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Sunday, August 1, 2021

5 debutants lucky to play in ODI 3 at Colombo

In life, often we hear people say that they performed so well, but had no luck or were overshadowed by the efforts of somebody else.  One of my bosses used to say, that even for regular things he had to struggle, while others got them so easily – is life cruel to some !  is not the Q of the day .. .. at times life throws a bounty as today – when 5 Indian cricketers are making their debut in ODI.



Krishnappa Gowtham, Nitish Rana,

Rahul Chahar, Sanju Samson & Chetan Sakaria

A  successful leftarm pacer born in Secunderabad and played for Delhi regularly ended up ‘a trivia Q in Quizzing circles’….. he was part of that famous Kapil Devils which won World Cup 1983 – did not play in a single match… coming back, when India struggled against Windies – he was not selected and never got a chance again to be part of the Indian squad.    that was "Sunil Valson"........Then 16 years later he had another for company ~ an attacking left hander Amay Khurasiya was included in team for 1999 WC but did not get a single chance to play……… [later he played in some odd One dayers without great success]

The man, very unfortunate that he never played for India - Rajinder Goel,  is the highest wicket-taker in the history of the Ranji Trophy with 637 strikes. In all, the Haryana left-arm spinner bagged 750 wickets in 157 first-class matches from 1958-59 to 1984-85.    In Sept 1982, when India played the first official test against Srilanka - Arun lal and Rakesh Shukla debuted.  That turned out to be the only test for Shukla.  Among the many others who missed was Kerala born Bhaskar Pillai who turned out for strong Delhi -   was a standby for India's tour of Sri Lanka in 1985 but that was as close as he came to national selection. Have read that he was about to make his debut in a match at Jammu but unfortunately that match was washed out.

Moving away from the past – the Indian squad today reads :  1 Prithvi Shaw, 2 Shikhar Dhawan (capt), 3 Sanju Samson (wk), 4 Manish Pandey, 5 Suryakumar Yadav, 6 Hardik Pandya, 7 Nitish Rana, 8 K Gowtham, 9 Rahul Chahar, 10 Navdeep Saini, 11 Chetan Sakariya  - yes 5 debutants ..  There are three changes," Dasun Shanaka, the Lankan captain says. "Praveen Jayawickrama, Ramesh Mendis and Akila Dananjaya are in."

Among the debutants is young exciting IPL player - Chetan Sakariya   who made his debut for Saurashtra in 2018-19. He was picked up for INR 1.2 crore in the IPL 2021 auction by the Rajasthan Royals, and made his IPL debut at the first opportunity, named in the XI for the Royals' opening game of IPL 2021, against the Punjab Kings.  A left-arm swing bowler who hails from Vartej, a hamlet 180 kilometres west of Rajkot. Sakariya grew up wanting to be a batsman, but turned towards fast bowling when he was in class XI because that helped students get a lot of 'bhaav' (attention) in school.

Interesting and all the best to Team India and its young generation Cricketers

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
23.7.2021 

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