The upcoming cricket series against England bring a moment of pride for Cricket lovers in Kanpur as Ankit Rajpoot, a pace bowler from the city will be seen bowling at the Indian team’s nets during the slated series. Having played 63 top-quality games, he has been an exceptional player in the circuit of domestic tournaments quite like Brisbane Test hero Shardul Thakur.
“Aspirations to impress the management authorities”
27- year-old Ankit wishes that his performance would garner attention and his trail would be similar to Thakur, T Natarajan and Navdeep Saini, who went from being net bowlers to Test players in Australia following injuries to main bowlers. He aspires to impress the sport’s management authorities through his bowling in the pre-match sessions.
“My plan is to impress everyone, the captain and coaches. It has been a while since ‘A’ series or any red-ball cricket has happened. So, there has been no way to impress the selectors. My plan is to impress with my bowling at nets,” told Rajpoot. He further said that there have been no India A team matches. While A players are called on the Indian bench always, Ankit hopes that the authorities realise his potential on the ground. Securing a spot amongst the five net bowlers selected for the series, he feels more enthusiastic and hopeful about the future. Ankit further asserted that during the current time of the pandemic, it is not easy to bring players for replacements from outside. This increases the responsibilities of the net bowlers who can find a place in the team at any time.
Picked up in the BCCI’s initiative to include out-of-system player
The young boy from Kanpur was brought into the system by BCCI’s initiative aimed at including out-of-system talented players who missed their spot in age-group state teams because of favouritism or oversight. According to the former BCCI Secretary, this project for finding hidden talent from across the country involved National Cricket Academy and former test cricket players. Ankit was trained initially at the pace bowlers’ camp by Amit Asawa, a former coach of Ranji champions Rajasthan.
“He was part of the out-of-system camp. The bowlers from there used to come for zonal, specialist pace bowlers camps for certain periods. It was an initiative for players who had not played under-16, u-19,” said Asawa. He further mentioned that Ankit is one of the few players who make it big quickly. Because of his potential and learning attitude, Ankit soon found a place in the team for Ranji Championship.
During the BCCI specialist pace bowlers camp, Ankit was one of the players who bowled to Shubman Gill. The Indian nets, supposed to begin in a week, would witness Rajpoot bowling again at Gill in the preparatory sessions for the first Test against England commencing on February 5 in Chennai. If Ankit is successful in unnerving him or any other established player, the boy from Kanpur would definitely be noticed by the coaching staff.
