From boxing to cricket: the start-stop journey of Brainder Sran (Barinder Saran)

A son of a farmer who just got by, Sran was back from Bhiwani for his summer vacation at his home in Dabwali. It is a town with a shop that is half in Haryana and half in Punjab. Sran was 17, studying boxing at the famous Bhiwani Boxing Club, whose founder Jagdish Singh gave India the Olympic medallist Vijender Singh. A newspaper advertisement changed it all from boxing.While boxing took Sran to Haryana, a Kings XI Punjab advertisement calling youngsters for trials brought him decisively to Punjab. Cricket had been at his heart: he used to play in his village with a tennis ball, but had never played in matches longer than eight overs. He saw the ad, and went to Mohali with his cousin and another friend just out of curiosity.

A Kings XI selection did not happen, but Sran found himself in the Kings Cup as one of the best 35-40 uncapped cricketers in Punjab. At the trials, he bowled wearing normal trainers. Here, too, just before the first game, he sat and looked around at others putting on spikes. Just the fact he had got to the best 50 or so made Sran take up cricket more seriously. He first began to practise at an academy in Sirsa where someone introduced him to KK Cricket Academy in Sector 40 in Chandigarh.

In Chandigarh, Sran came to know of this contest called Gatorade Speedster. He took part, and won the North India leg. That was when Punjab officials saw him and asked him to start practising at the Mohali stadium. That was when Sran began bowling in the nets for visiting teams and also during the IPL. He won the India Under-19 leg of the Speedster. That took him to Dubai where he trained at the ICC academy.

Sran had done all that when he first played inter-district cricket, for Mohali. Next year, he was selected for Punjab, clearly not a product of the system but someone imposed on the system through talent contests and sheer natural talent. Vikram Rathour, a national selector now, was Punjab's coach then. Sran bowled eight T20 overs for three wickets and 40 runs in 2011-12, and also took 14 wickets at 32 in the Ranji Trophy proper that season. Then he disappeared.

A spate of injuries - the last of which was an ankle fracture while playing pre-season warm-ups for Punjab before the 2014-15 season - kept Sran out of all cricketing action. His way back into reckoning, once again, was unconventional. He went to the open trials called by Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals, in Vadodara and Mumbai respectively. Rajasthan's Monty Desai and Rahul Dravid were surprised Sran had played only one season of proper cricket. This was their kind of cricketer: raw, full of promise and a surprise package. They got him into the auction where Mumbai might have bid for him, but did not.

"Only Rajasthan can punt on my kind of players," Sran told ESPNcricinfo during IPL 2015. As is the case with Rajasthan, though, they work on players in the nets for a season before sending him out. Dravid believed Sran would be the finished article in IPL 2016. Dravid and Sran's IPL fate is not known yet, but for sure Rajasthan won't be there.

Thankfully, in between came the traditional cricket season. In his first match back as a first-class cricketer, Sran took six wickets in 17 overs after his side had posted 604 for 5 declared. Yuvraj Singh was impressed. "Barinder saran! Serious spell of fast bowling on a flat track ! A talented fast left armer to watch out for reminds me of a young @ImZaheer," he tweeted that day, with the correct spelling of Sran's name and not the clerical mistake that needs to be fixed in BCCI records.

When India went to play the first Test against South Africa in Mohali , Rathour sent out a special call to Sran to come to the nets. A pass was made at the last minute, and locals recalled how the scenario was similar to the call made to a young Harbhajan Singh during the drawn Test against Sri Lanka in 1997. Anil Kumble was among those impressed then. Four months later, Harbhajan was handed his first Test. Less than three months after those Mohali net sessions, Sran could be making his ODI debut, in Australia.

India Cricket Team 2016: Schedule, Squad For Australia ODI, T20I Series

While a proposed series with Pakistan now looks almost certain not to happen for the foreseeable future, preparations for India’s tour of Australia are stepping up. In the past few days India’s cricket board announced the squads that will compete in both One-Day international and Twenty20 series Down Under next month. And they have also confirmed that limited-overs captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni will remain in place, at least through until next year’s World T20.

There were real hopes that India would currently be taking on Pakistan in just the fierce rivals’ second bilateral series since 2007 and the Mumbai terror attacks the following year. But while both countries’ cricket authorities agreed to a proposed shortened series in Sri Lanka, India’s government is believed to have prevented it from going ahead.

As a result, attention now turns to Australia and what are some hugely important contests for India, and especially Dhoni. The pressure has been on the 34-year-old ever since India’s odi side followed up the relinquishing of their world cup title to Australia with a first-ever series defeat to Bangladesh in June. With India then losing both t20 and odi series to south Africa on home soil in October, questions have continued to be asked about whether Dhoni is still the right man to lead the team forward. In an effort to quash such talk, the board of control for cricket in India’s chairman of selectors reaffirmed the commitment to Dhoni until the world t20, which will take place in India from march to April, 2016.

"We named Dhoni as the captain as we wanted to end the speculations in the media,” Sandeep Patil said, according to The Times of India. “Not only media but players in general should know who will be their leader.”

It was during India’s last tour of Australia, a year ago, that Dhoni relinquished the Test captaincy, hoping to enjoy the remainder of his career in the limited-overs format. So far that hasn’t quite gone to plan. In an effort to rejuvenate the team’s fortunes, a refreshed squad has been revealed to head to Australia. The headline decision was the omission of batsman Suresh Raina from the ODI squad, although he is in the T20 squad. Also in the T20 party is all-rounder Yuvraj Singh, who has returned to the international fold for the first time since the 2014 World T20 final, and pace bowler Ashish Nehra, whose last outing for India came in 2011.

“Yuvraj Singh will always remain special,” Sandeep Patil said, reports ESPN. “The selectors are very happy, and the captain is also very happy to have him back. We cannot promise any player whether he will be part of the next tour or the World Cup. We want every player to perform and every player has a chance to come back in the team.”

"Brainder Sran" is another left arm pacer from Haryana. Initially he started as a boxer but changed his track to fast bowling. He even played for RR in IPL8 just for one match where he bowled 3 overs and gave away 35 runs without taking any wickets.

ODI Squad: Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Manish Pandey, MS Dhoni (Captain), (Wicketkeeper), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohd. Shami, Axar Patel, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Rishi Dhawan, Brainder Balbirsingh Sran.

T20I Squad: Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni (Captain), (Wicketkeeper), Suresh Raina, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohd. Shami, Harbhajan Singh, Umesh Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ashish Nehra.

ODI series (all matches begin at 10:20 p.m. EST)
1st ODI:  Jan. 11 at the Western Australia Cricket Association Ground, Perth.
2nd ODI: Jan. 14 at the Brisbane Cricket Ground.
3rd ODI: Jan. 16 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
4th ODI: Jan. 19 at the Manuka Oval, Canberra.
5th ODI: Jan. 22 at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

T20I series 
1st T20I: Jan. 26 at the Adelaide Oval (2:38 a.m. EST).
2nd T20I: Jan. 29 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (3:38 a.m. EST).
3rd T20I: Jan. 31 at the Sydney Cricket Ground (3:38 a.m. EST).

Our sense of humour deteriorates with age :P

I did my engineering in Bangalore from PESIT. Bangalore is a modern city and has a pretty open culture and people from different parts of the world come here for higher studies or do some job. My college was awesome and the students added more to the awesomeness of our college.
I gelled up pretty well with the folks and stayed in hostel there. Apart from studies, we participated in every freaking activity that happened in or out of campus. Be it cricket or be it introduction of our juniors or simply sitting on the stairs and checking out every girl that use to pass by and comment "Bhabhi hai tum logo ki".
One such activity was PJ (Poor Joke) competition. Me and Avinash Chandrashekar use to crack up deadly pjs and to our surprise, we had a huge fan following. We use to gather near the bus after the college around 3:30 PM and crack some killer pjs or mock a faculty or tease a fellow colleague. Everyone use to enjoy this including the person who was being targeted (I am assuming this !).
Me and AC (That's what people called him fondly !) use to ask some stupid questions to any random people and wait for their baffled look. Some were really sporty and gave us some really smart answers while those who were not that sporty hurled abuses and curses on us. As time passed, we became smart and choosy as whom to ask such stupid questions and wait for their smart answers. After the answer we were in splits after a moment pause. We really enjoyed this.
Time passes faster than we expect. We graduated out of college and are unaware of the whereabouts of many of our folks. Even now if we recollect the memories and see old photos, i realize that its been four years I visited my college. But the memories are so fresh like it happened yesterday. Best of all is that the pj thing in me never died. It still come up with some stupid and unexpected answers whenever I get a chance. I sometimes crack it when we are having some serious discussion with my lead in the meeting room and he feels pretty annoyed with it. Although, my manager smiles at it as if he enjoyed it. Whenever my lead tells him of some answers I said in the meeting, he looks at me with some amazed expression and asks "Did you seriously tell her that ?". The only thing that changed is that few people appreciate it now. I guess as we grow up, our sense of humor decreases or we feel shy to laugh like a kid. 

Why spin friendly track in India !!!

India team director Ravi Shastri may have vented his ire at the Wankhede Stadium curator (Sudhir Naik) for not obliging the hosts with a turning track for the fifth one-dayer. But the demoralized Indian side have some good news ahead of the four-match Test series. With the South Africa pace bowlers looming as the biggest threat, the hosts are pinning all their hopes on turning tracks to overcome the visitors.
Initially, I was not in favor of this as it took the jest out of the game when it is not balance. I really cant imagine Dale Steyn to go wicket less even after bowling 20 odd overs. Also this doesn't mean that I can see the only two fast bowlers of India, Varun Aaron and Umesh Yadav, to go wicket less too. It is very demoralizing for a quick bowler.
But we all know that the South African team, with player like AB De Villiers, Hasim Alma, Miller and Faf Du Plessis, can handle any attack (Bowling Ofcourse !) in the world better than anyone else. Bowlers like Steyn, Philander, Rabada and Imran Tahir just adds up to the woes of the opposition team. Its good to see Kagiso Rabada bowling with the similar temperament of Makhaya Ntini. He really performed well in the one day series against India in India (Ironic).
I recently had a casual discussion with my manager about the tracks in India favoring spin and it changed my whole perspective and I started liking the idea of producing spin tracks in India. It is something to do with the home advantage. It also tests the opposition's strength on our spin attack. We have really good spin bowlers like Ashwin, Amit Mishra and Jadeja (I have to mention his name as he is the man of the match for the first test match) who are capable of turning the match around in just their allocated quota of 6 balls.
Finally we were able to win our first test match with 108 runs, thanks to Ashwin and Jadeja for bowling some really good spin bowling which left the South Africans biting their nails in the dressing room. Although they also bowled really well with Dean Alger (Slow left arm) giving India the taste of their own medicine with four wickets haul in first innings.
Lets see what's in store for us in the Bangalore pitch, where the South Africans hold a much better record against us. But records are meant to be broken !!!