Raj Limbani

Some Lesser Known Facts About Raj Limbani

• Raj Limbani started playing cricket at a young age. He attended an English medium school at a distance of 45 km from his village, Dayapar, till 7th standard.

  

• When he was twelve years old, he moved to Vadodara in 2017 to take further training in cricket where he lived with his paternal uncle, Manilal Patel, an employee in Gujarat Electricity Board.

  

• He learnt the basics of cricket from Digvijay Singh Rathwa, at Motibaug Cricket Club which is famous for producing renowned cricketers such as the Pathan brothers (Yusuf and Irfan), then the Pandya brothers (Krunal and Hardik) and Deepak Hooda.

• Limbani impressed his coach Rathwa with his detailed plan to make it to the Indian national team which he had written in a diary. He wanted to make it to Baroda Under-16 first, then Baroda Under-19, later NCA camp, then India Under-19, and the Indian national team at last.

• In 2021, he started playing for Baroda Under-16 and helped them win the G1 tournament. He took 31 wickets in 6 matches in the 2022/23 Cooch Behar Trophy and 8 wickets in 5 matches in the 2022/23 Vinoo Mankad Trophy.

  

• In June 2023, he attended a high-performance camp at the National Cricket Academy (NCA), Bengaluru where he learnt under Irfan Pathan.

  

• Limbani came to the spotlight when he took 7 wickets for 13 runs against Nepal Under-19 during the 2023 Under-19 Asia Cup. He later played in the tri-series against South Africa Under-19 and Afghanistan Under-19.

  

• In the 2024 Under-19 World Cup held in South Africa, he took 11 wickets in 6 matches at an average of 16.54 and a strike rate of 25.63. He gave his best bowling spell with 3 wickets for 38 runs in the final against Australia Under-19.

  

• His bowling speeds are regularly clocked at around 84 mph (135 kph), and his maximum bowling speed has been recorded at 88 mph (141 kph).

• He bowled well outswing deliveries; however, in 2023, he mastered inswinging deliveries under his coach Digvijay Singh Rathwa during a training session of around 100 days.

• He went unsold for his base price of Rs 20 lakh during the Indian Premier League (IPL) auction for the 2024 season.