Atul Sharma exclusive interview and pics in June issue of Spin magazine
Buy the June issue of SPIN featuring an exclusive seven-page interview and photo shoot with Atul Sharma, here.
The new issue of SPIN magazine is in the shops on Friday (May 8). We’ll have full info here from Wednesday but I just wanted to flag up one story that I think is going to make a bit of a splash.
This is my interview with Atul Sharma. UK-based cricket-watchers will never have heard of him at all, I shouldn’t think; while, among Indian supporters, even the biggest devotees of fansites will know only a little.
No use Googling Atul Sharma or looking at cricinfo either. Because they don’t have anything on him.
The thing is: Sharma has never played a senior game; in fact has not played a competitive game of any kind for seven years – and yet he is in the Rajasthan Royals IPL squad, alongside Shane Warne, Dimitri Mascarenhas et al.
The story that explains these two apparently contradictory facts is – and I don’t think I’m overegging it here – one of the most remarkable in modern sport.
Sharma, now 23, has spent the last seven years teaching himself to bowl at speeds in excess of 100 mph. He’s trained with US Olympic javelin coaches and built the body of a power-athlete, rather than of a traditional fast bowler. He’s also worked with the English fast bowling coach Ian Pont, a firm believer that pace and control need not be mutually exclusive – indeed, that the two are both influenced by the same factors.
Anyhow, I’ve had a very long and enjoyable chat with Atul in which he has told me his full story – including overcoming injuries that threatened to stop him playing at all. I found his story unique and genuinely inspiring – he has not been involved with any official academies or coaching set-ups; he’s funded everything himself, just following a teenage hunch with complete single-mindedness.
Not that I want to hype him(!). I think getting a pro contract at 23 having never played a game is remarkable enough in itself, even were he never to take a wicket, or to bowl at ‘just’ 85 mph. But he does seem to be on the verge of being India’s and possibly the world’s fastest-ever bowler.
We’ve also had some beautiful pictures taken of him training in South Africa – showing his innovative action step-by-step – by the top snapper Jurie Potgieter.
The whole package runs across seven pages of the June issue, out in the UK on May 8.
Buy the June issue of SPIN featuring an exclusive seven-page interview and photo shoot with Atul Sharma, here.
