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Saurabh Netravalkar, an Indian-origin USA cricketer, shared a video of his father Naresh’s Man of the Match performance in a Mumbai tournament, praising his father’s passion for cricket.
Saurabh Netravalkar’s ‘life turns 180 degrees moment’. (Instagram)
Indian-origin USA international Saurabh Netravalkar’s ‘life turned 180 degrees’ as he watched his father, Naresh, score a last-over six in a local 60-over tournament in Mumbai.
Netravalkar shared a video of his dad’s Man of the Match performance, saying that his ‘sheer passion’ made him feel how cricket was the heartbeat for Mumbai, his birthplace. He doffed his hat to his father and ‘everyone playing the game for the pure love of it’ in the financial capital.
“Life turns 180 degrees,” Netravalkar wrote on Instagram. “Rare Golden opportunity today to be a spectator and say “Well Played” to the man who has been my toughest task master in all my cricketing life! 👏❤️ My Papa @naresh.netravalkar! Dropped in to watch him play his Over 60 tournament and he came up with a Man of the Match performance with a huge Six in the last over! (Really Need to refresh some batting lessons from him😅) The sheer passion with which he plays and the overall happiness on everyone’s face there was worth every moment! Hats off to papa and to everyone playing the game for the pure love of it!!! Cricket is definitely the heartbeat of this Mumbai city! ❤️ Finished with a Malai waala Nariyal Paani for hydration! ❤️” he added.
The left-arm pacer played the 2010 U-19 World Cup for India and represented Mumbai in first-class cricket. Due to a lack of opportunities amid high competition, and to pursue his education in engineering, he moved to the USA and jumped through the ranks to represent them at the 2023 T20 World Cup, where the team scripted many memorable wins, including a narrow one over Pakistan in the group stage.
“He had quit the game to move to the US. When he completed his engineering, he expressed to me that he would take a maximum gap of two years for cricket and if it does not work out, he would move to the US for his MS (studies),” Naresh recalled in an interview with Mid-Day last year.
“I thought, if he has worked so hard, he must get sometime and during that period he played one match in the Ranji Trophy but there was no stability — he would be in and out (of the side)… All this is destiny — that he had to play in a World Cup and for that the tournament had to be held in the US and he also got a chance.”
