Atul Sharma debut on ice – for now

It now appears unlikely that Atul Sharma will make his debut in the current IPL.

The 23-year-old fast bowler, who has come to attention by winning a contract with Shane Warne’s Rajasthan Royals, despite not having played a competitive game for seven years, has been sidelined by a shoulder injury throughout the tournament.

Ironically, despite Sharma’s unusual, javelin-inspired training and speeds of up to 100mph, the shoulder  injury was sustained after a fall during fielding practice.

Remarkably, Sharma has remained in the Rajasthan squad for the duration of the tournament, despite being an injury doubt; while other name players such as Mohammad Kaif were omitted when the parties were cut back to 16.

Sharma’s innovative action was given the okay by Australian Institute of Sport boss Greg Chappell, after an extended net session with the Royals’ Shane Watson last December. Thanks to his reported ability to bowl faster than anyone in the world, the young fast bowler has attracted a lot of buzz on Indian fans forums, since his signing for the Royals. He has given no media interviews until his seven-page exclusive in the current issue of SPIN magazine.

However, intriguingly, Rajasthan Royals have recently announced a charity Twenty20 challenge match against English T20 champions Middlesex Panthers, at Lord’s on July 6. The game is in aid of the British Asians Trust.

If Sharma’s return to full fitness, as expected, is a matter of weeks away, the fixture would provide a high-profile setting for his debut.

Atul Sharma speaks exclusively to SPIN

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 issue is 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.

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.

Against the odds, a huge success: the IPL’s half-time report

We are now at the half-way point of the double round-robin stage of the second season of the IPL. 28 matches have come and gone and as much as I expected South Africa to host the tournament adequately, I believe the organisers have outdone themselves.

I laughed when Lalit Modi fibbed to us that 90% of tickets for the IPL had been sold within a couple of days. Doing the sums in my head, that is not far off a million tickets. But almost every game has indeed been packed to the rafters. In particular, the South African Indian community has embraced the tournament, turning up in large numbers at all six of the venues used so far.

The two venues that are yet to hold a game are Kimberley and Bloemfontein, both small and predominantly Afrikaans speaking cities. When I initially heard that these two cities would be hosting the Indian Premier League, I guessed that they would struggle to attract more than a few hundred schoolchildren at each game. 

Bloemfontein is the capital of the Free State, a province in which Indians were not allowed to sleep a night until the late 1980s. Ghandi was imprisoned there in 1913. The idea of the big Indian cricket jamboree coming to town seems something of an ironic joke.

But after seeing how South African cricket fans have taken to the tournament across the country, I have no doubt that even Kimberley and Bloemfontein will join the party. The IPL is not only boosting South Africa’s cricket and tourism industries; it is also highlighting the extent to which the country has moved on from the days of apartheid. 

I first had this thought a few days ago at a match in Centurion, Pretoria, where the press box seats are in the grandstand and not a glass box. The ground was full and as usual, boundaries were met with extremely loud music, fireworks and shooting flames. Much of the music was of the Bollywood variety and much of it was in Afrikaans. The DJ continued to alternate between the two and the crowd continued to go bananas. It was terrific.

On another matter altogether, it was pointed out to me that there has been an alarming number of golden ducks in the IPL so far. An explanation I can offer is that South African pitches are very very fast. Middlesex’s Dirk Nannes has looked like Alan Donald at Centurion and the Wanderers. Add this to the fact that Indian batsmen are used to slower pitches, and you get some cheap wickets.

Of course, not all the golden ducks have come from quick pitches. Kevin Pietersen was out LBW to the first ball he faced from Muttiah Muralitharan in Port Elizabeth. He got in trouble for showing dissent to Simon Taufel, who had made the correct decision. KP effected a golden duck himself when his Bangalore side had Brendon McCullum, of the hapless Kolkata Knight Riders, caught at point with the first ball of a match in Durban. 

It was also in Durban that I was lucky enough to witness a live hat-trick for the fourth time in my cricket watching career. I will never forget the first of those when I saw Brett Schultz rip through the old Transvaal at the Wanderers where, aged 11, I sold scorecards. Yuvraj Singh took a hat-trick returning figures of 3/22 before top scoring with 50 runs from 39 balls, in vain, as the Kings XI Punjab lost to the resurgent Bangalore Royal Challengers. 

After last night’s upset nine wicket win by Bangalore over the Mumbai Indians at the Wanderers, things really are heating up on the table. Four teams have eight points, three teams have seven points and the Kolkata Knight Riders languish at the bottom of the table with three points. 

Last night’s match saw Jacques Kallis prove that there is a place for him in the shortest form of the game. He smashed 69 runs off 59 balls at a jam-packed Bull Ring, thereby cementing his place in the South African Twenty20 World Cup squad that was announced today. 

It was the very same Wanderers strip where South Africa scored 438 runs to beat Australia in an ODI and, boy, it was a cracker. Any bat on ball races to the boundary but there is always something for the pace men too. Bangalore debutant, South African Dillan Du Preez, had veteran Sachin Tendulkar out with his third ball. He had Ajinkya Rahane caught in the off-side with his next ball. The double wicket maiden wicket over was followed up with the prized wicket of JP Duminy in his second over to round off the perfect start to an IPL career.

In their pursuit of 150, Bangalore’s Kallis and Uthappa added a record breaking 126 unbeaten runs for the second wicket. Uthappa walloped 66 of those runs off 42 balls against the side for whom he played last season. A straight inter-season swop between himself and Zaheer Khan had taken place during the transfer window period. Khan pulled up with a shoulder injury two overs into his spell.

Cricket is not usually played after the autumn in South Africa and at the Wanderers the press box is again outdoors, on the top floor of the highest stand. Johannesburg winter days are lovely and warm but the nights can be bitterly cold, and last night was no exception. At the highest press box in the world, I managed to contract a cold. I don’t think it is that swine flu hogwash because no-one in the press box has recently been to Mexico. Given the pace of T20 cricket growth, the game might arrive there before H1N1 gets here. 

I have put in a request to the Wanderers for a tender to sell jerseys, scarves, gloves and blankets at the ground. The revenue will surely far exceed that of writing about cricket and I will be able to stay safely on the ground floor. I have heard it said that tickets for the final on 24 May are trading hands at five times their face value, but there is a very real threat the cold winter puts some fans off coming.

John Buchanan, coach of the Kolkata Night Riders, has said that the maximum number of foreign players in each starting eleven should be increased from four, the status quo. Doing so would no doubt increase the standard of play on the field. Paul Collingwood and Owais Shah returned home without getting a game for their franchises and players like Dale Steyn and Daniel Vettori are consistently being left out of theirs.  

Each team is allowed up to ten international players and good money is being wasted to pay these chaps to sit on the bench while inexperienced Indian players drop catches and struggle to get bat on ball.