USA's Indian-origin cricketers to watch out for | AFP
The Ahmedabad-born US captain got a Green Card in 2010 and shifted to New Jersey permanently in 2016. Patel shifted base primarily to get his cricket career back on track. | AP
Having managed a total of 1833 runs in his career, Patel was born in Gujarat and even played in the under-16 and under-18 formats for the Gujarat state team before migrating to the USA. | AP
It was in 2021 that the USA asked Monank to lead the team. Patel split his captaincy role with vice-captain Aaron Jones as USA began the T20 World Cup Americas Qualifier in Antigua, held from November 7-14. | AFP
In 2010, Netravalkar bowled against the likes of Joe Root, Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes in the U-19 World Cup in New Zealand. Jaydev Unadkat and Sandeep Sharma used to be his partners in the blue jersey. | X
With an engineering degree in Computer Science, the academically brilliant Saurabh got a scholarship to pursue his MS from the prestigious Cornell University in US. | X
However, cricket never left him as he performed at all levels of US cricket to make a name for himself and stood tall with his decent show in Major League Cricket's first edition which was headlined by many top T20 pros in world cricket. | AFP
Away from cricket, one can find him at Oracle's office in Silicon Valley where he is a senior techie! | AFP
Ian Chappell wanted him to be drafted into the Indian team after his exploits in the 2012 U-19 World Cup but as it was with many precocious talents, he lost his way. | AFP
He shifted to Tripura from the highly-competent Mumbai circuit but failed to leave his mark. Harmeet then decided to migrate to the States and it turned out to be a good call. | AP
Harmeet Singh has rediscovered his mojo and has been one of the most consistent performers including a recent series against Bangladesh.
Kenjige's journey as a Tamil-American is a fascinating one. He had shifted with his parents as a child to Ooty and used to be a left-arm medium pacer before taking to spin at the age of 13. | AFP
By the time he was 18, Kenjige's parents sent him to Bengaluru where he played in KSCA's first division league. But once he knew that even breaking into Karnataka stateside was tough, he decided to move back to his country of birth and pursue a course in bio-medical engineering. | AFP
He was done with cricket and didn't even bother to pack his kit when he left for the US but his mother slipped in a cricket ball in his suitcase. | AFP
Nosthush Kenjige landed a job in Washington DC where during evening games of squash, he came to know about club cricket in New York. He subsequently left his job as a Bio-Medical officer and played for the USA from ICC's WCL Division 4. | AP
That catch diving forward after sprinting 10 yards from long-off boundary ended Pakistan's hopes. Meet USA's gun fielder, Milind! |X
When Milind Kumar arrived, everyone envisaged a solid talent in Delhi's domestic circuit scene. Sadly, he became a fringe player over the years who was often left to bat with the tail in Ranji Trophy. | X
Post pandemic, he migrated to the US and did well in domestic games to find a place in the national side. | X
Back in 2011 when MS Dhoni hit that towering World Cup-winning six, school-going Nitish had created a world record by becoming the youngest to play a 50-over World Cup game. | AFP
However, at 16 years 283 days, it was for Canada that the batter took the field in the game against Zimbabwe. | AFP
Thirteen years later, having migrated to the USA, he hit a boundary off the last delivery from Haris Rauf to take the game to super over. The rest is history. | AP
Born in New Jersey, brought up in rural Punjab and in his teens back in the land of opportunities for good, Jessy has had to do those hard yards for the longest time. | AFP
In 2015, he was excluded from the US team that went to play a domestic 50 over competition in West Indies. Jessy left everything to double his practice hours. | AFP
In 2016, erstwhile US coach Pubudu Dassanayeke arranged for five first-class matches in Sri Lanka, where he learnt what hard work is all about. Over the past few years, he is an indispensable part of the pace attack with Pakistani Ali Khan. The delivery that got Babar Azam out would certainly be the ball of his career so far. | AP