New Delhi: Former cricketer-turned-commentator and Sunrisers Hyderabad’s (SRH) mentor VVS Laxman feels that T Natarajan could be a very useful weapon in the upcoming years to come, and mainly in the T20 World Cup, which will be held in India next year. The former India batsman said Tamil Nadu and SRH left-arm fast bowler Natarajan could be the X-Factor in the Indian squad for the mega event next year.
He said Natarajan’s death bowling will be very useful in a tournament like the T20Is against Australia. The seamer has a brilliant skill of frequency with which he bowled yorkers at the death.
“With the T20 World Cup scheduled next year, if you look at the Indian team, it requires someone good at the death. It is great to see the likes of Mohammed Shami and Navdeep Saini bowl with such confidence in the death. Natarajan being a left-armer will be the X-factor,” Laxman told Sportstar.
Natarajan bowled 71 yorkers in Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020, the most in the tournament. The second bowler on that list is Kartik Tyagi, who only sent down 28. All over, Natarajan picked up 16 wickets in the IPL and finished with an economy rate of 8.02, which is majestic considering 131 of the 377 balls he bowled during the tournament came in the death (last four) overs.
Natarajan dismissed the likes of Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers with some spot precision and Laxman said that it’s not just the yorkers that make him dangerous. “Natarajan was always known for those yorkers, even in the TNPL. But, I must say he got a lot of variations that he didn’t use in the IPL. He has a sharp bouncer, slower one, off-cutter and has the wicket-taking ability with the new ball,” Laxman explained.
“Essentially, Natarajan has the mindset and the confidence of executing yorkers which we generally believe to be the toughest to deliver. And, he has done consistently and exceedingly well through the IPL, the pick of them being the dismissal of RCB’s AB de Villiers under pressure.”
Natarajan, who didn’t play a single game in IPL 2019, is among very few youngsters who climbed up the ladders and make his way straight to the national team at the age of 29. The previous two pacers who made their international debuts for India after 29 were S Aravind in 2015 and Pankaj Singh in 2014. Before that, one has to go well back to 1994, when Bhupinder Singh Sr made his ODI debut, and then all the way back to 1958, when Ghulam Guard played the first of his two Tests.
“Natarajan is a hard-working cricketer who never missed a training session and is always wanting to work on his skills to be a much better bowler every day,” Laxman said. “He has been doing really well in the TNPL, he was part of Kings XI Punjab, he did well consistently for Tamil Nadu in Ranji Trophy.”
“He didn’t get too many opportunities in SRH (in 2018 and 2019) because of the likes of Siddarth Kaul, Sandeep Sharma and Bhuvneshwar Kumar being the frontline bowlers,” he concluded.
