Son of the soil aims for the sky

Revelling under the ideal bowling conditions at Mohali, he returned another five-wicket haul — his fourth of the season and 12th overall — to help Punjab bounce back on Day Two of their Elite Group B clash against Baroda today. Four of the five foor 11 inch lad’s victims today were trapped leg before and one was clean bowled.

‘‘To be able to bowl fast and well, you need both a good physique and temperament. You also need to know how to handle pressure as well,’’ he tells you.

He is fortunate to have US-based nutritionist and physical trainer Kiranjeet Singh Bobby, a friend of Gagan’s brother Jaspal.

‘‘I am thankful to Indian team physio Andrew Leipus as well. He taught me how to plan a regular fitness schedule. But I knew that I can’t be with Leipus all the time. Fortunately Bobby sir, who is in Chandigarh these days, took me under his wing. I have a six-day a week fitness programme where I do long running, sprints, weight training, hill running, wimming and sand running,’’ Gagan gives away.

Yet to complete his graduation, the bowler knows that it will still take a bit more to reach the top rungs. ‘‘I want to be like Irfan Pathan and Zaheer Khan. For that I need the skill and technique as well. I’m working on it and our new coach Intikhab Alam has been a great source of inspiration. But the road ahead is still tough and long.’’

With a wise head on his strong shoulders, Gagandeep is now hoping to strike it big in the second innings as well and praying that the next fixture against Maharashtra moves to Mohali. The reason’s simple. It’s a venue that can do a world of good for a fast bowler like him to attract the selectors’ attention.

RANJI ROUND-UP

IN DELHI
Delhi: 216 (A Jadeja 87 n.o, Sarandeep Singh 46; Harvinder Singh 3/62, J P Yadav 2/44, K Parida 2/35) vs Railways: 147-5 (A Pagnis 49, T P Singh 23, JP Yadav 23; R Sanghvi 2/31)

IN MUMBAI
Mumbai: 515-9 decl (Vinit Indulkar 131, Amol Muzumdar 111, Nishit Shetty 80, Ajit Agarkar 52 n.o, Vinayak Samant 50; D Kalyankrishna 6/56) vs Andhra Pradesh: 59-5 (A Agarkar 2-10)

IN KANPUR
Assam: 184 and 107 (R P Singh 5/35, AW Zaidi 3/23) vs Uttar Pradesh: 132 (R K Yadav 6/57) and 77-1 (S Raina batting 41)

IN HYDERABAD
Hyderabad: 231 and 168-9 (Anupam Saklecha 5/46) vs Maharashtra: 83 (Narendra Pal Singh 4/29, Fahad Shahnawaz 2/15, Mohd Ghouse 3/18)

IN MOHALI
Punjab: 175 and 15-1 vs Baroda: 155 (R V Pawar 43, Connor Williams 33; Gagandeep Singh 5/57, Rajesh Sharma 4/34)

IN BANGALORE
Karnataka: 619-5 (R Barrington 283, S Somasundar 104) vs Madhya Pradesh: 120-1 (Amay Khurasia batting 45, Sachin Dholpure batting 65)

IN SILIGURI
Bengal: 298 (R Gavaskar 80, S Sanyal 54; Kirat Damani 4/9) vs Gujarat: 269/3 (A Christian 88, N Patel 87)