UP’s Kumar packing a spin punch this term
KANPUR: Growing up in Baraut, cricket was fun for Saurabh Kumar even when it meant playing on a sliver of land near railway tracks. It still is for this leftarm orthodox spinner from Uttar Pradesh though the field of play has changed.
Kumar, 26, has 180 wickets from 41 first-class matches and has two centuries and seven halfcenturies. Two of his wickets were of India batsman Cheteshwar Pujara in a Ranji Trophy game this season. Kumar took 23 wickets in four games in his first season for Uttar Pradesh in 2016-17. He also played for Services, taking 17 wickets and scoring 304 runs in his debut Ranji Trophy season. It began with tennis ball cricket with a team of young boys. Fun for Kumar meant bowling over after over. Oblivious to trains whizzing by, soon Kumar and his friends would play limited-over games on a 12-yard patch near railway tracks.
Suneeta Sharma, who was India wicket-keeper Deep Dasgupta’s first coach and got the Dronacharya award in 2005, gave Kumar’s passion direction. It meant Kumar travelling to New Delhi’s National Stadium from Baraut in UP’s Baghpat district that is nearly 55km from the capital. Kumar’s father chose Sharma because he worked in New Delhi, with All India Radio.
“I didn’t mind five hours of travelling from Baraut to New Delhi and back. Because by then cricket meant everything to me. (But) I wasn’t expecting or aiming for anything from the game,” says Kumar, now the most important bowler in Uttar Pradesh’s Ranji Trophy campaign.
Kumar has 32 wickets from five Ranji Trophy games this term including two 10-wicket match hauls.
That puts him third on the list after Nagaland’s I Lemtur and Meghalaya’s R Sanjay Yadav. Nagaland and Meghalaya play in the Plate Group from which one team can qualify to the quarter-final. Uttar Pradesh are in Group B. Five teams from Groups A and B can make the round of eight.
After learning the ropes with Sharma, Kumar played for Uttar Pradesh under-15 and came through the ranks to the state’s under-25 team. “I didn’t care about counting wickets in the age-group cricket. If I am not wrong, I have over 275 wickets, you please cross check with officials,” says Kumar. But with spinners such as Piyush Chawla, Ali Murtaza and Praveen Gupta in contention for the UP senior team and chinaman Kuldeep Yadav too doing well, Kumar was struggling to break through.
“I had lost all hope as both Chawla and Gupta were doing well both with ball and bat. I had to leave the state,” says Kumar. He joined the Indian Air Force and in 2014-15 made the Services team for the Ranji Trophy. “All was well except the tough routine. For three months, I went through all the drills of an air man. I learnt the importance of discipline but the atmosphere was too tough for me to handle.
“I was lucky that I was allowed by the UPCA (Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association) again to play for the side. After making the team, I didn’t look back,” says Kumar. He was bought by Rising Pune Supergiants team for the 2017 Indian Premier League for Rs 10 lakh but didn’t get a match.
Kumar was the highest wickettaker for India Blue in the 2018-19 Duleep Trophy with 19 wickets in three matches. “I love playing innings cricket as I enjoy bowling long spells. It’s not that I don’t like white ball cricket but my first priority is red ball cricket,” says Kumar who took 14/65 in a Ranji game against Haryana in 2018-19.
His most talked-about performance came around a year ago. Uttar Pradesh were tottering at 207/7 against Baroda when No. 9 Kumar joined Yadav. The lefthanders not only salvaged the match but also built a recordbreaking 192-run partnership, scoring a century each.
Kumar says he is in touch with former India captain and left-arm spin legend Bishan Singh Bedi. “I haven’t seen Bedi Sir bowling but he is an ideal man and even today I ask for his opinion. In fact, I have learnt the art of bowling on ‘tappa’ (local cricket term for bowling on a particular spot) from Bedi Sir himself,” he said.
“Even Uttar Pradesh coach Sunil Joshi has been a great help. I keep asking questions and he has advised me to work on the patience of a batsman with accurate deliveries.” Joshi is a former India left-arm spinner.
Dismissing Saurashtra’s Pujara in Rajkot has been his best moment of 2019-20. “Joshi Sir had told me not to allow Pujara to step out on my deliveries and that is what I did, getting him leg-before in both the innings.”
“Our loss to Saurashtra last year at Lucknow in (Ranji Trophy) quarter-final was a big setback for me too and we all wanted to settle scores with Saurashtra this time,” says Kumar.