Saurabh Netravalkar

Some Lesser Known Facts About Saurabh Netravalkar

• During his early days, Saurabh was preparing for the IIT but dropped the plan later as he wanted to pursue cricket further.

• Saurab took 30 wickets in the 2008-09 season of the Cooch Behar Trophy.

  

• Saurabh was selected for the U19 Cricket World Cup 2010 in the India U19 side. He played along with K.L. Rahul, Harshal Patel, Jaydev Unadkat, Sandeep Sharma, and Mayank Agarwal in the Indian team and ended up as India’s highest wicket-taker at the World Cup; he took 9 wickets in 6 matches in the tournament.

• In 2013, Saurabh developed an Android app for grassroots-level cricketers in which they can maintain their cricket performances in a structured manner.

• Saurabh maintains a healthy lifestyle and does yoga regularly.

  

• In December 2013, Saurabh made his first-class debut in the Ranji Trophy for Mumbai against Karnataka held at Bengaluru. He played with players like Suryakumar Yadav, Aditya Tare, Wasim Jaffer, and Shardul Thakur in the match and it was the only first-class match he played despite taking 3 wickets.

• Saurabh made his List-A cricket debut in 2014 in the Vijay Hazare Trophy for Mumbai.

• In June 2015, Saurabh worked as a Consulting Software Engineer in a 3-membered digital healthcare technology startup funded by Ratan Tata.

• In 2015, after completing his graduation in engineering, Saurabh went to the United States to pursue his Master’s after he realised that there was not much scope left for him in cricket. He had also left his cricket kit at home because he wanted to concentrate only on his studies in the United States. In an interview, he talked about this and said,
  

  I had to be a little practical, I wasn’t making it at the first-class level and you have to look for a Plan B,”

• In 2016, Saurabh worked as a graduate teaching assistant at Cornell University.

• Saurabh began to play cricket again in the United States in college. He joined a cricket club in San Francisco when he started working at Oracle.

  

• He was selected for the United States national cricket team in January 2018 for the Regional Super50 tournament in the West Indies after the ICC changed the minimum residency eligibility rule to three years from four years.

• In October 2018, Saurabh was appointed as the captain of the United States national cricket team for the 2018–19 Regional Super50 tournament in the West Indies and the 2018 ICC World Cricket League Division Three tournament in Oman.

• He was appointed the T20 captain of the United States national cricket team in February 2019. He debuted for the United States national cricket team in the T20I as a captain in a series against the UAE.

• In the opening match of the 2019 United Arab Emirates Tri-Nation Series, Saurab led the team and took 5 wickets for 32 runs against the United Arab Emirates in an ODI match; he was the first bowler from the United States national cricket team to take a five-wicket haul.

• In September 2020, the Golden State Grizzlies signed Saurabh for the 2021 Minor League Cricket season.

• In June 2022, Saurabh became the first bowler from the United States national cricket team to take a five-wicket haul in T20I against Singapore in the 2022 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Global Qualifier B tournament in Zimbabwe.

• Saurabh came under the spotlight when he helped the United States national cricket team achieve a victory against Pakistan in the 2024 ICC T20 World Cup; he defended 19 runs in the super-over of the match.