Background man seeks bigger role

Besides the two sons of former Railway cricketer Mohd Tariff, there has been another cricketer from the state who has been very consistent with the bat.

The 25-year-old Saurabh Shukla is perhaps the most under-rated batsman although he started his career with a twin advantage. His father, Anand Shukla, was a Central Zone representative in the selectorial board for a number of years and his paternal uncle, Rakesh Shukla, played a Test match against Sri Lanka.

Yet, the 68217;18221; tall all-rounder has remained in the background despite scoring heavily in the domestic circuit. During the last Ranji season, he dominated the UP batting, with a chanceless 164 against Tamil Nadu. In the quarterfinal against Haryana, batting at No. 3 he got 189, batting with authority. Batting against all odds in the final, he made 91 in UP8217;s second innings when the team was struggling to avoid an outright defeat.

He aggregated 616 runs in 10 innings for an average of 61.60. His other century knocks in the national championships came against Hyderabad: 145 in 1997 and Kerala 143 in 1996.

One of his best batting performance came in his Duleep Trophy debut when he struck a chanceless 132 off 160 balls with four huge sixes against an East Zone attack that included Chetan Sharma, Utpal Chatterjee and Avinash Kumar. It was a remarkable beginning at the national scene. That innings set the trend for many important knocks and he has not looked back since. An aggressive batsman, Saurabh enjoys playing under pressure and has always been a team-man.

Saurabh also played in Delhi8217;s local tournaments, representing Rohtak Road Gymkhana, during the four years he was a student of PGDAV College.

Following in the footsteps of his illustrious father and uncle, Suarabh started his cricket as a leg-spin and googly bowler and has risen from the lowest rungs of domestic cricket u-15. He also made a serious effort at batting whenever his bowling prowess was ignored by the team management.

In fact, he struck 112 on debut against Vidarbha in the Central Zone under-15 tournament and made 102 against MP in under-17 competition.

Saurabh was a member of the UP under-19 team for three years UP were national champions for two years during that period and scored over 500 runs and took 28 wickets in the 1990-91 season. Next year saw him score another 500 runs and take 25 wickets.

Despite not getting a permanent batting slot in the state team, he has proved his usefulness to the team with consistent batting over the years. And when the UP team management did not handle his bowling prowess properly, he decided to concentrate on his batting. Saurabh has also proved more than a useful cricketer in one-day competitions. He steered Central Zone into the Deodhar final by achieving the over seven-run target in the last game against North Zone last year. And in the 1995 Deodhar Trophy, he claimed three important wickets and made a breezy 30 off 20 deliveries to clinch the issue for Central. Yet, he has not been considered for Wills Trophy this season.

With so much importance being given to one-day cricket now, Saurabh Shukla8217;s all-round ability would be an asset to any team. And in addition, he is an agile and athletic fielder, too.

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