Thangarasu Natarajan looks back fondly at his Chinnappampatti Cricket Club days, especially the prestigious Rs 50,000 prize money tennis ball cricket tournament in Mettur that he helped his club win.
“That was a big tournament,” said the left-arm medium pace bowler from Salem, who until 2010 was making a name in six-overs-a-side tennis ball events that abound in interior Tamil Nadu with his share in the prize money helping him get by.
Last Monday, the 25-year-old’s life changed dramatically as he became the highest paid uncapped Indian player in the 2017 Indian Premier League auction after he was bought by Kings XI Punjab for Rs 3 crore – a bidding battle that he watched on television at the Chemplast guest house in Chennai.
“There was a pause at Rs 95 lakh and then it picked up again,” said the eldest of five siblings who went through a difficult childhood financially.
A true rags-to-riches story
It has been an eventful journey for Natarajan, whose father was a daily wage earner in the power loom sector while his mother ran a roadside eatery. A shift to Chennai in 2011 happened thanks to the support of a well-wisher A Jayaprakash to pursue a career in cricket with very little cricket ball experience. Then, recognition for his ability followed after a lot of hard work, and with it, financial stability for his family.
A Ranji Trophy debut against Bengal in January 2015 was a dream-come-true, but his action came under the scanner in the same match and that saw him play no cricket for the rest of the year.
“I am grateful to my employers Chemplast and the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association for all their support through that difficult period,” says Natarajan, who spent the time correcting his action at the TNCA Academy.
“I only played one league match in the first half of 2016 as I awaited the clearance from the Board of Control for Cricket in India after undergoing tests,” said Natarajan, who made a name for himself subsequently with a remodelled action for being nippy and the ability to send down speedy yorkers at will.
He bowled six yorkers in the super over against TUTI Patriots in the inaugural Tamil Nadu Premier League that was broadcast by Star India’s regional channel Vijay TV. His performances earned him a trial with the Mumbai Indians.
Rising up the ranks
Six wickets in the Ranji Trophy quarter-finals, in which Tamil Nadu blew away a full-strength Karnataka in two days in Visakhapatnam, was the highlight of his first-class season that saw the speedster finish with 24 wickets in eight games.
Despite his domestic achievements, being sold for Rs 3 crore at an IPL auction certainly makes for a rags-to-riches story. But former India wicket-keeper Bharath Reddy, a highly regarded talent scout in Chennai’s competitive cricket structure, said that the bid war for Natarajan did not come as a surprise to him.
“Talent spotting is really about finding raw talent and grooming it,” explained Reddy, who heads cricket operations at Chemplast, which runs Jolly Rovers, the club that Natarajan has been turning out for the last three years.
“There was a lot of interest in Natarajan in the run up to the auction. I got a lot of calls about him from several franchises. Word spreads quickly about a player’s ability, through television coverage, through video analysts, in several ways,” added Reddy.
Living out his mentor’s dream
For Jayaprakash – whom Natarajan says he consults with for just about everything – the recognition of his ward’s cricketing abilities has, in a way, compensated for his own failed dream.
“I was an aspiring cricketer myself, attempted the shift to Chennai is pursuit of a cricket career but couldn’t adjust to the city life,” he said. “But the love of the game continues and so I run and captain a local tennis ball team (Chinnappampatti Cricket Club) and a cricket ball team by the name Salem Kings.”
Jayaprakash added, “Natarajan came to play with us at Chinnappampatti Cricket Club when he was 17 years. Being a left-armer, he was different. Given the angle that he bowled, he was very successful in tennis ball and possibly developed his ability to bowl relentless yorkers because of his tennis ball beginnings.”
“He also played a season for Salem Kings and worked really hard on his bowling and was getting better and that was when I felt he needed to move to Chennai for better exposure and to realise his potential.
“A friend of mine Karpur Prakash was playing lower division league cricket in Chennai and he got Natarajan an opportunity to play for BSNL in the fourth division,” continued Jayaprakash.
He signed off, “Natarajan gives hope to hundreds of such boys across the districts that success is possible in whatever field they are pursuing as long as they put their hearts to it.”