American cricketer who played for India

1 day ago

By Janhavee Moole, BBC Marathi

BBC

Saurabh Netravalkar will be part of the American team against Indian cricketers in a T20 World Cup match on Wednesday.

In 2015, Saurabh Netravalkar gave up his dream of playing professional cricket in India and moved to the United States to work as a software engineer.

Cricket was over for me. I no longer had any hope or expectation of playing again, he said.

On Wednesday, almost a decade later, he will face the Indian cricket team in a T20 World Cup match at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York.

But he will do it as part of the American team.

As he embarks on his World Cup dream, Netravalkar says the match will be an “emotional moment” for a cricketer who has previously played for the Indian Under-19 team.

Many of my former teammates now play for India, he told the BBC.

But he doesn't let the prospect of facing his friends in a crucial match deter him.

He is full of confidence and it showed in his impeccable bowling last week in a super over that led the United States to a historic victory against Pakistan.

Netravalkars is a story of perseverance, love for cricket and also the American dream.

Born and brought up in Mumbai, Netravalkar started playing cricket when he was just 10 years old.

His family lived in Malad, a suburb west of the city. After some remarkable performances as a teenager, he was chosen to represent India at the 2010 Under-19 World Cup in New Zealand.

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Saurabh Netravalkar played for India in the 2010 Under-19 Cricket World Cup.

The tall left-arm fast bowler became the leading wicket-taker of the tournament for the Indian team.

Over the next few years, Netravalkar balanced his pursuit of cricket while studying to become an engineer and graduated in 2013.

After that, the bowler says he decided to concentrate on cricket, giving himself two years. During this time, he tried to secure a place in the national team as well as the Mumbai cricket team.

I entered the [Mumbai] the team too. But I couldn't consolidate my place or even get into the Indian Premier League (IPL), he says.

A cricketing career usually begins at the age of 23. But Netravalkar says he decided to leave the sport at that point.

I was in two minds. Should I pursue cricket or concentrate on studies? he says.

In 2015, he started studying at Cornell University in the United States for a degree in computer science. It was a difficult decision, he said.

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Netravalkar also represented the Mumbai cricket team

But he could never completely give up his cricketing dreams.

While an engineering student in India, he had already developed CricDeCode, an application to help cricketers analyze their game.

At Cornell, Netravalkar watched students play cricket and joined a club to compete in intercollegiate tournaments.

Shortly after graduating, Netravalkar got a job with software giant Oracle and moved to California.

In San Francisco, Netravalkar began playing club cricket. They held tournaments on weekends. I worked for five days and played on Saturday and Sunday.

It was a long way from professional cricket, but it was still a chance to play the game.

San Francisco still doesn't have suitable land. They play on an artificial pitch that's more like a synthetic carpet, he said. But they had dirt locations in a park in Los Angeles – it's like the Maidan [a famous park] in Bombay.

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Netravalkar played for the Silicon Valley Strikers in the 2022 Minor League Cricket Pacific Conference finals in North Carolina.

Every Friday night, he would drive six hours to Los Angeles to play a Saturday game. Then he would return to play a game in San Francisco on Sunday.

In the club [in Los Angeles], there were three to four players who were part of the American team, he says. That’s when I learned America had a cricket team.

On long weekends, they held tournaments around the country, mainly in Florida, in which even players from the West Indies participated.

These tournaments provided a good platform, but Netravalkar still did not dream of playing for the American national team.

I had a student visa then a work visa. So there was no question of playing for the team.

The International Cricket Council (ICC), which governs the sport globally, also had a rule requiring Netravalkar to have lived in the United States for seven years and be a permanent resident.

But the rule changed in 2018 and Netravalkar was chosen for the American cricket team. In 2019, the ICC also granted international T20 status to all of its associate members, including the United States.

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Netravalkar seen celebrating with teammate Harmeet Singh after USA beat Pakistan in a super over during the T20 Cricket World Cup match on June 6.

Many think it's easier to play for obscure teams that are considered underdogs, he says.

But here the struggle is even harder. Playing for associated countries is difficult because they lack basic infrastructure, he explains.

All of the players on Team USA also have full-time jobs and juggle family responsibilities.

“So we practice indoors from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

In a country like the United States, distance adds to the difficulty of bringing players from different corners together to play together.

The team therefore generally meets 10 days before a tournament to train.

The United States overcame these obstacles to advance from the upper divisions of cricket to the T20 World Cup this year. They are already qualified for the 2026 World Cup.

The standard of local cricket has increased here, says Netravalkar.

The major and minor leagues made a huge difference because they gave us the chance to play with the best players. Better grounds are being developed and the grounds are improving.

Cricket academies in the country are also training new players.

Even as the number of fans for the sport grows in places like California, Netravalkar says American cricket faces a difficult road ahead.

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Netravalkar says playing for associated countries like the United States brings a different kind of pressure

There is only one tournament per year where we play five matches in seven days. So, all our efforts throughout the year are put to the test in these five days alone.

If you win, you can continue. Or there is nothing.

Before this T20 World Cup, USA beat Bangladesh in a series which boosted their confidence.

Then, in the first match of this tournament, they beat Canada before upsetting Pakistan.

Netravalkar is now gearing up to face his former Indian teammates in Wednesday's match.

It's nice to reconnect with them and I'm happy with what they have achieved – for India and in the IPL, he said.

Despite facing a star-studded team, Netravalkar is optimistic about his team's chances.

They [India] we trained for hours and had very limited resources. But anything can happen in T20, he said.

We are positive. We will do our best during these three hours.

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