Former Mumbai medium pacer Saurabh Netravalkar, who chose academics over sports after representing India at the 2010 U-19 World Cup, would be leading the US national cricket team in the ICC World Cricket League Division 3, a qualifying tournament for the 2023 ODI World Cup, the Times of India reported on Sunday.
The 27-year-old Netravalkar, who shared the new ball in the 2010 campaign, played one Ranji Trophy game for Mumbai three years later before moving to Cornell University to study computer science.
“I gave two years full time to cricket but felt I wasn’t making it to the next level,” Netravalkar told the newspaper from San Francisco.
But the love for the sport did not allow the software engineer with Oracle to stay away from the game and he would drive every weekend to Los Angeles to play matches. “On Friday, I used to leave a little early from office with a fellow player and drive to LA. We would play a 50-over game in LA on Saturday. Then we would drive back in the night and play a 50-over game in San Francisco on Sunday. It was back to work on Monday. I put in a lot of effort which was noticed by the selectors. I got picked this January when I became eligible for national selection,” he said.
The US national team is mix of players from India, Pakistan and West Indies and have been led by Maharashtra’s Sushil Nadkarni and Hyderabad’s Ibrahim Khaleel in the past.
The team led by Netravalkar would be travelling to Oman next week to play the Division 3 matches.