as a stand-by bowler.

The bowler shot to fame after a famous Test series victory against Australia at their home ground. He made his Test debut for India on January 7, 2021 against Australia, and took his maiden wicket after dismissing Aussie debutant Will Pucovski. 

Saini is definitely one of the future prospects for India and if groomed well, this man can go onto become one of the major pillars of Indian cricket in the near future. 

(As of March 2021)