Day of the debutants at Oz fortress Gabba
MUMBAI: In these past few months, the T Natarajan story has got better and better. Brought into India’s contingent for the Australia tour as a net bowler, the left-hand pacer will leave Australia having made his India debuts in all three formats.
Thrust into the playing XI after a spate of injuries in the squad, the rookie left-arm pacer from Chinnappampatti, a village near Salem in Tamil Nadu, proved his worth in the Indian bowling attack by claiming two important wickets to peg Australia’s charge on the opening day of the final Test at the Gabba.
Here is a man who was a tennis ball cricketer for much of his early life and first held a real cricket ball at the age of 20. A man who, at the beginning of 2020, was a complete unknown hoping for a chance to boost a tepid cricket career with a good showing at the IPL where he had been largely ignored since he had been first signed by a team in 2017. A man who was building his strength sitting at home during the lockdown by working out with water canisters. Then came the IPL and a sensational season.
Then a call up for Australia as a net bowler, before being drafted into the T20 series when another player pulled out with an injury. He made his T20 debut. Then he was drafted into the ODI team as cover for Navdeep Saini. He made his ODI debut. He was kept on as net bowler for the Test series. And now, to complete a dazzling arc, he has made his Test debut.
He had impressed everyone during the T20 series, showing there’s more to him than those yorkers he pulled out at will during the IPL. Yet, coping with the demands of Test cricket is something else altogether.
Again, he delivered, by providing vital breakthroughs with the wickets of the well-set Marnus
Labuschagne and Matthew Wade. The other talking point of the day was Washington Sundar, another Tamil Nadu player making his debut, and who picked up Steve Smith.
T20 Style
Interestingly, both the Tamil Nadu debutants are T20 specialists. Washington’s last first-class game was in 2017 and Natarajan’s experience of bowling with the red ball is limited to 20 firstclass outings. M Senthilnathan, Tamil Nadu’s chairman of selectors in 2019, felt the pressures of the shorter format helped the duo adjust quickly to the highprofile clash. “One advantage with these guys is they have been playing T20 cricket regularly, where there’s no chance of making a mistake,” Senthilnathan, the chief coach at the MRF Pace Foundation said. “They got to be at it all the time, which helps them in a Test game where they will be able to execute the exact areas what the team is expecting of them.” Washington’s name was included in the Test squad at the last minute with R Ashwin’s back playing up during the third
Test. In fact, the Board of Control for Cricket in India is yet to send a press note about drafting Washington into the India team. Natarajan is also an injury replacement. For Smith’s wicket, the 21-year-old spinner just stuck to his Tamil Nadu senior, R Ashwin’s, strategy.
“The team management do have a plan for Smith. Ashwin was bowling on the stump line, trying to get him at backward short-leg, leg-before. Washy also stuck to that line. It is big to get Steve Smith as your first wicket,” said Senthilnathan, who has tracked Washington’s development since the off-spinner joined MRF’S First Division club, Globe Trotters, at the age of 14.
There was joy too at Chennai’s top club, Jolly Rovers, for which Natarajan plays. The head of cricket operations at the club, former India cricketer Bharat Reddy, said: “I just messaged Natarajan that ‘now you are a full cricketer’. I used to always tell him, unless you play Test cricket you are not a full cricketer. First day, he had to battle nerves. Didn’t try anything fancy, that’s why he was rewarded.”